Testing, Therapy, and Paperwork

I just came from a meeting at Ian's school. He attends a great little program in a public school, which is uniquely catered to kids like Ian. He's in a transition classroom, which helps kids with neurological differences make the move to a mainstream classroom. He and his aide walk down the hallway for art classes and library with the regular kids, then he goes back to his safe little classroom for the rest of the time. I have to thank the gods that he's in such a perfect place. 

He's moving on to the third grade, which is great. He's on grade level for everything. Two of his classmates are moving to the non-transitional classroom, and their moms still have that haunted look in their eyes.

His teachers want to bombard Ian with speech therapy this year. I have to get him tested by audiology department at the university hospital. Then he's due for his four year reevaluation by the school district — a trip to the neurologist, speech pathologist, IQ tester, occupational therapist, and educational assessor. The school district has been dragging their feet in setting up the meetings, so I went down to their offices this morning. I made some chitchat with the secretaries about the rain and watched them put his six-inch folder to the top of the pile. That always helps.

The prediction is that Ian will score in the top percentile for his non-verbal IQ, but he won't be able to complete the verbal section of the test. His teachers think that his receptive language skills are fine, but he continues to struggle with his expressive language. They think that with a truck load of therapy this year, we can move him to more a more functional level of dysfunction. We'll see. 

After the meeting, I stalled at Starbucks before coming home. I lingered over the bagel. I read all the tweets about Steinbrenner's demise. Anything to push back the two hours of insurance paperwork, phone calls to doctor's offices, and speech therapy websites. Some days, being a special ed mom is a full time job.