Every year, about this time, Doug & I meet with the education team at Jonalyn’s school to map out the goals for her education for the next year. We had this IEP (individualized education plan) meeting Tuesday. I think this may be the best this meeting has ever gone.
We agree that one of the things we need to work on most with Jonalyn is her speech. She needs to speak more intelligibly, to slow down, to learn to ask for her wants and needs, and to learn to sequence things so she can tell about things in the correct order.
The speech therapist showed us a great app for the ipad that she just got and is starting to use with Jonalyn. She can touch pictures on the screen and build sentences in that way. The ipad will say the sentence for her. The hope is that this will translate into her saying the sentences herself. If this works well, guess how might be getting an ipad??
Jonalyn will be transitioning to a new school next year, so we worked on putting together a plan for that transition. She loves routine and familiarity, so this might be difficult. One thing we hope to do is keep her in a class with her best friends. The other help will be that, while her special ed teacher doesn’t work at the other building, her therapists do. They will be a tie to the old.
That about sums it up. All in all the meeting went very well. We knew what to expect – this is getting to be old hat – and we felt we were in agreement with all the professionals who work with her.
Community!! I loved your post. I worked in special ed for 12 years before retiring two summers ago. I loved it. The first half with vision-impaired students with braille, and the second half with autism students; math, reading, and history. Drawing pictures on 3×5 cards for history was a wonderful hit for vocabulary and telling a story. My favorite is middle school. I began and retired from the same school, going around the city in between to the students. A sense of humor and spontaneity does wonders! Keep ’em guessing, smiles and laughter!