Please help-overwhelmed and out of ideas
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Please help-overwhelmed and out of ideas
| Wed, 08-02-2006 - 3:31pm |
OK, my blood is officially boiling!!!!
Today Liam gets a horrible comment written in his agenda book, was moved several colors and I do not know what to do here.

Dee,
How many Irish Mammies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
"Ah sure... Don't mind me. Ill be all right here in the dark"
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
His teacher needs to get a clue! I don't have any specific advice, but I think you need to nip this in the bud. If it were me, I'd set up a meeting with the teacher and evaluate her. I'd make her explain what it is exactly that is going on. Does she just not like him? Or is she trying to assert her authority over him early on? Or is her classroom itself out of control? How organized is she? Meeting with her might give you a proper idea of her personality type. How long has she been teaching? Does she even LIKE children? What's the principal like? Do you have a good relationship with him/her? I think I can say pretty confidently that she is not dealing with him appropriately or effectively. What makes her think she understands autistic children?
Anyway, sorry you are going through this. Makes my blood boil!
Kelly
Dee,
Sorry for the horrible day and beginning to the school year. In this situation I wouldn't discuss it with Liam either. When school gets like this I have found it best to separate school from home and when they get home it is time for a fresh start to thier day. There was a while when Mike would get worried or upset about what had happened in school and how I would react because of what some other classmates had said (ones that like to extend the truth). I would tell him then that as long as he tried his best that was fine by me. I just want him to go and try his best every day and if he has a rough time he can always start again and try his best again. That was all I would tell him about it. Home had to still be a safe place in those times.
As for the specialized classrooms, honest it has been the best thing in the world for Mike. I just saw his teacher today as she was setting up her class. It is so much more understanding there and so much less stressful. Mike is like Liam in that there just isn't the right placement for him in a typical special ed classroom for a high functioning autistic type kiddo. But we found a fabulous understanding teacher who has worked really hard to make things work for him. Perhaps you will find something like that too.
For now I would start by contacting the teacher and ask her for a meeting to discuss Liam and how to possibly make things work for him. Perhaps request a full IEP meeting so it is talked about by the team and the whole team is informed as well as it will be recorded. Then as part of the IEP begin making determinations on what changes need to be made for Liam. Set a time frame for those to occur and request that another meeting be held in 30 days to review progress. If at that time he is still struggling start talking about placement changes as long as he hasn't gone into full crisis mode before that. If a full crisis would happen I would meet right away and discuss placement change then. Kind of like what Sara is dealing with.
Hopefully they will be able to make some changes and add some supports so that Liam is more successful in class. I would also definitely call and talk to the teacher to get a more personal view of what is going on.
Renee
Dear Dee,
I concur with the others that you are going to have to get immediately much more aggressive about getting IEP, meeting with the teacher immediately to thoroughly discuss spectrum and how your child operates and what will work and NOT work with him, demanding your school district bring in an autism expert to be involved with creating behavioral plan and helping with classroom accomodations. This is not a situation that can be made to work for your child. Your child must be taught the way he learns and that is that!
Take it from me, this can escalate. I thought the teachers at Malcolm's school (that we are now leaving), a special ed school, knew what they were doing and, well, disaster.
This is not a happy world for our children to be educated, IMO. I myself am feeling pretty down right now, for obvious reasons. I know children with spectrum have been able to be in regular classroom, but to me it sounds like not often and only with immense amounts of work on the parts of everyone involved, that is, the grownups, thank you very much! I wish I knew the answer. But I think the situation you describe is not going to work without lots of changes and careful thought and education of the staff... Or maybe even a different placement.
yours,
Sara
Ta lads,
Yes Paula, I have been known to stand in the dark on occasion; that or I come out swingin' with a bat.
Dee,
(((HUGS)))) I'm glad you were able to talk w/ the teacher. I hope you're able to get the stars and moon and all! Poor little guy trying to understand what's going on in his world while everything just doesn't make sense.
I agree w/ Renee and Sara, it's really really hard to find a mainstream placement for a child w/ ASD. Our son is in a mainstream placement, BUT he also has a Speech therapist that goes above and beyond w/ social skills training (even at/during recess sometimes to get "real world" experience), an OT that sees Weston whenever necessary, a guidance counselor who is the "safe place" person, an autism coordinator in the district that knows us personally (an my voice on the phone) we've talked so often, a resource teacher that does social skills instruction, the media center coordinator who has Weston for a "20 min chill-out session" between language arts and gifted math, last year 2 teachers w/ autism experience and an assistant principal that was very helpful in calming Weston and giving him possitive praise and feedback. We'd like to have an aide-- but at this point can't see that it's absolutely necessary and he's doing ok w/o. I'm a little concerned about this coming school year as we don't know if any of the 5th grade teachers have autism training or experience and we don't know who his teacher is yet.
Our school district seemed to think that because Weston didn't have a firm autism Dx that he didn't need all the supports. I had to go out and get a firm Dx (we ended up w/ a Dx or autism instead of the possible PDD-NOS or AS Dx) and really fight to get him what he needs, they now have a good system in place (just in time for us to have one more year before middleschool and the fight will start again). Until I had the Dx of autism, we really couldn't get much support, I think in some ways we got that Dx because the psychologist thought we would get more help from the school district this way. We also found a good family Doctor (who has a stepson w/ AS and ADHD) that's willing to write letters and advocate for us as well. Anyway, it took a lot of work and courage (and I'm the kind that stays in that dark room) but we did get a lot of cooperation and have a great placement w/ lots of supports.
Betsy