Good to know who to listen to!
In regards to the Pedi; she's new. My husband changed jobs a few years back and we had to switch to Kaiser (HMO). We lost our old Pedi who I loved dearly and understood so much, listened so well, and so on. The new one, well, she's new to everything. Was new to Kaiser when we came over, new to the state, new to DD2. I told her my initial concerns when I first met her, how I disagreed with Children's and was not impressed with the evaluation (I'm pretty sure everything I said flew out the window with the mention of Fructose intolerance of which they wrote down the wrong kind and nearly accused of me of trying to kill my kid. Then came the IQ test and all her anxiety is because she's so smart and just doesn't relate to kids her age, etc, etc. It was bad, honest.) Well, she got that report and went through it. The report suggested an appropriate learning environment, preferably a school SUITED TO HER NEEDS. Well, every where I looked was unable to help or was going to cost way more in tuition then we could afford. Her advise is based only on that report. I asked for Kaiser to do a new evaluation and they've only gotten as far as OT.
I'm not sure how tied in the school district is with the K12 school system. They are the home district for our state but are slated to deny renewing the charter. I'm not sure how it works with district and school Special Ed in this case and will have to find out. Our home district is underfunded, understaffed, and is a pain to get service unless you have that lever. It's her homeroom teacher, the school OT, and the school psychologist working with me now. The Special Ed teacher sees some of the same problem but I don't feel she is quite as eager to help as the others. She saw the word "average" on the WIAT test and seemed ready to end the IEP meeting then and there. It was the school psychologist that stopped her. In fact, the psych's words of "We have kids like this, we've helped them before. You know what we need to do." are still loud and clear to me and, a day later, are irritating me as the others are asking me what I want them to do. They're the professionals and I sought them for help, they shouldn't be asking me what to do.
I've inquired about an advocate already (yay for school email!) and will email the pedi next about another evaluation since I requested it before.
As far as vision testing she's never complained about trouble seeing up close. She can focus on her DS just fine, and coloring. It's letters, numbers, and people that cause her trouble. (Example of the bad at children's, the psych that did the eval at children's suggested I simply needed to "teach" her to make eye contact with me. I few days later I asked her to look at me as I brushed her teeth and she broke down in tears telling me she just couldn't look, it was too hard.)
