Azadeh just had her triennial IEP meeting. For those not in the know, every year we have to have a meeting to create or update Azadeh's education plan, which includes things like, does she still need speech therapy and can she take breaks if she gets overwhelmed. Usually it's just a handful of people, but the three-year one is a biggie, and we had the principal, teacher, special ed teacher, speech teacher, occupational therapist, two people from the group that provides her aide, the school nurse, and the school psychologist. And they'd all done new observations or new testing. Whew!
I couldn't have been happier with the results of the meeting, to be honest.
First of all, it's really powerful to have a team of people like that who are working hard on Az's behalf, who seem to be concerned about what's best for her (not what's expedient), and who seem to genuinely like her.
Second, we are making real progress in a lot of areas.
For example, the speech therapist says that over the summer, somehow Az overcame her last actual speech-sound issue, the r sound. However, she still qualifies for speech therapy, so her new goal is to work on using tones that others will read as kinder, and to work on the volume of her voice (it tends to be loud, especially if she is feeling angry).
The people in charge of the instructional aide noted only that it's been working really well, and they're not planning on making any big changes, though they may try to give the aide a half hour lunch break with no coverage during a time of day that Az typically does well.
I learned from the teacher that although Azadeh does make her little noises a lot (her autistic stims are largely vocal, though she does have physical ones too), the group of kids in her class is so used to her that they don't seem distracted by it. This makes me really optimistic about middle school, since at least a handful of these students will move with her to 7th grade, meaning that she may be somewhat insulated by the peers who know her.
And most of her goals used to be "try not to get so angry when you shout out and aren't called on" or "don't escape off campus when you're upset" or "learn to take a break outside instead of stabbing a kid and calling him a jerk." Now, her goals are evolving to things like "raise your hand instead of calling out" and "keep your desk organized."
The group even noted that she had taken responsibility for some bad choices lately (which is ASTOUNDING).
Also, I never make a big deal out of this stuff to Azadeh and I try not to brag too much, but they did her academic testing again, and her language scores -- reading, verbal, etc. -- are just off-the-charts phenomenal. Like, the "grade level equivalent" was <17 .9="" ahead="" and="" beyond="" br="" college="" count="" does="" fingers.="" go="" grad="" hat="" like="" nbsp="" on="" psych="" read="" s="" school.="" school="" she="" textbooks="" that="" the="" was="" your="">
Anyway, there are days when her other mom and I lament that she's never going to live on her own, never going to hold a job, etc. And then there are days like yesterday when I get to daydream about her being an illustrator for botanical books or a park ranger, or something else that allows her the freedom and passion and creativity that is so central to her nature.
So yeah, yesterday was a good day.