Individualized Educational Plan Laughs and Tears

AKA, IEP laughs and tears....

Anyone here ever look at IEP drafts and laugh at the goals?

No? Just me????

Now before you rip my head off, keep reading.....

I don't laugh because I think my son can't pull this off. I laugh because half of these goals are on MY shoulders, and I think HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO PULL THIS OFF?







I HAVE to get my son to do these things. I home/cyber school. So half the goals are geared towards his therapists. The other half are geared towards what I have to work on with him.

No more than TWO verbal prompts? Do they KNOW my child?

On task behavior for 30 minutes at a time???? 80% of the time???? With ADHD????

Also, I laugh over the ones about licking food, or even eating it. I laugh because I have been trying that for years. I have been puked on. I have had my dinner puked on. All over trying to get him to eat something new.

Food aversions aren't this easily over come! I pray the new OT has a tarp or a parka to keep the puke off her nice work clothes!

Next up we have the self care goals. These don't make me laugh. They kind of make me sad. Liam will be 9 in May. He has tied his shoes ONCE. It took a lot of tears to get there. Now he refuses because "it's too hard, and I just can't do it mama!" He can't button. Snapping is a struggle. Zippers? He can't zip his coat either. If you start it, he can. But he can't put his coat on and zip and snap it. These goals I PRAY the OT can pull off. I PRAY he will do his best for her and learn these tasks. I know it will make him feel so much better about himself!

You can do it baby! Mama knows you can! <3

You know what Liam hates MORE than tying or zipping? WRITING! His cyber school sent me the "Hand Writing Without Tears" curriculum in kindy. That name is SUPER deceiving. He had tears. I had tears. I think the dog lying next to his desk even had tears, hearing her boy so distraught.

They have instituted  Scribe for him. (we are still waiting on the program) But in the mean time, my baby needs to learn to write more legibly. The reversals and the mix of capitol and lowercase is quite bad. Thankfully the OT will be working with him on this. I don't know how much more my heart can take. Watching your baby struggle day in and day out is hard. Home schooling is DEFINITELY NOT for the faint of heart.

There were a lot of other things in his IEP that broke my heart. For his privacy, I am keeping that to ourselves. It's hard to see where your child falls short in writing. It's hard to swallow.

So I guess, part of the reason I choose to laugh at some of these goals, is because other things in the IEP are hard for me to handle.

Then I step back. I look up from my writing, and I see a happy, handsome, and fairly healthy little boy. Busy lining up his comic books and humming to himself. In that moment, I know that no matter where he falls short, no matter where he lacks, he is happy, and he is mine, and I love him more than life itself!

Feelings.....

  This post came to me last night. Of course after 2 hours of tossing and turning, I was finally comfortable, when my brain decides to put lucid thoughts together. Story of my life! Anyway, I was pondering the days events, and still giggling to myself over Liam's writing assignment. I was also thinking about the irony of it all.

  You see, my son is verbal. VERY verbal. Dare I say, sometimes TOO verbal (or too honest, we haven't decided yet.) So, we often get, "You're so lucky he is verbal." or "He can talk, that is such a blessing!"  Yes, it is. We know it is, and we are very thankful. However, what many don't realize is that, just because he is verbal, doesn't mean he is expressive. (I have blogged on this before, to read it, CLICK HERE)

  Yes, he tells us he loves us, prompted and unprompted. He has conversations with us. Mainly about his current obsession. (Beyblades ATM) He tells us what he wants, and what he doesn't, (all too often) and he is VERY opinionated. BUT...... he has a hard time speaking about other things. If he is very upset, or even very excited, he also stutters, something terrible, and it takes him so long to get out what he needs to say, so he often gives up.

  If Liam is sick, and you ask him what's wrong he can't tell you. (For two reasons. One, he has a super hero sized high pain threshold, and two, because he can't find the words to tell you what ails him.) His ear drums have perforated before we knew he had an ear infection. (Yeah, parents of the year here!) I take him to the Dr. and they go through the list of questions, and there Liam sits with a blank look because he can't tell them what he feels. (Thankfully his new Ped totally gets this, and directs the questions in different manners to try and evoke replies.)

  When Liam is upset, he also can't tell you. He does one of two things. If he is really mad, he flips out. He screams, and cries, hits the walls, and bangs his head. Then he calms himself by rocking and humming. If he is upset because someone has hurt his feelings, he keeps it in. Don't get me wrong, he is a superb tattle tail if a kid is breaking the rules, but when someone bullies him (which happens all too often) he keeps the feelings in. He tells us it happens, but can't tell you much more than facts.

  Each time it does happen, pita and I will sit with him afterward and try to talk to him about it. We ask him things like, "Are you okay? How did that make you feel? What did you say? What could you have said?" and so on. We try like hell to get him to express how it makes him feel and he can't. (aside from having a meltdown over it) You see, a child can be horribly cruel to Liam one day, and the next day, if said child comes back, Liam calls him his buddy and is ready to play with him. Liam doesn't hold grudges. He doesn't become jaded. I love that about him, I really do! However,  it bothers me that he doesn't learn from it. When said child bullies again, we go through this whole process over. Sometimes, more than 4 times a week. (we really live in a shitty area!)

  So anyway, getting him to express how this makes him feel is nearly impossible. Now, this year in school he is having to do short weekly writing assignments. I love this. At first, it was hell, as he fought me so hard, but now, he knows he HAS to do it. He also knows that per his teacher and 504, he can dictate to me, and I can write it. So he is cool with that. It is making him reach inside, and think and express himself in different ways. It is also giving us insight into what goes on his head. Case in point.....

This assignment was the precursor to the actual composition. Liam was to think of 6 animals he would like to be and why. His answers saddened, and shocked us....

He took a simple writing assignment and gave it feeling, his feelings. (a bit to much for this momma as it made me bawl behind a closed bathroom door.) The insight that he has at 7 amazes us. The way he was able to express himself, without realizing it was just awesome! Can you tell Liam is bullied quite a bit? (and sadly, he is bullied at home by neighbor kids, as we home school!)

Now, the next day, he was directed to choose one of these animals and expand upon why he would want to be that animal, and "write" a composition of at least 4 sentences.  This is what he had to say....

Again, this is ALL him. His words,  his thoughts. I was merely writing what he told me, exactly as he told me. I laughed and I cried over this one. I could still see the feelings of being bullied, but then he also added some facts he knows to be true about dogs. Liam is a VERY fact based child. He has a brain like a steel trap. It holds facts for future use (much like momma's but even better!)

His father and I are so in love with this assignment. We love the honesty, and comedic value to it. More than that, we love how he was able to reach inside, and pull out some of his feelings. He may or may not have realized he was doing this. When I hugged him and told him how much I loved it, he was quite aloof about the whole thing. No matter, he expressed himself. This has been a long time coming. We pray, this is the beginning of  a new phase, and that he is finally learning how to get his feelings out. Even if he can't tell us. Even if he has to write them down. The fact that he can recognize or just pull them out, is awesome. With puberty around the corner, this will be a huge help to him and to us!

<3 <3 <3 <3

Auditory processing can suck it!

God bless my sweet boy!!! Auditory processing really kicks his butt. (if you're new to the world of Autism, just click here for more info on what it is. Many kiddos with ASD often have issues processing what they hear.) I am seeing it more and more recently. Just this morning as I was giving him his spelling test it was the worst I had ever seen it.

 Each time we would move to the next word, I would say, "great bud! Okay next," and then say the next word. Every single time, he would start to spell 'next.'  When I give him a test, I make him stand in front of me. That way he is less fidgety and he focuses better. But how in the hell do I help him process what is being said to him better? He was getting so angry he was pulling his own hair and punching his head. He knows the words. He gets 100 % almost every time. Yet if I weren't paying attention, and reading him the words, making him spell them, and then writing them for him, where would he be??? It's so much harder on him to say the word and have him write it himself. That throws him off even worse. Also, this kid has the memory of an elephant but if you don't break a word down into sounds he can't process it. Is this normal in kids learning to read and spell? Or is this more of the godforsaken auditory processing? 

 I'm not a teacher. I didn't go to college. I'm an artist. A self taught, "retired" tattoo artist to be precise. I am no expert on this stuff. I am not stupid, but I'm also not trained on how to teach a child, let alone a special needs kiddo. The only one up I really have is I know my kid better than anyone. I know how to adapt

to his needs, but I also wonder if I am adapting too much???? I  want to make sure he is challenged but not to the point of him punching himself out of frustration.  I know he knows the words. When I give him his words for the week I don't spell them. I sound them out and he spells them then reads them back. I quiz him the next day and he gets them all. However it's more of the same. I say the word and I have to sound out each letter separate or else he gets all confused and flips out......(unless it's blends, then I can sound them apart and he gets it.) Another thing about it that baffles me is, he knows his alphabet, but if I ask him what sounds certain letters make, he gets all confused, and will give me the wrong answer at least half a dozen times, then all of a sudden, he will SCREAM the correct answer at me, like it's my fault. For instance, the letter w, when you ask him how it sounds, he ALWAYS says it says, WHY...... just like the word. Same for the letter U, when I ask him what sound it makes, he says, YA. He knows it's u as in up, or umbrella, but at first he will say YA, and after he repeats that a few times, he then yells the correct U sound at me.... I just am not sure how to go about treating this for him. As far as the school is concerned, because his IQ is so high, he doesn't "qualify" for any special ed classes. And because his deficits aren't "severe enough," he doesn't qualify for any therapies. He has been done with speech for awhile now. They didn't even work on his stuttering, only on his mispronunciations of sounds. (which they did a great job with)

 So I am not really sure what to do. I get it. I mean, I know when I say something to Liam (like a directive) I can't expect him to get what I said immediately. I need to give him time to process what is being said. But how do I teach him to spell or even read appropriately if I have to sound everything out for him? When am I doing too much??? Is there something I am missing here???

photo courtesy of  http://www.lanc.org.uk/related-conditions/auditory-processing-difficulties/

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