Hi all. After my last post I went ahead and decided we are moving. I had the house listed within the week and have been hard at work since then on cleaning and yard work and packing. Pretty much have my work done at this point, just need to find a buyer. I'm worried this could take all summer and leave us here when K starts in the fall.
Which brings me to the school placement we were offered in our current district. I ended up signing the recommendation, simply because I was told it was the only option other than regular ed and I do not think throwing him into reg ed would be a great idea at this point. I don't think the classroom is right for him at all though.
I went to observe a few weeks ago and I actually thought that the teacher and one of the aides were really good. I just didn't think it was a great match for my son. It must be noted that the person who recommends the classrooms for the students never even meets them, she just goes based off of diagnosis and reports.
The kids in the class were grades K and 1, mostly 1. They were all pretty low verbal. They were learning letters and numbers in circle/group. They did a "lego game", which I was excited to see as my son loves lego. Then they brought out these ginormous mega blocks instead. My son immediately said hey, these aren't legos! The teacher read a story, but I didn't see any of the students read or be encouraged to read. At circle they did the standard seasons and weather and days of the week stuff. My son was the only one who knew the answers.
Now they all assure me that this fall all of the K kids they are getting are really smart,
just like my son. It just so happens that we know one of the students very well who will be in that class. Before his mom fought for an autism diagnosis he was diagnosed with mild MR. Personally I think he is in the average range, but probably low average. It really seems to me that there is a tendency in special needs classrooms to see kids at normal or even low average IQ as very smart, just because they are used to seeing lower functioning kids. I absolutely know that there aren't other kids
just like my son in the district. OK, maybe there are, but statistically it's highly unlikely.
To add to all of the trouble we are having with behavior and trying to really figure out what is going on with my son, he now has developed severe tics. Yay. We see the dev ped next week. He is also more distractible than ever. I can barely even engage him in a conversation for a few minutes at his best times. Even his reading has dropped off. His fluency is way down in comparison to 6 months ago on the exact same texts. I'm going crazy and I have no idea how he is going to function at any school.
At the same time my son continues to learn more and more each day, setting him further apart. We introduced him to some algebra concepts and he loves them and we are reading Beast Academy to him at bedtime and he is so into it he has a huge fit every night when reading time is over. While his fluency is down his ability to tackle new words is up and he rarely asks for help with reading things anymore. Unfortunately he doesn't really enjoy reading at this point, even when we read to him. He can't hold still or be quiet long enough to get anything out of it unless he is super interested in the subject matter.
Even around his smart friends he has a hard time fitting in. He loves to play games with clues and last week he gave a clue to a friend, also 5, to find "A metal mesh on two planes." He was looking for park bench. Meanwhile his teacher in his social skills class was amazed a few weeks ago when he used the word diagonal. Personally I was completely confused, he's been using that word since 2 and I find it far from impressive. Comments like that just show how little these people understand my son. They are amazed by his problem solving skills in the classroom, like if he uses an object to obtain another. I've seen cats do that.
This week he and I were at a park that he loved and he said he wanted to go back again soon. I told him that maybe he and daddy could go together on the weekend and stop at the store that's on the way as I need a few things. He said, "Wait, how about all of us drive here and then you drop me and daddy off and then you can go to the store and pick us up when you are done?" He came up with this plan in about a second. He hates going to the store. If we actually did this sort of thing often I wouldn't be impressed, but I have never dropped them off somewhere while I went to do something else. That is problem solving that actually impressed me. Some adults I know have a hard time with planning stuff like that out, like his dad :p
I'm just not sure what to do. I thought once we had an IQ test that showed he was gifted that it would be quite helpful. I feel like if you had a kid in your class who you knew was gifted you wouldn't report on all of the mundane age appropriate stuff that he did as signs of genius. It's no wonder they think that they are getting 8 kids just like my son! Really, what low performing (over 50% of students get reduced lunches, great schools rating of 3) district has 8 kids with 99th %ile IQs with an ASD diagnosis in grade K alone? There are about 6000 students in the entire district. With an average of 60 gifted kids in the district (discounting the low likelihood due to low SES) and 13 grades, there are maybe 4-5 gifted kids per grade level in the district. Now considering ASD is diagnosed in just over 1 in 100 kids... Yeah, I'm just not seeing a whole class full of kids just like mine. Especially since I know some of these other super smart ASD kids they are referring to. What they really mean is that it will be 8 ASD kids without significant intellectual dysfunction.
They have offered to mainstream him in music, gym, and lunch. Probably his 3 worst areas. He has sensory issues that make music and lunch a bad idea in general. He has some motor delays and low core strength making gym a tough sell. He can't catch or throw or pedal a bike. Of course he does not qualify for OT or PT. They said that if he does well enough with behavior they will allow him to do reading with the regular K kids. He's so far above that level though that I wonder what the point is? They also refuse to put anywhere in the reports or IEP that he is reading because they did not see him demonstrate the skill. My report plus the report of wraparound staff plus the report of his old IU coordinator apparently don't count for anything if you don't perform when asked to on testing day. Because we all know autistic kids are known for their high levels of compliance with adult directives.
These people are making me crazy, and believe me, I was already pretty crazy. My son is not like other kids. Yesterday he told me that the amount of money in my bank account must be finite as there is a finite amount of money in the world and since I only have a portion of it I must have a finite quantity that is less than the total amount that exists in the world. Apparently he was just thinking about my bank account because we are moving and it will cost money. He told me this while I was watering the flowers. I just don't think other 5 year olds are thinking this sort of stuff when outside and tasked with just please playing.
I don't expect anyone to ever have a perfect program for my son, but I guess I just want acknowledgment that he has needs the other students don't have and an attitude of trying our best to support all of his differences. I certainly don't want to hear he will fit right in because there is a whole class of kids just like him. Yeah right. I hope the new district will be better, but of course there are no guarantees. I just want him to be happy and successful at school. I don't care if he is learning as long as he is happy with what he is doing. I can't see him being happy working so many years below his ability. He mastered all of K curriculum when he was 1/2. How can we expect his behavior to improve if he is forced to sit and learn letters and numbers all year?
So, that's what I am dealing with. Moving, worry about school, new and concerning symptoms in my son, going more crazy each day. I just hope we sell soon and the new district can see the validity of the issues I am raising. I also hope the dev peds can do something about the tics. They are really difficult for all of us. The constant noise makes it impossible to relax (at least for me). I feel terrible for my son whose body is interfering with his life so much. It's rough and not at all what any of us needed with all that we are already dealing with
