IEP for 3yo with gross motor delay

[Leandra]

Hi,

Thankyou to every one who has posted a reply to my bedwetting
questions. (Please keep any suggestions you have comeing.)

This post is about my three year old son. Well, he's not 3 yet but
will be turning 3 soon. He is in early intervention for a mild gross
motor delay. When he turns 3 he will get moved over to special ed and
have an IEP. We have an IEP meeting next month. He doesn't have any
particular disability just poor gross motor skills. For example, he
doesn't know how to jump at all, handles stairs like a much younger
child. I want to be prepared for our IEP meeting. I have never done
an IEP before. My daughter was in IE for a conjenital condition and
also a mild gross motor delay (walked very late) but graduated out of
the program before her third birthday. So now were in new waters. I
tried to find example IEPs on line but found mostly examples geared
toward autistic or downs' syndrome or other specific problems. So I
found some developmental checklists and those helped me think of
goals. I know they will suggest goals too but they keep asking me
what our goals are for our son and i wanted to have some more specific
things than "catch up to where he should be" since I know IEP is
supposed to be more specific and measurable kind of things. So I was
looking at developmental milestones and I was putting the 3yo
milestones that he hasnt yet met but then I thought I should also put
4yo milestone so that we will be trying to catch him up to what a
normal 4yo should be able to do by the time he is 4. Does that make
sense? Also I can't find any milestones or guidelines regarding upper
body strength which is one of my son's main weakness area. Could
anyone suggest any benchmark for 3yo or 4yo upper body strength
development?

Thankyou
Leandra

[Scott]

What's IEP?

Scott

[Circe]

Scott wrote:
> What's IEP?
>
Individualized Education Plan. They are a standard feature of all special
education services and define the parameters of service (goals and methods)
for any child with delays or disabilities.

To the OP, I've been through the IEP process at least three times now.
Basically, the teacher will sit down with you and you'll discuss what goals
they'll be trying to reach with your son next year and how they'll try to
achieve them. It's really, in my experience at least, a very relaxed and
cooperative event. At the end of it, you'll have a plan that will tell you,
specifically, what your child will be trying to accomplish in the next year
and how the staff will be teaching him. You don't have to agree to every
goal and you can suggest goals of your own. When you get to *next* year,
you'll do it again, only this time you'll be checking to see whether he
achieved the previous year's goals in addition to setting new ones.

That's it. It's really a totally non-threatening thing and not something you
need to be "prepared" for. It made me nervous the first time, though. I
thought my daughter was somehow being "graded" on her performance or that I
was being graded on mine, but neither was the case.
--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [23 mos.] mom)

[Beeswing]

"Circe" > wrote in message
news:pb8Zb.18722$tM5.18391@fed1read04...
>
> That's it. It's really a totally non-threatening thing and not
something you
> need to be "prepared" for.

I think *some* preparation is good -- especially doing some thinking of
what you want the outcome of your IEP meeting to be. You may want to
think about and list any specific goals you'd like to see your child
achieve so that you can bring them to the table to talk about. How much
preparation you need to do can depend on whether the school has a
cooperative attitude or an antagonistic one.

I needed to get a 504 plan for my child and not an IEP, so I didn't go
through the same process. Looking around just now, though, I found what
looks like a good site that addresses IEPs specifically and what you as
a parent can do to prepare for them:

http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/iep_guidance.html

I haven't read it through all the way, but it looks as if it could be of
help. Best wishes.

beeswing

[Kevin Karplus]

In misc.kids.moderated, you wrote:
> "Circe" > wrote in message
> news:pb8Zb.18722$tM5.18391@fed1read04...
>>
>> That's it. It's really a totally non-threatening thing and not
> something you
>> need to be "prepared" for.
>
> I think *some* preparation is good -- especially doing some thinking of
> what you want the outcome of your IEP meeting to be. You may want to
> think about and list any specific goals you'd like to see your child
> achieve so that you can bring them to the table to talk about. How much
> preparation you need to do can depend on whether the school has a
> cooperative attitude or an antagonistic one.
>
> I needed to get a 504 plan for my child and not an IEP, so I didn't go
> through the same process. Looking around just now, though, I found what
> looks like a good site that addresses IEPs specifically and what you as
> a parent can do to prepare for them:
>
> http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/iep_guidance.html
>
> I haven't read it through all the way, but it looks as if it could be of
> help. Best wishes.

We just had our annual IEP meeting about my son's speech therapy.
It went over what progress had been made and what still needed to be
worked on, and whether he still qualified for the free therapy.
(One surprising result---his classroom teacher had been thinking that
the therapy was working on a completely different phoneme!)

Generally, unless your goals and the school's goals are very
different, or the expectations about what needs to be done to meet the
goals are very different, the IEP meetings are generally fairly
relaxed meetings. They are more like planning sessions for a team
that will be working together than a fight to get your rights.

The preparation you need is a clear idea of the child's current
strengths and weaknesses, ideas about how to motivate him or her
to work on the weaknesses, and some idea of what you want to see in 6
months to a year.



--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

[Leandra]

Thankyou for all the advice and info and reassurance posted so far.

Kevin Karplus > wrote in message >...
> Generally, unless your goals and the school's goals are very
> different, or the expectations about what needs to be done to meet the
> goals are very different, the IEP meetings are generally fairly
> relaxed meetings. They are more like planning sessions for a team
> that will be working together than a fight to get your rights.
>
> The preparation you need is a clear idea of the child's current
> strengths and weaknesses, ideas about how to motivate him or her
> to work on the weaknesses, and some idea of what you want to see in 6
> months to a year.

Well, I don't think our goals are very different, but are priorities
might be, I mean, I want to get whatever services can help my son, and
they probably want to give me the minimum necessary to meet there
obligations. Already there has been some dispute about where services
will be provided because my son's preschool and daycare are in a
different county and school district than our home (we live on the
border) and their office is pretty far from his school but that is
where I want him to get his services but we agreed to a compromise
where I will bring him to a playgroup in our home county half the time
and they will come to his school the other half which I agreed to
mostly because I think the playgroup setting offers different
opportunities than the school setting anyhow.

To some extent, since my son doesn't have any permanent condition but
just a delay in this one area it is in their best interest to get him
caught up as fast as possible so they don't have to keep serving him
anymoer, so I guess that will work in his favor.

Also I am not really sure what we want to see in 6 mos to a year which
is part of why I was looking up samples and milestones and stuff. He
is about 6 months delayed in his gross motor sckills, is it
unreasonable to expect him to catch up in the next year and put in
goals for what a normal 4yo would be able to do for the end of the
year? But in the milestones I couldn't find anything specific to
upper body strength which we need to address. His current early
interventionist says his neck muscle structure is very immature. I
see milestones about running and jumping and climbing and pedaling and
balancing, but nothing that really has to do with upper body stuff at
all.

I'm not very worried about the IEP or anything, I just think I want to
have a list of my own goals ready in case they forget anything.

Thankyou,
Leandra

[Leah Adezio]

Leandra > wrote in message
m...
> Thankyou for all the advice and info and reassurance posted so far.
>
> Kevin Karplus > wrote in message
>...
> > Generally, unless your goals and the school's goals are very
> > different, or the expectations about what needs to be done to meet the
> > goals are very different, the IEP meetings are generally fairly
> > relaxed meetings. They are more like planning sessions for a team
> > that will be working together than a fight to get your rights.
> >
> > The preparation you need is a clear idea of the child's current
> > strengths and weaknesses, ideas about how to motivate him or her
> > to work on the weaknesses, and some idea of what you want to see in 6
> > months to a year.
>
> Well, I don't think our goals are very different, but are priorities
> might be, I mean, I want to get whatever services can help my son, and
> they probably want to give me the minimum necessary to meet there
> obligations.

Not always, and having what appears to be an adversarial stance really won't
do much to help your son.

I've been dealing with IEPs with one of my children since he was 3 1/2 years
old (he's now 18)...and my other child had a speech delay that required
special services from age 3-5 (when he no longer needed services because
he'd 'caught up' and was no longer delayed and no longer needed services).

If you approach this as 'we're all in this together and what can we do in
the best interests of my child', you might find that the school's goals and
yours aren't that different after all. And there's a difference between a
school 'giving the minimum' and the possibility of a parent who is asking
for more than what is *needed*. Just keep that in mind.

>Already there has been some dispute about where services
> will be provided because my son's preschool and daycare are in a
> different county and school district than our home (we live on the
> border) and their office is pretty far from his school but that is
> where I want him to get his services but we agreed to a compromise
> where I will bring him to a playgroup in our home county half the time
> and they will come to his school the other half which I agreed to
> mostly because I think the playgroup setting offers different
> opportunities than the school setting anyhow.

Sometimes, especially in more rural/suburban areas (such as where we used to
live), different school districts specialize in different types of
specialized programs and schools 'swap' students from district to district
to get them the best specialized programming. For example, my district had
great programs for children with generalized developmental delays and
speech/hearing issues...but didn't specialize in children who had, say,
large limb gross delays (a non-walking child in leg braces, for instance).
A school district about 6 miles away had a *great* program that specialized
in meeting the needs of children with those types of physical limitations,
but did not have highly specialized speech/hearing services. The districts
would essentially 'share' -- so a child with Cerebral Palsy in my town might
to to the other school and a profoundly deaf child in their town might go to
the preschool handicapped program my children attended. These are known as
'out of district' placements.

And once my eldest approached middle school age, the programs in his
elementary school no longer met his needs and at my request, an
out-of-district placement was looked into -- I went to several different
private schools that specialized in the types of services he needed at the
time, and the school that best met his needs and provided the most
appropriate education in the least restrictive environment (which is the
main criteria for special education placement in the US) was selected. It
was a 40 minute drive from home, but our home district was also required to
provide transportation for him.
>
> To some extent, since my son doesn't have any permanent condition but
> just a delay in this one area it is in their best interest to get him
> caught up as fast as possible so they don't have to keep serving him
> anymoer, so I guess that will work in his favor.

It's in your child's best interest to get 'caught up' as fast as *possible*
so that he can be mainstreamed back into a regular school environment (and
declassified) so that he can continue with his regular education with his
peer group.

Keep in mind that most preschoool handicapped programs do provide 'normal
preschool' activities. The one my children both attended, on the surface,
looked like a normal preschool class -- play area with 'lets' pretend'
items, a story corner, tables and chairs, toys and so on. What made it what
is was was the personnel doing the teaching, the adaptive items used in some
of the play and the specialists who came to the classroom. Just because
your son might be in a specialized program doesn't mean he's not going to
get the preschool 'fun stuff' that "normal" preschools provide.

Leah

[Kevin Karplus]

In article >, Leandra wrote:
> Well, I don't think our goals are very different, but are priorities
> might be, I mean, I want to get whatever services can help my son, and
> they probably want to give me the minimum necessary to meet there
> obligations. Already there has been some dispute about where services
> will be provided because my son's preschool and daycare are in a
> different county and school district than our home (we live on the
> border) and their office is pretty far from his school but that is
> where I want him to get his services but we agreed to a compromise
> where I will bring him to a playgroup in our home county half the time
> and they will come to his school the other half which I agreed to
> mostly because I think the playgroup setting offers different
> opportunities than the school setting anyhow.

We have not run into problems with the school trying to minimize
services, but then we've only been getting about half an hour a week
of speech therapy, and they did not have a shortage of speech
therapist hours this year. That is, they wouldn't save any money by
reducing service, since they have to pay a full-time therapist
anyway. If they had a bit more demand, they might prioritize
differently, since they can't afford a second therapist. Next year,
with 2 of the 6 elementary schools closing, and an extra 150-200 kids
in the school, they may have too much to do, and have to cut out
services to those that only barely qualify, like my son. If that
happens, we won't argue about it, but will either discontinue the
therapy or pay for private therapy. (His speech is now completely
comprehensible, though the sibilants are still a bit odd, so we'd
probably discontinue the therapy.)


> Also I am not really sure what we want to see in 6 mos to a year which
> is part of why I was looking up samples and milestones and stuff. He
> is about 6 months delayed in his gross motor sckills, is it
> unreasonable to expect him to catch up in the next year and put in
> goals for what a normal 4yo would be able to do for the end of the
> year? But in the milestones I couldn't find anything specific to
> upper body strength which we need to address. His current early
> interventionist says his neck muscle structure is very immature. I
> see milestones about running and jumping and climbing and pedaling and
> balancing, but nothing that really has to do with upper body stuff at
> all.

I don't know what are good milestones for upper-body strength. There
seems to be tremendous variation among kindergartners. From what I
saw when my son was that age, a lot of the girls have fantastic arm
strength and can brachiate (swing from hand to hand) rapidly, while
few of the boys have that much upper-body strength. A good milestone
would be climbing a ladder for a slide---almost all kindergartners
should be able to do that. Being able to lift a weight to chest
height and carry it across the room is another good milestone---I'm
not sure what the right weight would be for that age---probably 4-10
lbs (2-4kg). Those are about the only upper-body strength moves that
I can think of that are relevant for kindergarten classes. Being able
to walk a mile (for longer field trips) is probably more important.
If the neck muscles are weak, then you may need to have some extra
milestones there. Good muscle tone in the neck is very useful for
preventing injury to the head when falling, and is also useful for
paying attention to visual presentations, for reading, and for
bicycling, all of which kindergartners may be called on to do.

--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

[Leandra]

Leah Adezio wrote:

> It's in your child's best interest to get 'caught up' as fast as *possible*
> so that he can be mainstreamed back into a regular school environment (and
> declassified) so that he can continue with his regular education with his
> peer group.
>
> Keep in mind that most preschoool handicapped programs do provide 'normal
> preschool' activities. The one my children both attended, on the surface,
> looked like a normal preschool class -- play area with 'lets' pretend'
> items, a story corner, tables and chairs, toys and so on. What made it what
> is was was the personnel doing the teaching, the adaptive items used in some
> of the play and the specialists who came to the classroom. Just because
> your son might be in a specialized program doesn't mean he's not going to
> get the preschool 'fun stuff' that "normal" preschools provide.

Oh, my son will remain in "mainstream" preschool he is not being
placed in a special ed program, he is just getting supplemental
services. We have already put him in a regular preschool (at our own
expense) and they don't have any sped program, and that is where we
want him to go next year too. But an early education sped person will
come to his school once a month and work with him and give his teacher
ideas to work on with him the rest of the time and she will also meet
us once a month in a playgroup and work with him and give me or my
husband ideas to work with him on our own. Because his class includes
kids from about 6 months younger than him to about a year older, his 6
months delay in gross motor skills really doesn't prevent him from
participating normally in the class, he is just one of the lowest kids
for gross motor but he doesn't need a special class or school really.
i don't think he would qualify for one since his needs are relatively
small but i'm still not sure if twice a month is going to be enough
either. Summer is up for discussion. I don't know what will be
available for him then. we will be travelling some of the time so
that might make it harder.

Thankyou for your thoughts.
Leandra

[Leandra]

Kevin Karplus > wrote in message >...

> Being able
> to walk a mile (for longer field trips) is probably more important.

Our schools don't really ever do walking field trips that I know of.
But my little guy can already walk a mile with a break halfway. He's
a bit slow but also small for his age, so short legs and all. I
don't know what a normal speed would be for a 3yo to walk a mile or a
half mile but he seems to be fine on that measure.

Leandra

[Leah Adezio]

Leandra > wrote in message
om...

Because his class includes
> kids from about 6 months younger than him to about a year older, his 6
> months delay in gross motor skills really doesn't prevent him from
> participating normally in the class, he is just one of the lowest kids
> for gross motor but he doesn't need a special class or school really.
> i don't think he would qualify for one since his needs are relatively
> small but i'm still not sure if twice a month is going to be enough
> either.

You might be surprised. My youngest's speech delays were only 6 months in
receptive speech and 9 months in speech usage at the time he was determined
eligible for full time services.

As a result, he got daily speech therapy in our district's preschool
handicapped preschool program, *plus* all the regular preschool
activities...all at district expense.

Now a 14 year old chatterbox, sometimes I think they did their job *too*
well. :) :) :) :)

Leah
>Summer is up for discussion. I don't know what will be
> available for him then. we will be travelling some of the time so
> that might make it harder.
>
> Thankyou for your thoughts.
> Leandra
>