Wednesday afternoon Aimee's preschool teacher, her vision teacher, and her kindergarten teacher convened at our house for an updated IEP. Setting the required goals for Aimee is tricky. Every IEP meeting, Aimee is farther and farther behind the curve for her age. On paper, it is almost as if she is regressing. This time, her preschool teacher found a new way to evaluate her based on stages of communication abilities, rather than based on what age level of skill she has developed. We met to combine both of these evaluations together to make positive goals. Together we determined that Aimee has mastered the ability to express comfort and to express interest in other people. Our goal for this coming year is to have her master the ability to express her discomfort. She will then have completed the initial phase of communication, which is called Pre-Intentional Behavior.
We included vision goals to increase her fixating skills on both the right and left side from 10 seconds to 15 seconds, as well as, to improve her ability to track a moving object from 2 out of 5 times to 3 out of 5 times. We listed other goals, including Aimee reaching out to touch items placed in front of her and to increase her ability to hold small objects.
Aimee is paving the way for future kids in this district. They are continually saying that they wish that had known about things earlier, that if it wasn't for Aimee they would never have known. Being a smaller school district, Aimee is one of the more medically challenging kids they have experienced. It was amazing to hear the preschool teacher describe having Aimee in class as a big learning curve and then reassuring the kindergarten teacher that she will get past the nerves and soon be very comfortable with Aimee. It was reassuring to hear the kindergarten teacher insist that we include a one-on-one instructional assistant for Aimee. There will be 13 kids in the Life Skills class with 5 adult teachers/assistants.
Overall, it was a really positive transition from the 2 year old preschool class that Aimee has been in this past 3 years and on to a K-6th grade Life Skills class. We have decided to start out next year with 2 half days each week. I will go with Aimee for the first month as they learn about her and she learns about a new school.
In order to help with the adjustment period, we made an intro to Aimee booklet for her new teachers and aids. It is fun to show off Aimee's attributes and the joy that she constantly shares despite her limitations.
What a fantastic book! Great idea :)
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