April 15th, 2006 by Jemaleddin Cole
Last week we had a meeting at Jared’s school to go over his IEP (Individual Education Plan). The teachers made some changes to his goals and PLOPs (Present Levels of Performance), but the real discussion was about two other topics: evaluation and transition.
The school conducted a series of evaluations of Jared’s skills in February, and they presented the results to us at the meeting. Jared is doing well – they find that he’s capable of doing age-appropriate work (first grade, since he’s six) and is performing in the average range. We were pretty impressed.
For Jared to score in the average range, that means that he had to perform exceedingly well given that he has the added distractions and problems that are a result of his autism. He missed a bunch of questions because he lost focus, and wouldn’t complete a test that involved writing with a pencil (he can’t bear the way it feels). And when you factor in that he started with a language delay, it’s clear that he did magnificently.
To make an analogy: It’s like if Jared finished in the middle of the pack in a marathon. A marathon that he gave everyone else a head-start on, and then carried 30 pounds of weight on his back and had to take a break every 5 minutes. Maybe he didn’t finish at the same time as a world-class runner, but he ran a much more difficult race. I’d like to see even a world-class runner do that.
So I’m impressed. While he struggled on the writing, he was above average in reading skills and matrix reasoning (typically a strong suit for autistics). And he also got marked down for not answering questions the way that the test requires them: for instance, one of the tests requires kids to identify pictures. Jared labeled one a “sculpture” but didn’t get credit because they were looking for “statue.” He also said “shape” when they wanted “rectangle,” but we’re talking about a kid who knows heptagons and parallelograms. I think he knows rectangles.
His distractability came into play in other ways as well: when asked “who brings letters?” he said “a fireman brings ladders.” After struggling to convince Jared that they were talking about mail, Jared said, “Daddy brings in the mail.” Absolutely true, but not what they were looking for. And I’m happy with the result because funny is always better than accurate at our house.
Another factor may have been that Jared is far-sighted, and didn’t get glasses until after the IEP meeting. He certainly looks cute in them, but I wonder how much better he would have scored if he could have seen the the test better.
But the end result of the meeting was the most gratifying: they’re kicking Jared out of his school. Next fall, Jared leaves the calm confines of Ruth Eason and heads off to Kindergarten at the same school Sierra attended. He’ll be going all day to a class of NT (Neuro-Typical) students with some additional support. His current school is recommending an assistant for the first quarter, but he may or may not get that.
We were worried at first about “mainstreaming” Jared beceause Kellie and I both know how cruel kids can be. I spent just about all 13 years of compulsory education being picked on at best, and beaten up at worst. But at 48” and 66lbs, Jared is above the 95th percentile on the growth charts (PDF) for both height and weight. And keep in mind that he’ll be 6 and a half when he gets to kindergarten and the other kids will be 5 and a half a the oldest. Anybody that messes with him in school has a death wish. And don’t get me started on how strong he is.
So things are looking good for Jared. For the other kids in his class? We’ll see.
Coming up: Sierra is entering middle school in the fall – will any of us survive the ordeal?