evaluated
One of the things that needs to happen before baby is getting Ellis's IEP squared away, which is scheduled for May 2.
So far, the IEP is turning out to be a much saner arrangement than E's IFSP (the 0-3 program). It's just us and two intelligent people who are easy to work with and are specialized in deaf education. With the IFSP, there's a weird arrangement of service coordinator (who is basically a paper pusher with no specialized knowledge), a representative from a contracting agency, a crazy array of teachers providing a variety of specialized services. I find it a little annoying.
Yesterday E's new speech teacher was accompanied to our home by the person from our county's intermediate unit who supervises all the deaf ed stuff. She's really great. They both are. I imagine we probably differ a little on a personal level in terms of deaf educational philosophy, but they are really supportive of us and have been extremely helpful so far. I knew this was our official Evaluation Sessions for the IEP, but I wasn't sure exactly how they would approach it. Essentially, E had a normal "speech therapy" session, they got some information from us, and now we can check that step off our list.
I know they are qualified to evaluate him from an entire language perspective, but most of yesterday's evaluation was focused on listening and speaking with an acknowledgement of his skills in ASL. I wonder if it would also be appropriate to evaluate from ASL only point of view, too. I think I will have to ask his Deaf teacher about that. Though I'm not sure how their evaluative rubrics would accommodate that, it seems that if we're being truly consistent with our educational goals for him that this would need to take place, too. Hmm. I guess I'm off to write some more emails.
Comments
I agree with you. One thing that annoyed me about the assessment that early intervention did was the lack of ability to assess language development in a deaf c hild. We always just skipped that entire section of the evaluation due to the fact that it was based entirely on hearing/speaking. That's lame. There was never a way to tell how his actual language was developing. I'll be bitterly disappointed if that happens with the IEP transition. I don't see why we can't be given an accurate picture of what our kids understand and communicate.
Posted by: Hetha | April 15, 2008 02:02 PM
Comments
Even though his eval was primarily speaking/listening oriented, I don't think they discounted the ASL. They both have enough experience with Ellis (which is a little coincidental) to know that he's a pretty good signer. But at the same time, it wasn't part of the official evaluation. The ASL side feels all rather nebulous. And, I agree, I think it would definitely provide a fuller picture of his language skills.
Posted by: Jeannette | April 15, 2008 03:01 PM