Thanks everyone. Yes, he is starting K in the fall.
I did look into advocates at one point, but oddly they all either didn't work in our particular area or weren't the right kind of advocate. Each one I called (off of a list from the local children's hospital where we originally got an ASD diagnosis) gave me a number for the right person to call. Each of those people said no, they weren't right and either gave or promised additional numbers. At some point I gave up.
Maybe because they were all non-profits? I was going for free or low cost help, at the time we were also paying for a very expensive private preschool and didn't have a lot of extra money.
I guess we could afford to pay more now that we are homeschooling. Although based on the advice here and from a teacher friend of ours, I think we are going to have to move regardless. This is really not a good area to raise a family and all of my sons friends are from near the area we would like to move to.
I won't even take him to the local playground as it's so littered with cigarettes and smoking kids and parents it's hard to breathe. And the kids aren't always smoking cigarettes. It's also on school property. One of the few times I took him he picked up something and it turned out to be a piece of a smashed bear bottle someone stuck under the slide. Since he started reading we haven't been back, the graffiti says some truly nasty things. So yeah, not a nice neighborhood at all and I have wanted to move since before we actually moved here temporarily 6 years ago.
I'm looking at houses online right now. I guess I can contact districts ahead of time and talk to them about the classrooms and services they offer for kids like mine? I doubt they get a lot of kids like him, I think he's more of a star shaped peg
At the meeting yesterday the lady running it said, "We aren't going to make a classroom just for your son, if you don't like the autism support classroom we can offer emotional support instead." They wouldn't even consider putting him in the regular classroom. Not that I wanted him at their horrible school anyway, but I felt that they just didn't want to deal with him.
I know my son should be able to do a regular classroom with supports and that it should at the very least be the goal for him. I think he might really enjoy something like being able to go to math with the 3rd graders sometimes. Maybe if he's interested in the material and in with older kids he would show better behavior anyway?
AEH: We used to get PT through the school, but he tested out last year. We then did private for a while, but my son was so frustrated with how difficult it was for him we ended up quitting to restore family sanity. What is APE?
Regarding the discussion of the cognitive testing, reading the actual report from the tester it states this: On the information subtest DS answered all but 4 questions correctly. He earned a scaled score of 17, which is in the very superior range.
I'm guessing the lady just added 17 and 4 and said he got 17 out of 21. Clearly she knows nothing about IQ tests? I found a French wiki page that says that on some version of the WPPSI there are 34 items on the information subtest, but it doesn't specify the version. I have found it to be very difficult to find info about the test, guess it's a trade secret
As far as picture memory goes, I can tell you when my son was very little he had a bunch of foam picture tiles he played with in the tub. There were at least 20 of them. If one was missing he knew right away, where is my truck tile or where is my book tile? He knew all of his states by shape alone (and upside down and at any orientation) at 24 months and could memorize a puzzle after doing it just once. He remembers everything we tell him and always has. He has every level of pudding monsters memorized at this point, once he solves it he just knows it upon sight and can tell you "Oh, on this one you just go right, left, up, down, up again, and then left, that's for 3 stars, do you want to get 3 stars or 2 stars or 1 star or 0 stars? I already have the crown for this level so you can just get 3 stars if you want to." He was really into the game last year and rarely plays it anymore, but he stills has all of the levels memorized.
I've always considered memory to be a big strong point for him. On the other hand I don't think he's great at picking things out, like he's not good at find the differences puzzles or finding his socks laying on his bed. I consider that to be less about intelligence and more about possible sensory issues. And since he didn't really cooperate at all on the subtest it might not have been an accurate score anyway.
I'm certainly not sitting here crying that some of his scores are only in the average range. I tend to think they are an underestimate and even if they aren't I know my son is unusually smart and always has been. I can easily see his advanced academics and no one can deny his ability to divide or read.
Regarding the gifted teacher on the invitation, I guess we have a due process violation as I didn't sign anything excusing the teacher of the gifted. Our mobile therapist mentioned that maybe the kindergarten teacher who was there was also a teacher of the gifted, but certainly no one said that they were during introductions or during the meeting. I guess it could potentially have been a certification of any of the people there?
No one called out the lady who led everything on her odd interpretations of my sons cognitive testing. I'd hate to hear how she would present the results of cognitive testing to the parents of a child with low intellectual functioning.
I'm basically going to rush to sell my home and find a new one in the best district we can afford. We are probably looking at half a mil for a house or 350 for a small townhome in the area. Taxes are high. We will take a loss on our home. But I guess you do what you have to do for your kids. I'm going to do what I can to make sure that we will get what we want in the better district. I have 2 other good districts I'm also looking at, slightly cheaper areas to live in, but further from our friends and outside the range of our current wraparound services. We all love our wraparound staff and want to keep them if we can.
My son has a therapist who knows a lot about advocacy. I scheduled an appointment with her for next week (we don't go often as our insurance doesn't cover her) and I will ask if she can give me a list of good advocates she personally knows of. You are all correct, if I'm going to do this, I need to do it right!
