2 days until school.....after the summer we've had I'm literally counting the minutes! When I went to Kindergarten orientation with Anya I stopped to talk to Oksana's new special ed teacher and I was SO impressed! She is young, like right out of college young. One of the first phrases out of her mouth was "I love behavior kids". Well praise God because if that's the case she is going to LOVE Oksana! She also talked to me a bit about how we will communicate, how she will keep Oksana motivated to have good behavior, and the fact that she will not reward Oksana for good behavior but will find many other ways to reward her through her day. Hallelujah!
So her IEP meeting is coming very soon. I already had a talk with her diagnostician. She is amazing, by the way. I told her that I am very concerned about Oksana. Her behaviors, of course, are an issue, but she is really not progressing much academically either. I can't decide if it is a brain thing or if it is a stress thing. Obviously kids under stress can not learn well and school is a stress for her. The regular classroom has been a trigger for her for a long time now. In Kindergarten she was fully included and it was a nightmare. I pushed them to increase her time in the special ed setting in first grade but they still kept her in the regular classroom some because they felt she could do it with the meds on board. Well she couldn't. That classroom continued to be an issue all year last year. I think we are finally to a place where we are going to consider that Oksana needs a small environment full time to reduce her stress, manage her behaviors, and help her to learn. I think there are some on our IEP team who will not necessarily agree with this so I'll be curious to see how it all plays out.
For the record, I've also expressed my concern about her lack of academic progress to her neurologist. She feels that if we don't see some good progress in the next year or so we might need to do some genetic testing to see if there is something else going on that we don't know about. I can tell you one thing....she has many people working hard to help her so it is not for lack of effort at all!
Another small change we are making this year is in her para support. In kindergarten she had a full time one on one para. In 1st grade she had 2 paras, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. This year we are going to try not giving her an assigned para at all. There will be many people in the classroom and anyone who is available will help Oksana whether it is to answer a question, write her name, or take her to the bathroom. We had some issues last year with her freaking out if she didn't have the para that she thought she should have and demanding that they were with her at all times, even when the teacher was trying to help her with independence. If they didn't meet her demands she would blow. I'm going to be very curious to see how this new set up works for her.
While I am not sure that Oksana will be in the regular classroom much I was also told that her regular ed teacher was arranging her room with Oksana in mind just so that she can move freely through it. How cool is that? She has some really incredible people ready to help her this year. I have a lot of hope!
At one point in my conversation with her diagnostician, as I expressed my concerns about her meds, behaviors, and learning, the comment was made that there may come a point when their school is not going to be the best place for her. That is my biggest fear. I can't think that far ahead right now. Let's just get her through second grade and try to make it so that thought doesn't have to enter anyone's head again!
2 comments:
I had to "stop over" and see all of your back-to-school happenings, since I'm freaking out over the beginning of the year. I can't believe you're having to fight to have O in a contained environment--we feel like we're always justifying K being included! (It definitely increases his stress level and causes behaviors, but he could NOT handle the contained placement-too unstructured, too many adults to control, too much down time. He still thinks his preschool class (contained) was a different orphanage no matter how many times I explain it!
I can't wait to hear what O's teacher is planning for motivation and to increase independence. We're scrambling to find something that works for K before the year starts...he has a 1-1 (who I like a lot, but he is learning to depend on for everything) and works for rewards, and I don't see it working this year due to anxiety over the rewards/losing rewards. Since they're so similar, I might borrow some ideas!
Oh, and a side note about meds/MI: K came off Risperdal with minimal issues, but I've had a couple of students who were taken off of it and had HUGE reactions. One kiddo cried for DAYS...literally, he just couldn't stop. Another was completely psychotic for days. I had a psychologist tell me that removing it shouldn't cause side-effects and that the underlying behaviors or MI was what the meds were "covering up," but I've definitely witnessed that it's not always true. That said, we worry about K's mental health and what "could be" frequently; when his anxiety increases, we see behaviors that absolutely are scary. But, I'm not sure how situational mental illness could be (e.g., you can't just be psychotic when there's a transition, right?)...we have periods of time where those behaviors fade almost completely. Feel free not to post this huge comment--I just rarely get to "talk" to someone with a kid similar to K :)
Speechless....it sounds like you and I would benefit from having the ability to talk privately at some point :). Contact me at fourloraines@yahoo.com or find me on Facebook (Erin Loraine)....but you'll have to tell me who you are since I only know you as speechless :).
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