I did observe the classroom he will be in when we visited at the end of last year. It is K and the slower 1st grade kids combined. At the end of the year they were still learning letters and talking about what month it was and what the season was.
If it's inappropriate, do not expect him to succeed there, and at the same time do not expect them to overturn how their classroom is run to suit him. I still think you need to think further outside the box.
So, even if we can't hold an official IEP, should there be any staff available over the summer who could temporarily change his placement until we can get the IEP updated?
Was the placement recommended by the IU? I don't think they can put him in anything but LRE without meeting with you and getting your signature first. Or do they already have your signature?
We spoke to the supervisor of special ed on the phone. She is the one who said my son can't be in the general ed as he is too disruptive. She has never met my son.
Talk to the building principal and to the superintendent if necessary. In a friendly, non-combative way.
My sons disruptive behaviors vary. Mostly he runs in circles around the room during circle activities.
Is anyone taking steps to teach him participation skills? That was a huge part of our DS's IEP in the early grades-- the most important thing we remediated.
Reports from playgroup say that when he is upset he sometimes knocks things off the shelves.
That is probably considered to be an aggressive behavior even if it is not intentionally directed at persons. It frightens people.
My son makes noises due to his TS, but nothing really loud or inappropriate. He also moves almost constantly, mostly due to tics. I have gotten used to it at home. At first it really bothered me, but now it's just background noise and movement.
However, you need to expect that other people are not used to it. Is the TS treatable? If so, what steps are being taken?
He cries very loudly when he does cry and has a tendency to scream and be very bossy "You should NEVER put that there! You know I don't like that and if you ever put that there again there is going to be a punishment! You'll never get to watch TV again and you'll have to go to jail!" That might all come of me putting his drink in the usual place, but not where he currently wants it because it's out of his reach (and which he didn't share with me).
This behavior is very typical of children with ASD. And it is a problem that needs to be worked on across all settings. He needs to learn the skill of being flexible. This is something you can teach at home (by putting his drink all sorts of places, and so on in all areas of life)-- and it should be in the IEP as a skill to be developed. Only a special ed teacher is qualified to deliver this service. Again, can be done as push-in or pull-out instruction or a combination. I think combination is probably best but you may need to start in pullout until he has more self-control.
I have no idea why he gets so bent out of shape about stuff like that. I should also mention it's not all of the time, in fact it's maybe 1-3 times a day at home on average.
That's a lot of times in the context of a school day, where the whole class needs to listen to the fuss and instruction stops for everyone.
He doesn't harm me in any way and only on rare occasion he will knock something down (never anything that could break, usually a book or a pencil) or hit something on the way, like a wall.
Again, in school settings this will be understood as aggression. He will need to learn other ways of expressing his frustration in order to be successful in a classroom with typical peers. This is direct instruction to be delivered by a teacher with a special ed degree. Regular teachers mostly do not have the skill set.
DS also needs excessive prompting to stay on task or get anything done. He forgets why he is where he is and what he is doing mid-activity. He needs at least 20 prompts to soap up in the shower for instance. Every time you remind him he starts up again. But then he starts to talk and he stops. This is part of his ADHD and not something that I consider to be a behavior.
Not a "behavior" in the sense of "an act of aggression," but it's behavior that will be in his way in school. Does he forget that many times while his meds are in his system, or just when he is off meds? If all the time, it may be time to talk with the prescribing specialist about dosage or more effective options. (We have also found that highly anxious children may benefit from anxiety meds in addition to ADHD meds: improving the anxiety helps the attention and vice versa.)
Although you know the forgetting is not on purpose, and teachers know (in theory) it's not on purpose, at least some teachers will perceive it as willful, and it will create problems. Keeping oneself on track can be broken into small skills and made into an IEP goal. The meds will likely remain an important component.
He is as absent minded as they come and it is not by choice. I have told everyone that he does better with written instructions, but that falls on deaf ears.
In some school contexts this will work and you can put repetitive tasks on cue cards taped to his locker and/or desk (another item for the IEP). But if he is to participate in group instruction in a general education environment, listening and remembering skills will have to be another goal to work toward. This can be worked on with a speech-language pathologist or a special ed teacher.
What I'm saying is that it is clear that all these issues are not his fault-- but they are his challenge, and if he is to succeed in school and (later) work environments, it is going to be easiest for him if he develops these skills and compensatory strategies as best he can, starting as soon as possible.
There is no data for the disruptive behavior. The only data they have is from an FBA done at 3.5 by the IU. The supposed FBA that the district did has no data whatsoever.
Then it's not an FBA. Period.
The lady who wrote the "FBA" was at the transition meeting and she was a truly nasty person. She claims she also saw him at his IU playgroup, but our wraparound staff was there the day she claims to have observed him and they did not see her. They also said he had a good day. There was a 10 minute gap between his BSC and MT, so I guess she could have popped in at that time. She claims she observed him for 30 minutes and that he was highly disruptive and engaged in attention seeking behavior. Neither of his therapists saw any such thing. I think she just read a teacher report or talked briefly to a teacher and since attention seeking behavior has been the IU go to to explain my son, she just went with it. I did request a real FBA with data.
Is she a district person? Does she have the BCBA credential? Often people claim to be able to do an FBA but don't really know how to do it properly.
I have no trouble dealing with my son. I know what will upset him and when he is upset, I know instantly why. This is not simply because I know my son. When I worked with autistic children who were not my own I was able to figure out why they were upset or what would help them calm down when even family were baffled. I'm just really great at seeing the world from other peoples perspective and I actually take the time and care to do so. I understand that when my son is asked to stop a task that the reason he does not comply like a typical child is anxiety. If I pair the request with a timeframe for when he can continue the activity again, he is fine with complying. So, instead of computer time is all done, time for bed. I say the timer beeped, it is time to put away the computer. Remember, as long as you put it away on your own without a fuss you can earn computer time again tomorrow. A good nights sleep will help you feel better and earn your computer again quickly, maybe even before noon! This leads to him putting his tablet on the table and letting me carry him to the bathroom to brush his teeth. No fuss whatsoever.
It is very often the case that people who live with or work with people with ASD become very expert at heading off trouble. This does not mean the person with ASD is functioning well; it means that everyone has adapted the situation to that person's comfort.
You cannot expect school staff to have to learn exactly how to word every request to prevent a meltdown. Your DS has to become flexible enough to cheerfully follow instructions phrased in a variety of ways. (Eventually this also includes implicit instructions like "we're on page 42".)
When some mean adult imposes their will on him without taking into account his feelings he quickly gets upset.
Life is full of situations where one must accept the authority of another person. Traffic stops. Classrooms. Workplaces. This isn't about being "mean" or "not mean"-- people in authority give instructions and there is a social expectation that those instructions be acted upon (assuming they're legal and appropriate).
It is not a child's natural right to have his feelings catered to in every setting. Part of growing up is learning to deal with not getting your way and with following instructions even if you don't care to.
They seem to have all decided based on the opinion of one psychologist who barely met my son and saw him at a very bad moment that he is a severely disturbed child. I have also found that I hate the idea of attention seeking behavior. It seems like the reason they default to when they really have no idea why a child is doing something.
I agree. The fussing over not having things "just right" is an anxiety response (when the world does not conform to his rigid expectations). This is not at all the same as seeking attention. A proper FBA can help to sort this out in detail. You may end up hiring a private clinician to do an FBA if school will not; we have gone that route. But you do need to see him in a school setting (and not the first week or two, but in "ordinary time") if the FBA results will be meaningful for school.
If he were my child, I would place him for one subject (probably math) in a regular ed classroom appropriate to his skills with 1:1 support and see how that goes. Language arts time takes more sitting and discussing, which it sounds like he does not do yet.
For the rest of the time, I would seek a special ed classroom placement -- NOT an "emotionally disturbed" classroom but one specializing in autism-- where the academic content is appropriate and the expectation is they will spend most of their time working on the skills he needs, like sitting still at circle time and so on.
This is a fine way to spend the K year rather than naming the letters in an actual K classroom and would position him to spend more and more time in a regular ed classroom as he masters the skills needed to do that.
ETA: my way of thinking about these early years was this. My DS needed literally none of the academic curriculum for grades K-3. But he was there to learn the non-academic curriculum, which he desperately needed. Identifying what skills to build is the key.
ETA further: just so you know, the hard work of the early elementary years pays off. DS is doing very well academically and socially in a public middle school and high school (this year he will be half days in each; the HS placement is an acceleration).
