IEP Meeting

Today Rich came to the house to play with the boys while I went to Ryder's IEP meeting at the elementary school. I went in not really knowing what to expect, but it went well. I was shocked to see the 25 page IEP sitting on the table when I got there, but we went through it page by page so by the end it all made sense to me. At the meeting was myself, Ryder's current OT, preschool OT, preschool Speech Therapist, preschool teacher, and educational liaison. We went over all of the recent evals and the the teacher and therapists asked me if Ryder was doing anything new as well as talking about certain skills he has lost recently. As we went through the goals they had prepared we added some, refined some, and changed some of them to reflect all of the new skills he is working on or needs to work on. I was really happy with how involved I was able to be while writing out the goals for him. Ryder will be attending the preschool 3 days a week during the morning session (9-11:30am). During that time he will have individual OT twice a month, individual speech therapy once a week, and group speech therapy once a week.

After the meeting was over I came home to pick up Ryder and Rich took Zak to his house. Ryder and I met his therapy class teacher back at the school to do a trial-run with the special education preschool. This way Ryder would get to see the classroom and meet the teacher he will have starting in September. I was very happy with how well he did for the 1 hour 15 minutes we spent there. He was his normal self with being shy with the other kids, but took right to the teacher and followed her around the room. He sat at circle time with the other kids, but didn't talk much at all. He did get to go outside with the kids and play at the water table and he did get a little vocal during that playtime which was nice to see. We left about half way through the class because it became obvious he was getting a little overwhelmed, but I was so happy with how he did. I think he will do fine in school! Now I just have to convince myself he will be fine riding the school bus....

Once Ben got home from work the three of us went over the Rich & Laura's and got in the pool for a bit. They ate dinner there while I went out to dinner with Rose, Stella and Traci (another Maine Coon cat breeder from VA). We went to a sushi place in Linthicum which was very good. I really enjoyed getting out for dinner with some friends!