It went better than expected. This therapist has a "therapy" dog that she brings into her office and it worked wonders breaking the ice and getting my son to talk. He actually talked and didn't seem to mind the meeting. But it was a first meeting so nothing much was really resolved. Intellectually I know these types of intervention aren't fix at the first meeting. But emotionally I want solutions now. What is important is she did connect with my son and seems to know enough about the issues. Looks like the main things she would work on is his motivation & attitudes to school as well as how to improve his social life. She did suggest more of what I & the teachers have suggested. Join more clubs, take advantage of the after school peer tutoring. I keep suggesting this but my son doesn't think he needs tutoring. But the therapist suggested to him that the students who do the peer tutoring are the AP kids who have been there and know the tricks for working with different teachers.
My son and I are just a bit bummed. Class selection was made for the kids for next year (the teachers decide), and at this time he is in zero honors classes. Down from all 4 at the beginning of this year. There is still some chance in two of them if he pulls his grades up by the end of the year. Those are hovering at B-/C+. He tends to test well, so as long as he takes finals seriously they can bring his grades up.
She did mention that if we could get a diagnosis we could ask the school to only grade on tests/essays/projects and not on all the boring homework/seatwork. One of my worries about being in the non-honor classes is they tend to give more weight on the homework/seatwork and less on the tests so it's not to his advantage grade-wise at all. But, this is a big but.. we can't get this to happen until at least 4-6 weeks into the school year and that is being optimistic. Even if we get a private eval this summer, the school will only take it on advisory. They won't even test him until at least 2 weeks into the school year. And that is if the will agree to test him and label him with LD or label him as ASD. In thinking it over and know what I know about LD's and his schools resource department my guess it might be easier to get school to accept an ASD diagnosis even though I really don't think it fits. This school was a really pain about my DD's LD, claiming that she was performing too well and didn't NEED an IEP all the way through H.S.
Last edited by bluemagic; 06/03/14 09:02 AM.
