IEP meeting this week; I am clueless, please advise

[SeaConquest]

My youngest son, Ronen, has been receiving Early Intervention speech therapy services since his 2nd birthday. While he has made a lot of progress this year, unfortunately, his speech delay is still severe enough that he qualified for an IEP with San Diego Unified at his assessment this past week.

 

He is supposed to attend the Jewish Community Center preschool 5 days/week in the fall (he went 2 days/week this past year). The school is considered the Harvard of preschools in our area, so very high quality. The SLP who did his assessment thought that he would qualify for weekly group therapy sessions, which are about 45 minutes long. The issue is that these sessions typically run when Ronen would be in preschool, so I would have to pull him out of a high-quality preschool program, with children who are generally older than him (he is an August bday, so young for his class), come from upper socioeconomic level homes (i.e. are likely exposed to more words), and are generally very well behaved to put him into a group public school class with other speech-delayed kids. Does this even make sense? 

 

My other concern is that Ronen is currently receiving 2 hours per week of individual speech therapy in our home through EI, and has not made sufficient progress in the past year to meet appropriate developmental milestones for speech. Thus, it would seem to me that more speech therapy sessions would be necessary, at this point, not less, in order for Ronen to communicate and learn more effectively.

 

The IEP meeting is scheduled for this week, but I am completely out of my element. I am not sure what exactly I should be advocating for my son, what specific goals we should set for him, what programs and services I should request, etc. Some of my friends have suggested that I hire an Educational Advocate for the meeting to assist me. Is this a good idea? Is there a website where I should look for one?

 

Any other advice and experience is greatly appreciated. Also, in case it is relevant, Ronen's delays seem to be in both phonetic/articulation (saying particular sounds) and phonological/phonemic (organizing his speech into a system of sound contrasts) development. He has a very large vocabulary, and is extremely social and intelligent (I personally don't see the kind of giftedness that I saw in my older son at this age, but his therapists assure me that Ronen is very smart, whatever that means). He was also evaluated by a school psych and OT, and we all agreed that we don't see any other issues going on.

 

Thank you again for any advice.

 

Edited June 13, 2016 by SeaConquest

[PeterPan]

nt

Edited June 13, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[PeterPan]

As far as your IEP meeting, yes people with complex situations can end up needing legal counsel.  There are educational advocates who are not lawyers but who know the law and who, for a lower fee, can help you.  And of course there are disability advocates (lawyers).  

 

Here's what I see.  Right now you haven't established that you have the correct diagnosis.  You don't have effective services being provided.  So if you get them to pay for (or pay for yourself) private evals, you can determine if the intervention is correct.  Once you determine that, THEN you can fight for the intervention.  There *are* people who successfully sue their school districts to force them to get someone trained in PROMPT.  

 

I think in general it will be faster if you pay for a 2nd opinion yourself and use that information plus the advocate.  A mistake at this stage can cost you a significant amount later.  I would not sign ANYTHING at the meetings, not ANYTHING, until you have some form of legal counsel.  Because you know you're likely to have a long, complex situation here, yes you'll benefit from an advocate.

[SeaConquest]

If that's his picture in your avatar, it looks like he has apraxia.  It sure sounds like it from your description and from the way none of the therapy is really working.  I would get an eval for apraxia by someone who specializes in it (a PROMPT therapist) and then continue your super awesome enriching preschool experience.  The PROMPT will only need to be one, maybe 2 days a week, and then you could probably schedule it around the preschool.  The language and social skills will be useful to him to the extent he fits in.  If he shuts down, withdraws, or resists going, then I would reconsider the placement.

 

But for the speech, PROMPT.  More therapy won't help if it's the wrong therapy.

 

Thanks for this. How does someone look like they have apraxia? No one has told me this before, so please forgive me. I know nothing about Apraxia.

[lanalouwho]

Trust your instincts, Mama. My son did not start speaking at all until his 3rd birthday, despite meeting with a wonderful therapist from ECI since he was 2. I remember our first IEP meeting, and feeling so lost. The past few years he has been in a program for children with disabilities due to his language delay. Honestly, the only reason we left him in so long was for the social aspect. We have schooled at home because he is advanced in many areas, but unable to communicate his understanding.

 

Anyway, all that to say that you know your child better than any teacher, counselor, or therapist. If you think being in the high quality preschool would be more beneficial, than perhaps you should ask about other speech therapy options.

 

Sent from my HTCD200LVW using Tapatalk

[PeterPan]

Cherub cheeks.  Look at him.

[PeterPan]

A PROMPT therapist can distinguish a delay from apraxia.  

Edited June 13, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[SeaConquest]

As far as your IEP meeting, yes people with complex situations can end up needing legal counsel.  There are educational advocates who are not lawyers but who know the law and who, for a lower fee, can help you.  And of course there are disability advocates (lawyers).  

 

Here's what I see.  Right now you haven't established that you have the correct diagnosis.  You don't have effective services being provided.  So if you get them to pay for (or pay for yourself) private evals, you can determine if the intervention is correct.  Once you determine that, THEN you can fight for the intervention.  There *are* people who successfully sue their school districts to force them to get someone trained in PROMPT.  

 

I think in general it will be faster if you pay for a 2nd opinion yourself and use that information plus the advocate.  A mistake at this stage can cost you a significant amount later.  I would not sign ANYTHING at the meetings, not ANYTHING, until you have some form of legal counsel.  Because you know you're likely to have a long, complex situation here, yes you'll benefit from an advocate.

 

This sounds so serious. I thought that I just had a kid with an articulation delay. I would estimate that he is probably less than 25% intelligible by someone who doesn't know him. For example, today he said, "Yaya kick me in duh bay." What he was saying was Yaya=Sacha kick=kicked me in duh=the bay=face (he substitutes /b/ for /f/ and drops the /s/ because he has difficulty making the /s/ sound unprompted). I know what he is saying, but I doubt anyone else would. This is pretty typical of his speech.

 

He has made tremendous improvement this year with his therapists; it's just not enough to be where he needs to be at this age. 

[SeaConquest]

Cherub cheeks.  Look at him.

 

I didn't know that meant anything. I thought apraxia was a motor issue?

 

Here are some more pics, if it helps:

 

https://www.facebook.com/monique.b.labarre/posts/10153699340798261

 

https://www.facebook.com/monique.b.labarre/posts/10153674488148261

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153495998248261&set=pcb.10153495998298261&type=3&theater

Edited June 13, 2016 by SeaConquest

[SeaConquest]

A PROMPT therapist can distinguish a delay from apraxia.  There actually will be RADICAL, observable differences, even though they both manifest the same way (not talking).  With apraxia you will have communicative intent but not the ability to motor plan and get it out.  The therapist will look at what the dc does with his jaw, etc.  A dc with apraxia will often have certain patterns of motor planning with his jaw (ability to get it down but not back up or the reverse, loose jaw, etc.).  

 

So yes, there are kids who just don't talk until 3 or 4 (especially certain types of autism, but sometimes just a delay) and then poof it comes in.  And then there is apraxia, where the dc HAD communicative intent, WANTED to talk, and couldn't get it out.  Leave that until 3-4, and you've merely let go by a year or two of potential treatment.  So you get the eval, you distinguish them, then you decide.

 

He talks a ton; he is just not intelligible. Isn't that different?

[PeterPan]

What is his current age?  There are standards for intelligibility.  

 

Typically what happens with apraxia is that the (removing nasty words) therapists move forward trying to get tons of speech, but they don't build the actual motor planning foundation.  That's how you end up with a kid who's unintelligible.  

 

[PeterPan]

Table 1 - Intelligibility

 

Here's a link, just to get you started.  Intelligibility, not with you but with strangers, is something our SLP would ask about every time.  You don't actually have to have perfect articulation to be intelligible.  Kids continue to add sounds and have that be normal well into 7, and they can be intelligible during that.  Intelligibility is how it all comes together.  So if somebody in the grocery store line talks to him, what percentage of his responses will be intelligible?  How much are you having to interpret and clarify for them?  

[PeterPan]

It could be he's getting appropriate therapy and doing fine.  It's just pretty common for the diagnosis to get missed or not considered till later, and it's an area that requires a specialist with a significant amount of extra training to be effective.  But if you can get that eval, they could distinguish it for you quite easily.  I'm just rolling with what you're saying, that your take is the therapy is not working well, that it doesn't seem to be as effective as it should be.

[SeaConquest]

He will be 3 in August. I would estimate that he is intelligible less than 25% of the time with strangers.

 

I guess, I am just trying to figure out exactly what I should be asking for in this meeting, in terms of goals, services, etc. I feel so lost.

[PeterPan]

Unfortunately, you won't know what you want to make happen until you get private evals.  All you'll find out at this meeting is what they're initially willing to make happen.  And the school will typically only do what they have to do or can skate by doing.  

 

Are you sure your school does an IEP before age 4?  I think they stay in EI through age 3 and transfer over.  Or maybe they figure since it takes a year start now?

Edited June 13, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[PeterPan]

Honestly, you might want to get a 2nd opinion on that speech, make sure you're getting ideal treatment, and then keep him home and work with him. Our SLP suggested putting ds in preschool, but that was because she wanted to slow down his language acquisition.  I don't have a problem with preschool per se, but I'm just saying you might get into it and realize you want that time so you can work with him daily on language, especially if you get more effective therapy that you can be taught to reinforce at home.

Edited June 13, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[PhotoGal]

Almost three is still young. I would keep him in the preschool that you like. Here in Oregon, the early intervention/early childhood special education will have the speech therapist come to the preschool where you child attends. Is that available where you are? They work with the preschool to arrange it. 

 

The other thing I would suggest is to check your health insurance and see if they cover speech therapy. I think often private therapists (through a local hospital or private organization) are more successful for cases that don't resolve more easily. 

 

It sounds like his language skills are great and it is mostly articulation. I don't know how effective group therapy is going to be. I think group therapy might be more effective for general language, but articulation should really be one-on-one. I'm not an expert, though.

[Tokyomarie]

Unfortunately, you won't know what you want to make happen until you get private evals. All you'll find out at this meeting is what they're initially willing to make happen. And the school will typically only do what they have to do or can skate by doing.

 

Are you sure your school does an IEP before age 4? I think they stay in EI through age 3 and transfer over. Or maybe they figure since it takes a year start now?

OhE, children transition from EI to a public school IEP on their 3rd birthday. They have some evaluation done shortly before their birthday to determine if they qualify for services. The criteria for qualification are different than for EI. If they qualify, the IEP is developed in time for services to begin on the 3rd birthday.

[MistyMountain]

My ds had an articulation delay but his language skills were fine at that age. Strangers had no idea what he was saying. Even his preschool teacher had no idea what he was saying. When he got tested the trained speech therapist even had difficulty understanding him. He was a late talker and went through EI. EI taught him how to make enough sounds that he learned to talk but was difficult to understand. Once he learned some sounds and had the minimum sounds needed for his age they graduated him. When his speech exploded it was clear the reason he was late was the difficulty making sounds. He graduated from EI but ended up needing it again and qualifying through school system at 4 for articulation even though EI told me he was fine. He still obviously needed help.

 

He had a really good speech therapist in preschool through the school who taught him how to form the sounds starting with harder sounds and that cleared up his articulation issues and helped his phonemic awareness too. I doubt a class would have helped him like the 1 on 1 with a good therapist. I do not think my ds had apraxia because he did not have PROMPT and his articultation did improve without it. I would check for Apraxia but if it is not the right therapist can make a huge difference but it can be hard to find that through the schools. I had some very generic ones too. Private tends to be better quality overall then EI or the school but sometimes you can get good ones through the school too.

 

Bringing an advocate is a good idea. I am no help on the goals but I think what matters more is the right kind of help 1 on 1.

Edited June 13, 2016 by MistyMountain

[MistyMountain]

OhE, children transition from EI to a public school IEP on their 3rd birthday. They have some evaluation done shortly before their birthday to determine if they qualify for services. The criteria for qualification are different than for EI. If they qualify, the IEP is developed in time for services to begin on the 3rd birthday.

Yes EI ends on the 3rd birthday and they can transfer to the school system with an IEP after that.

[kbutton]

It could be he's getting appropriate therapy and doing fine.  It's just pretty common for the diagnosis to get missed or not considered till later, and it's an area that requires a specialist with a significant amount of extra training to be effective.  But if you can get that eval, they could distinguish it for you quite easily.  I'm just rolling with what you're saying, that your take is the therapy is not working well, that it doesn't seem to be as effective as it should be.

 

:iagree:  My kid with apraxia was not diagnosed until he was almost 8!!! Apraxia is an unfortunately broad category for all motor-related speech problems. For my son, he could produce tons of speech and has all but his R's and his L's and has had for years. Actually, he had his L's at one point as well, but he lost them. Why? He has zero jaw stability, and then he has to make all his sounds using alternative movements. He lost the L because stability just kept going downhill. He basically made speech by ear any way he could get a sound out. He talked early, talked often, and while his speech was babyish, it wasn't horrific. 

 

He had a speech evaluation at almost 6 (when he still had L sounds), and the so-called apraxia specialist said he was fine and we should simply talk more slowly. His speech deteriorated--six was the high point. Now that we know what's going on, there was a GIANT trail leading to apraxia for him, but uninformed therapists and medical people didn't ask the right questions and didn't really look. Apraxia to them means "can't make sounds come out." We have history going back to breastfeeding that SHOUTS motor control. During evaluation, the PROMPT SLP got really quiet and kind of tense. I was afraid I'd said or done something wrong, but it turns out, she was simply steamed that she had an almost 8 y.o. in her office whose glaring motor issues had been overlooked by numerous specialists from birth. She was frustrated on our behalf. She had to tone down her remarks in the report she gave us because she wanted to rant about how wide of a miss this was by everyone from the pediatrician to the lactation consultant to the other SLP. In my son's case (though it's not always the case), the same things that make motor control for speaking difficult also interfere with eating, so he does not have cherub cheeks, lol--he was a failure to thrive baby. At 8, the child still swallows lots of his food whole because his jaw doesn't work well enough for him to chew properly! He can't speak loudly without great effort because it requires keeping a stable jaw to open up his mouth and get more sound out. Don't get me wrong--he can scream at his brother when pestered, but if he has to have a sustained conversation in a noisy place, he fatigues trying to speak loudly and will opt to just not say what needs to be said.

 

So, yeah, if he's not progressing in regular speech therapy, it's worth a shot. If he had ANY issues when he was little with jaw quivering while breast or bottle-feeding, slow eating, not being able to drink from a straw, etc. I'd really suggest a look by a PROMPT person.

 

He talks a ton; he is just not intelligible. Isn't that different?

 

Maybe, maybe not. See above. :-)

 

***Full disclosure--OhElizabeth pointed me to PROMPT for a second opinion, and we use the same practitioner. She wasn't even sure we needed it since the other SLP has supposedly checked motor issues, but sure enough, we have apraxia going on. 

[wapiti]

I don't have any helpful IEP thoughts.  I can tell you what we did with ds13, who had zero words until he was 3.  The school district offered group speech therapy in the special ed preschool, which was a mix of typical kids and special needs.  He was bored out of his skull with the style of the program (our letter of the day is D! etc).  We switched to a montessori preschool (which accounted for flexibility in strengths and weaknesses) and we paid for private speech therapy.  I'm not sure the private speech therapist was any good - might have been better to have a PROMPT approach, though that's water under the bridge now.  But, in the big picture, putting him in a preschool that allowed for strength development (2e/math) was a huge, huge deal.

[PeterPan]

Just a total aside, but swimming helped my ds lose the minnie mouse voice thing.  It really stretched his breath support.  That's three times a week for two years, not a quick change.  But 3-4 months of daily would probably be noticeable.  That's also how we got some bad motor planning added that we're STILL trying to get rid of.  Just saying the swimming does help breath support and hence voice production.

 

And yes, people who find out later it was apraxia and that they could have been having better treatment are irate.  It's fine to say, like Sowell (that's the dude, yes?) does that we should all just bank on statistics and guess.  We really don't HAVE to guess anymore.  We now have testing that can distinguish whether it's motor planning or a delay.  No dice, roulette, guessing, or taking chances needed.

Edited June 13, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[kbutton]

Just a total aside, but swimming helped my ds lose the minnie mouse voice thing.  It really stretched his breath support.  That's three times a week for two years, not a quick change.  But 3-4 months of daily would probably be noticeable.  That's also how we got some bad motor planning added that we're STILL trying to get rid of.  Just saying the swimming does help breath support and hence voice production.

 

And yes, people who find out later it was apraxia and that they could have been having better treatment are irate.  It's fine to say, like Sowell (that's the dude, yes?) does that we should all just bank on statistics and guess.  We really don't HAVE to guess anymore.  We now have testing that can distinguish whether it's motor planning or a delay.  No dice, roulette, guessing, or taking chances needed.

 

I would want to know if breath support was an issue or not before adding swimming to help with speech because in our case, breath support tested fine. Swimming lessons (if we weren't already doing them) would have added a lot of $ to the budget without being something that helped with speech. 

 

The cool thing about PROMPT evals is that they look at many different dimensions of the motor side of things and can say pretty definitively what's working and what's not in the whole realm of speech production.

[SeaConquest]

Thanks for all of your thoughts. To answer some of the questions, we have Kaiser, through what used to be called Healthy Families in CA, but is now included in the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Basically, they expanded Medicaid/Medi-Cal to include middle class families that used to be excluded. His ped at Kaiser put in a speech referral when he was 2, but my understanding was that Kaiser's speech services were very poor. I was told by several other parents that we would be better off calling the San Diego Regional Center to get EI services, which we did. And the therapists have been great. Our coordinator assigned him an SLP that is very well regarded and also gave him an OT/teacher (when he really didn't need OT) just so that she could work an extra hour per week with him on speech. As I said, he has made a lot of progress -- he talks up a storm, has extensive vocab and use of language, it is just not intelligible enough. He has great eye contact, and is extremely social. No one suspects ASD or any other issue beyond the speech delay.

 

He has his 3 year ped appointment coming up soon, so I can try to follow up on the speech referral to see if Kaiser offers anything worthwhile (since he will now have an IEP). I did check with my SLP and she has the basic level PROMPT training. There only seem to be a few SLPs in SD that have the next higher level certification.

 

I will not be able to keep him home with me because my older son requires a lot of my attention. Plus, Ronen absolutely loves preschool. He would hate being stuck at home all day with very little attention from me.

 

Re swimming, Ronen has been in the water since he was 5 weeks old, and now can dive and swim across the short end of a pool. His gross motor skills are off the charts. He rode a regular (not the toddler version) Razor scooter before 18 months and was able to ride a regular pedal bike with no training wheels at 2.5. He plays soccer and is a total athlete. His fine motor skills are on target or perhaps slightly ahead. He can do puzzles and play games that are beyond his age, though no where near like my (gifted) oldest could. As far as I can tell, it is really just the intelligibility that is the issue. 

[PeterPan]

Kbutton, yes in our case breath support was part of the issue.  We were doing exercises for it, etc.  Swimming just required so much that it helped him make dramatic progress.

[PeterPan]

If she has done the intro PROMPT course and has not continued on to do Bridging, she doesn't understand the method fully.  I would consider a 2nd opinion by the highest trained person you can find in your area. They can run the VMPAC and sort it out.  That way you'll know what you need to fight for in the IEP meetings.  

Edited June 14, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[Mrs. Tharp]

 

My youngest son, Ronen, has been receiving Early Intervention speech therapy services since his 2nd birthday. While he has made a lot of progress this year, unfortunately, his speech delay is still severe enough that he qualified for an IEP with San Diego Unified at his assessment this past week.

 

He is supposed to attend the Jewish Community Center preschool 5 days/week in the fall (he went 2 days/week this past year). The school is considered the Harvard of preschools in our area, so very high quality. The SLP who did his assessment thought that he would qualify for weekly group therapy sessions, which are about 45 minutes long. The issue is that these sessions typically run when Ronen would be in preschool, so I would have to pull him out of a high-quality preschool program, with children who are generally older than him (he is an August bday, so young for his class), come from upper socioeconomic level homes (i.e. are likely exposed to more words), and are generally very well behaved to put him into a group public school class with other speech-delayed kids. Does this even make sense? 

 

No, it doesn't. 

 

My other concern is that Ronen is currently receiving 2 hours per week of individual speech therapy in our home through EI, and has not made sufficient progress in the past year to meet appropriate developmental milestones for speech. Thus, it would seem to me that more speech therapy sessions would be necessary, at this point, not less, in order for Ronen to communicate and learn more effectively.

 

At the very least, they should not be reducing the amount of therapy, especially when he is so young. 

 

The IEP meeting is scheduled for this week, but I am completely out of my element. I am not sure what exactly I should be advocating for my son, what specific goals we should set for him, what programs and services I should request, etc. Some of my friends have suggested that I hire an Educational Advocate for the meeting to assist me. Is this a good idea? Is there a website where I should look for one?

 

You should not attend this meeting alone. Bring someone with you to take notes. (After the meeting, proof them and email all attendees a copy.) At the very least, ask them to give their reasoning for reducing his minutes. An advocate may be a good idea, but they vary widely in their expertise/effectiveness. Ideally, the one you use would have experience with speech issues, IEPS and would have previously worked with your district. If you use one, make sure they understand your son's needs and have agreed-upon goals before entering the meeting. 

 

Any other advice and experience is greatly appreciated. Also, in case it is relevant, Ronen's delays seem to be in both phonetic/articulation (saying particular sounds) and phonological/phonemic (organizing his speech into a system of sound contrasts) development. He has a very large vocabulary, and is extremely social and intelligent (I personally don't see the kind of giftedness that I saw in my older son at this age, but his therapists assure me that Ronen is very smart, whatever that means). He was also evaluated by a school psych and OT, and we all agreed that we don't see any other issues going on.

 

Has he ever had independent speech therapy? My suggestion is to have him independently evaluated and to bring the evaluation to the meeting with you. This should give you some good ideas for advocacy. By law, the district required to consider an independent evaluation. If they refuse/disagree with it, that gives you another starting point for advocacy. 

 

If they are not flexible, I would consider keeping him in the Jewish Community Center and putting him in independent speech therapy.

 

Thank you again for any advice.

 

 

[Alessandra]

I can't address all your concerns, but a few comments.

 

EI stops on the day before the third birthday. While my dd was about 2 1/2, I called the local school. A nice team came to the house and did evals.

 

Does your JCC have any services? In my area some of the top special needs programs are offered through JCCs.

 

I used an advocate for many years. It was great -- advocate worked with schools to get what we needed. If I had been in a bad district, I might have needed an attorney, but I did not. Be aware that, if you have an attorney, school will bring on their attorney. Meetings can still be productive rather than overly confrontational.

 

I found my advocate through personal recommendations, but she was also quoted constantly in news articles about special Ed. She was the 'expert opinion.' So checking news stories might provide leads. Advocates will usually want to do their own informal evals when you first become clients.

 

I really appreciated having an advocate who could tell me if I was getting adequate services -- or if I what I wanted was unrealistic.

[momof4inco]

Another note about using an advocate... Ask if they already have a relationship with the school (good or bad). That can make a big difference either way.

 

Just remember, there may be a lot of people on the other side of the table at that IEP meeting, but that doesn't mean they know your child better than you do.

 

Good luck!

[PeterPan]

There are private advocates that you pay for and grant-funded advocates.  My experience is the grant-funded advocates are worthless.  They're there to give hugs and tell you what the school means as they deny you.  A private advocate who knows the law is different.  

 

Someone mentioned lawyers making it more confrontational.  Maybe, but they also stop a lot the crap.  You're homeschooling, yes?  It's really fun to sit in a meeting and get told things are your fault, due to homeschooling, blah blah.  Sometimes some things go better with a lawyer.

 

I think pricepoint is the real issue.  It's fine to start with a private advocate who is there to help you, someone who knows the law.  That's really smart.  It's ESSENTIAL to walk in with private evals.  It's unrealistic and wishful thinking to think they're there to help you.  The school is there to do the bare minimum they are required to by law and to deny or avoid as much as they can to save money.

 

Adding: I didn't catch the thing about the times, but yes, be cynical about this.  They're not there thinking "What would be best for this child?" They're thinking what are the standard services we offer at this age?  So for my ds with severe verbal apraxia, I was offered something like 75 minutes a MONTH of speech therapy.  I kid you not.  And they're like oh, that's MINIMUM, we might do more!   :svengo:   He gets 2 hours a week of a therapy they aren't even trained in and NEEDS more therapy for expressive/receptive language.  So clearly it's not realistic.  They already know how their system handles each child, each age, each diagnosis, and that's what you'll get offered.  If your dc isn't progressing with that therapy, you have to bring in advocates and lawyers and FIGHT for amounts, fight for them to require them to get the person trained in the correct therapies, etc.  It can be done.  I chose not to, and we do everything privately.  But there are people who do this.  Forewarned is forearmed.

Edited June 16, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[Nart]

I had the same decision to make. I ended up not pulling my 3 year old out of a really amazing preschool where he was surrounded by really verbal kids five days a week in order to do group therapy twice a week for thirty minutes at a public school. Logistically it didn't work out and I don't think group speech therapy would have done much for him. I asked about group size and they said between 2 to 5 kids. So if he were with 5 kids for 30 minutes, he would be getting maybe 6 minutes of attention at most. Instead we went through Kaiser and got some speech therapy because I called and asked about cancellations every day because the wait was going to be so long for an evaluation. I also signed up for Scottish Rite, which is a charitable organization that provides free speech therapy so long as you aren't getting other speech therapy more than around 45 to 60 minutes a week. Here us the link to the one in San Diego.

http://sdritecare.org

I loved my son's speech therapist there. She used to work for a school district and burned out on all the paperwork and the large case numbers they had to carry. She told me not to bother with the school.

Edited June 16, 2016 by Nart

[monstermama]

In my area, I think Kaiser actually refers out to Scottish Rite for speech services.

 

FWIW - my son has an expressive and receptive speech delay of about a year, as well as being on the spectrum, so quite a bit different than your son.  This year (he turned 3 in November) is when we've really started seeing it affect his relationships with other kids, especially in group situations.  It seemed like as they shifted from parallel play to more cooperative play, many of the kids at the co-op preschool we attended didn't want to play with DS any longer as they couldn't understand him.  The last few months, the only kids that would sometimes play with him were another kid on the spectrum and the kid who turned 3 near the end of the school year.  He also attended a special needs preschool at the local elementary school (which I was initially very worried about) but he had a group of 3 close friends there that he played with every day.  I think the teachers there were better able to handle any communication frustrations.

 

If you like the way the preschool accommodated his speech issues this year, then hopefully they'll continue to work well with him.  I'd personally look into seeing if the school will send an SLP to work with him at the preschool or if you can private pay for one.

 

[Joyful Journeys]

As far as your IEP meeting, yes people with complex situations can end up needing legal counsel. There are educational advocates who are not lawyers but who know the law and who, for a lower fee, can help you. And of course there are disability advocates (lawyers).

 

Here's what I see. Right now you haven't established that you have the correct diagnosis. You don't have effective services being provided. So if you get them to pay for (or pay for yourself) private evals, you can determine if the intervention is correct. Once you determine that, THEN you can fight for the intervention. There *are* people who successfully sue their school districts to force them to get someone trained in PROMPT.

 

I think in general it will be faster if you pay for a 2nd opinion yourself and use that information plus the advocate. A mistake at this stage can cost you a significant amount later. I would not sign ANYTHING at the meetings, not ANYTHING, until you have some form of legal counsel. Because you know you're likely to have a long, complex situation here, yes you'll benefit from an advocate.

I'll reiterate the "don't sign anything" advice! Ugh, the system has gotten my naive self twice. My son was getting an hour of speech a week through EI. He made some gains but not nearly enough. What will he get at the special Ed prek? A SLP TWICE per 9 weeks to "monitor progress." Apparently the 15 minutes of one on one time he may have with the two classroom teachers will be enough 🙄 They are "the best" to deal with this via immersion.

 

Baloney. He'll bet getting a private speech eval that I'll bring to his next IEP meeting. I'm mostly sending him just for the social aspect and to give us some breathing room to school the older two. But for them to say that's enough to get over being a year behind, crazy town.

[Mom28GreatKids]

If it were me, I would pay out of pocket for private therapy before I would do group therapy in a public pre school. In fact, we are doing just that. We are paying for PROMPT therapy for our son with Apraxia even though many of his therapists pushed for him to be in the developmental preschool.

 

I don't know if he needs PROMPT or not, but I think I would send him to the Ivy League preschool and pay for private speech. Have you checked with the JCS to see if they have itinerant services? Many many do. It is my understanding that Kaiser is horrible for therapy services (we used to live in CA), so I think you are right there.

 

Hope you get some answers.

[Kat w]

I struggled hard with the , I have a great school he could go to va the PS el program, (at 3 getting IEP). Those were my thoughts exactly " won't being around kida who speak well help him" all the professionals said no. He needs the SN preschool. They were right . my boys for services there the other school could never have provided them. 6 hours of small classes of working on socialization, things you wouldn't even think of.

I am very glad we went the SN preschool as opposed to the awesome school w reg Ed kids.

 

I didn't know what to ask either. But once you get to a meeting, you will feel it out and see. Also, at this young age, it's too early to tell really what ALL is going on . things are cleared as they age. Once he gets in the program and womed with the spec ed teacher much more can be sifted through .

 

As for an advocate, I never had one. I may have misread or missed something in your original post as to why you are considering one.

Maybe the PS system ianr offering a certain service? We had this come and go with ours. They ALWAYS filled the position . therapist are in high demand here and change jobs frequently.

Our school always got on the ball with providing q/e service we asked for ( hiring that therapist if one quit).

If they don't? I would say something like. ...boy, I really don't wanna have to get an advocate/attny involved. Lol. That will usually do the trick and save you time frustration and money.

 

We did push our PA to do what WE The paren felt was needed , or at least tested for. They complied, after we held our ground.

[Kat w]

BTW tho, we did not drop our private therapists. We still went to and paid for all the private therapies AR the same time.

May sound redundant to some but, we had some sever delays.

[Kat w]

Oh...I jus read the comment OhE made about the state funded advocate. Gee, forgot about him cuz...uh...she's right...they clearly work FOR the school system...not us.

They are in fact, useless imo

[Kat w]

Oh. Yes , I see, if your homeschoolingy. They will blame it on what you're doing wrong lol.

If That's the case, yes, you may need an advocate but, they will do the bare minimum and here's partly why.

 

Money. It's about the funding. When we enroll our SN kids in ps...they vet almost triple the money between fed n stage sunsidies. When you don't enroll bit want the services that your tax dollars pay for? They no likey lol. They are alsmot bitter and insenced that you are " wasting" there already stretched thin therapist. So, of say, try the PS, but KEEP your private therapists too . we enrolled in ps and still kept our private ones .et us know how it goes :)