Back to School - Part I

Here is the post I promised last week.


Last Thursday was the first day of school for the 2013-2014 school year. This year is a 3-kids-3-different-schools kind of a year. 9th, 7th and 5th grade.

Last year was not the best of years for Luke. One positive is that with the many meetings I had concerning his education, I did get the opportunity to develop a working relationship with the new principal. I already have a good working relationship with the assistant principal in charge of special education (or at least from my point of view ;-) 

Since Luke has an entire new team this year, they all made time for us to meet to talk about "all things Luke". Attending the meeting was the general ed teacher, special ed teacher, SLP, principal, assistant principal over sped, assistant principal working with 5th grade, and the head Vacation Station (before/after school program) -- plus me! 

The new sped teacher is right out of college and is super excited about this coming year. She has experience working with children on the spectrum - which is a big plus.

The new SLP is also a sweet young thing who has been working now for 3 years. She also has autism experience (which last year's SLP did not!).

The gen ed teacher is experienced. While she has taught students on the spectrum, she hasn't had one with as many communication, sensory and developmental concerns . She asked lots of great questions about how she can get Luke involved in her class. It had already been decided that she will be teaching Luke social studies and science. Her structured classroom style is going to be a big plus.

Some of the things I shared about my guy are...

• He is an expert at acting incapable. He is small, non-verbal and has a killer grin, it is very easy to fall for. 
• If you let him get by with something one time, he will assume he can get by with it all the time.
• His behavior will tell you much if you pay attention. Asking him a stupid question (e.g. show me your foot), you will be ignored. Keep doing it, he will start to whine, continuing to escalate the behaviors until hitting or throwing might become involved.
• Loud vocalizing is often a way of expressing that he doesn't know what is going on. For example, if he missed the exchange that we weren't going home after grocery shopping he will let me know.
• Hitting, that appears to be out of nowhere, most often means he needs to tell you something and doesn't know how. 

The main goals for this school year are communication, communication, communication!

He has to learn how to communicate using the Proloquo2Go on his iPad. If he can't communicate then he can't learn. Or at least he won't be able to let us know what he has learned. Communication skills should help eliminate inappropriate behaviors that are being used for communication.

This year they will be using visual schedules for all parts of his day, including the before/after school program. The sped teacher already had most of Luke's put together. I now need to asked her to email me a picture so I can start to implement a visual schedule at home.

Till next time...