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D-day is approaching

malcivarmalcivar member
in Special Needs

DS is currently receiving ABA therapy both at a center and at home.  However, with his 3rd birthday a whole 8 1/2 months away, the center's started sending us materials to read about the next step for him - special education.  

Based on his bday, we will need to start the paperwork March 1st which I just realized is next Thursday.  I'm scared.  DS has come a long way with his therapies but still has a long way to go and I'm worried about the next round of evaluations.  Is he ready for a mainstream day care or nursery school - no, I definitely know that.  But a lot of the "checklist" items that were everyone's concern before have gotten better.  No pointing - he points now.  Doesn't respond to name - he does that now.  No eye contact - he has little problems with that now. Granted, he still has major speech and social delays but I can't help but be a little worried.  Everything's about budgets and funding and will my son get the shaft because the city just can't afford it.  

Has anyone here made the transition yet?  

 

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Re: D-day is approaching

  • finsupfinsup member

    My son is almost 4 so we made the transition almost a year ago.  And to complicate matters we moved accross the country, so its been a challenging year to say the least.

    Have you been able to visit the Preschool classroom in your district?  Meet any of the teachers yet?  I bet if you do that you'll feel better, and even if you talk with some other parents in your area who have kids who attend.

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  • malcivarmalcivar member

    I've reached out to a couple of schools in the area.  Thankfully the one I really like doesn't have any district/town requirements.  That happens from Kindergarten and up here in NYC.  They seem to have a good program but I haven't gone to see them yet.  

    Time to get on that! 

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  • houndbabyhoundbaby member

    We have just gone through this as ds just turned 3 today and started special education preschool with the school district. When my ds was your ds's age I would not have thought he'd be going off to a classroom like he is today, they can make a lot of progress in  8 months!

    We started talking about transition with EI 6 months before ds's Birthday. We had our first meeting with the school district 2 months before his Birthday. That is when they discussed what testing they would use from EI and what testing they wanted to do on their own. After that they let us know what he qualified for based on testing. My ds is ASD but he only qualified for speech, he was not delayed enough socially to qualify for any services there. We had our actual IEP meeting about 2 weeks before ds's Birthday and we didn't find out what they were willing to offer us until that day. The school will offer the minimum they are required to by law, they aren't going to hand out extra services just be nice and foot the bill for it, and they are going to fight you on anything you ask for above what they offer, so you better have good documentation to support what you are asking for.

    Moving ds onto preschool was really really hard for me, it's like you get used to everything how it is and have it all figured out and scheduled and then it all changes. Once I actually went into the classroom and checked it out and got to talk to the teachers and saw how much ds liked being in the classroom with the other kids, it was a lot easier for me. Right now I'm a little terrified that my ds is going to get home from his first day and I'll find a note in his bag that says he was crying in the corner, but I'm trying to be hopeful that he did great and he'll enjoy it as much as he enjoyed his classroom at EI

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