KINDERGARTEN SON NEEDS MORE SUPPORT

[tabrown13]

Good morning,

My son is 6 years old and just started Kindergarten in August. He was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at 2 years old and with Autism/ADD within the past 2 years. He is listed as Level 2. He is verbal but is a gestalt language learner. He has been in private OT and Speech for years now. He just started Kindergarten at a public school in West Virginia. We have an IEP in place and he was put into a self-contained Level 2 Autism Classroom. The class has 8 total students. 1 teacher (who is not certified) and 1 aide. The aide is out of the classroom with my son to the nurse's office and to toilet him. That means 7 Level 2 students with only the teacher. The aide is already showing signs of stress and we are getting negative notes every day. She practically yelled at my husband at pick up that our son has "been acting like this all day long!!" I mean, he is a Level 2 Autistic kid. Honestly, his behaviors are fairly benign. Some curses, some refusal to do work (work that is inappropriate and that he literally cannot do), some issues with personal boundaries. All things pretty typical I would think. Part of the issue is that we have been in school for not even a month and he has been given the same A-Z tracing papers 20 times. He was literally observed by the OT who said he doesn't have the grasp or visual tracking to do this work. No wonder he is acting out. Either he needs a one to one Aide or his classroom needs more help in general. Im keeping track of everything. What do I do from here? Please help! Thanks so much.

[Carolyn Rowlett]

I would first reach out to the West Virginia Department of Education and ask what the requirements are in this situation in terms of certification and student/teacher ratio.

I would also request an IEP meeting to discuss what is occurring and things that might need to be tweaked in the IEP document.  You could request an FBA to pinpoint what the school is doing or not doing to trigger the behavior.  Of course, the school FBA probably won't find anything wrong with what the school is doing, so then you can request an IEE.  An independent evaluator could suggest things the school should be doing (or not doing).

Finally, you might want to loop in the director of special education so that he/she knows what's happening.