Maria had her IEP last week. It covered both the last couple of months of preschool plus kindergarten. Maria brought her army: me, Cathy, Sue, plus her PT, OT and speech therapists.
Kindergarten for some reason uses a different set of labels to determine what care kids need, so Maria finally has officially gotten the MR term (mentally retarded). The designation isn’t a surprise, but it’s still a grim milestone. However Cathy and I were actually pleased – they labeled her “moderate” rather than “severe”. We both expected severe, but the psychologist said she tests firmly in the moderate range.
IEP planning was complicated by the fact that there is full-day kindergarten now but it is almost certain to be reduced to half-day as part of the state budget cuts. There will be the option for each student to go full day if they pay some fee ($250/month I believe) and we agree that Maria would benefit from it. Apparently the school actively discourages disabled kids from going full day because it costs the school more to have the aides and therapists. They don’t actually forbid it because that would be incredibly illegal (of course, so is discouraging them but…) but Cathy is prepared for them to try to talk her out of it.
Other than that, Maria is doing really well. She’s making a lot of cognitive and sensory jumps, and we don’t think it’s coincidental that this started when she got back to regular Jin Shin Jyutsu treatments. What’s *really* interesting is that Maria’s breathing has still been lousy so the woman did some kind of “lung energy” treatment – and Maria’s breathing has been completely clear since! As whackadoodle as these treatments seem, there is no denying that they help.
Yesterday we took Maria to the Aloha Festival. I’m not sure the music registered much with her but she liked the bright colors. Sue was there since she’s from Hawaii and Maria got a little extra Sue time.
This week is spring break so Maria’s got things pretty easy. Next week is her next modified barium swallow. As much as we’d like her to do well, we suspect she probably won’t. But her regular speech therapist will be there which will be helpful. Cathy heard from another mother that she doesn’t get her kid’s barium swallows at PCH anymore because they are so “rush, rush, rush” about it. She get hers at Banner and likes them a lot better, so we might do her future ones there. Then shortly after that is the Nebraska trip. Cathy called to reserve a room and the block that had been reserved for the reunion is already sold out, so it sounds like there’s a big party a-brewin’.