IEP round 2

Today Jon and I attended Westli's IEP meeting.  It always surprises me how complicated this process is, when it seems so intuitive to me.  My child demonstrates significant delays in all areas... you give him services to try to close the gap between him and his peers.  Why does this take 2 hours to do? 

At the conclusion of said meeting, we determined a lot that we already knew... 

1) Wes has delays across the board.

2) Wes qualifies for services through our school district's Birth to 5 service.

3) Wes is a mystery

4) Wes would benefit from a classroom environment.

5) An appropriate classroom environment might not be available.

6) Writing Wes' goals is going to be complicated

Consequently, my ability to plan for the next three to five months is not any easier than it was prior to this enlightening meeting where I had hoped to have a secure and clear plan for the second half of the year :(

Everyone seemed displeased by his referral to WEAP (Wisconsin Early Autism Program), though it seemed for different reasons.  Some worried that they would diagnose Autism to justify their own means, a la they would provide treatment and benefit from the diagnosis.  Most were concerned that his "symptoms" are inconsistent and where they point this direction in some ways, there are significant ways in which they do not.  Some just thought there were other concerns that were more significant...  I don't know what to think.  I have always asked the Birth to 3 staff to keep an eye out for autism symptoms (preemies have a higher risk of developing autism, ADHD, and other sensory processing disorders...)  Yet they maintain that the "concerning" things the evaluation team saw was all due to their "newness" to Wes.  I wonder if we are so used to Wes that we just don't see these things, yet it is completely possible that what they saw was because Wes doesn't know them.  The eval team only spent about two hours with him, as opposed to the Birth to 3 team who have pretty much been seeing him for an hour a week for about 3 years...  

::Sigh::