Deedee, The school has not done it's own evaluation yet, in VA, the SCT meeting is the very first step, and that is where they'll decide if an educational evaluation is needed.
Aha, here that's called an IAT or "building plan." Do you have an evaluation report from your dev ped in writing? I'd probably share that information right away, so there can be no doubt that further eval is needed.
I went through this process trying to get a 504 into place for her CF and it was a nightmare.
Ugh, I can hardly believe they gave you trouble about a 504 for a kid with CF!
I suspect the Dr may have expressed it to me as "high functioning" simply because 1. I had no prior warning they were even looking at Spectrum Disorders, and 2. Not that there is a "typical" Aspie, but some of her presentation is very mild.
They do like to emphasize "high functioning" so as not to freak out unsuspecting parents. You sound not in the least traumatized by this so far; I bet you've been through a lot already. AS is a real challenge, but it is perfectly possible to have a good life with it.
I have no idea how likely they will be, but I would say prob less likely based on past experience, lol. My plan is to walk in with a couple lists, one with things I consider "essentials" and then a list of "would be nice" things. Of course, the list of things I provide them will have the whole shebang.
Good plan. If you know from past experience that they are going to treat you as though you are asking unreasonably for the moon on a platter, might you consider hiring an educational advocate? Or getting the dev ped to come to school meetings with you while you sort this out? Having Our People to speak on our DS's behalf in meetings has made it much easier to get what our DS8 (who has Asperger's) needs.
I hadn't even considered PT for the gross motor skills, but it would definitely be a positive for her.
The hardest thing to get at school in our experience is proper social skills training. Few schools are equipped to do this, even though with the number of kids being diagnosed on the spectrum they ought to have the resources in place. SLPs tend to want to focus on articulation, not pragmatic language. We have always had to work on the subtler skills outside of school in our ABA program; but having school PT work on the gross motor has advanced DS's skills considerably.
They go by a combination of testing, teacher's recommendation, and academic performance. The principal does have experience with Asperger's, and seemed very open when I spoke to her this morning. She's also included the TAG teacher in the SCT meeting, so I'm somewhat hopeful on that end of things.
That's great. Do you have a reliable regular ed teacher who has experience with your DD who can speak on her behalf, or whose name you could drop as a casual reference?
We found that when we got gifted services into the mix, school became more functional for DS, not least because the class size was smaller, but having appropriate work to do was a huge win. Our advocate pushed hard for the school to acknowledge both the disability AND the giftedness.
I'm trying hard not to get overwhelmed with the whole process
Sounds to me like you're doing a great job under difficult conditions. You can PM me if it would be helpful.
DeeDee
