Early Internevtion and Education

Early intervention is key.  That's the mantra for parents with autistic kids, and this is so true.  Amanda's doctor gave us the names of the people we needed to contact through the school to get things going.  So we did.  The early intervention specialist came to the house for an intake interview to see if Amanda qualified for services.  No doubt she did.  Next was on to the Multi-factored evaluation.  This is a series of tests and evaluations done in order to distinguish the types of services the child qualifies for.  Needless to say, I believe Amanda qualified for just about everything.  She would be in a multi-handicapped preschool classroom.  She would receive PT, OT, and speech therapy.  They would work on academics.  They would address her sensory issues and socialization skills.  Her IEP (individualized education program) was so detailed, and I must say that I was pretty impressed.  So in the fall of 1999, she started her school career.

First was the preschool program.  The teacher she had was great!  But when she started school, this really brought to light all the things that she could not do.  This really saddened me.  I knew she had autism, and I knew she was different, but when placed in a classroom setting, and all the things associated with it, she really had problems.  Just getting her into the classroom was difficult.  The school was so big, and so overwhelming for her, just to transition her into the building was sensory overload.  So was the classroom.  Other children in the classroom, all the lights, sounds, and everything she wasn't used to.  She did absolutely nothing independently for a while.  This is where we first learned of the picture book.  The teacher took pictures of absolutely everything Amanda did, each stations, each of the classrooms she visited, the gym, etc.  When it was coming the time to transition to different activities or different classrooms, the teacher would show her the picture of where she was going next to get her ready for the transition.  To my surprise, this really helped.  To be honest, a lot of the things they did with her, I didn't understand, and I thought was pretty strange.  I didn't understand why every little thing had to be so detailed.  There was still so much to learn about this disorder called autism.  I was just beginning to understand the need for structure and routines.  Once I understood this, and started implementing just some of the things we learned at home, we got into our routines, and Amanda seemed to relax.  If not just a little. 

After preschool typically comes kindergarten.  Not for Amanda.  It was another year of preschool for her.  I was heartbroken that she was not ready to move on.  It was an ego blow.  The realization of her handicaps was very disheartening.  We had another IEP meeting at the end of her first year, and she had barely reached any of her goals.  She still wasn't really talking, aside from the echolalia, and transitions were still very difficult for her.  She cried at school a lot.  Pretty much, this meeting centered around the things she could NOT do.  Simply because there just wasn't much she could do.  The teachers were great in explaining this to me, and assured me this was typical.  Typical.  As if anything with autism is "typical".

Well, her second year came and went pretty uneventfully.  The same things were worked on, and she started to make some small strides.  At the end of the year, she could move on to kindergarten.  Another IEP meeting, more goals reviewed, and more set for her.  She would start kindergarten in the fall.

Another school, a new building, new teachers, new aides, and a new routine to get used to.  I didn't know how she would handle it.  They prepared the picture book for her and her kindergarten teacher and aide would take her from here.  Now I have to say that I was pretty excited about this year.  The whole reason we lived in this school district, despite it's many many many flaws, was for the Autism program they had.  Amanda's kindergarten teacher and her aide were the pioneers of this program.  It takes a very special person to work with a classroom full of these children, and these two women did it whole hearted.  When she started kindergarten despite the small step she had made in preschool, she still was not communicating.  She was still pretty  much just exhibiting echolalia.  She still was potty trained.  She still had very high anxiety and sensory issues.  Each day, her teacher sent home a notebook describing their day and how Amanda handled each situation.  One of the main focuses was the potty training.  She was almost 6 years old, and something had to be done.  Well, after a few months, this teacher had my non-verbal autistic daughter call me on the phone and tell me she went pee pee on the big girl potty!  OMG!  What a feeling!  She was going potty.  Once she got used to it, that was it.  After all those years of fighting and trying, she got it!  I think it was the light switch again.  Just like with her walking, she just GOT it.

During one of the conferences, her teacher told me that she felt Amanda was ready for some typical classroom settings.  Huh?  Typical classroom?  Turns out she was pretty good at math, and she enjoyed reading.  She wanted to see how she would do with the itinerants as well in a typical classroom.  These included gym, music, and art.  Ok!  Let's go for it!  So it was written into her IEP and Amanda was going to her typical kindergarten class, with her aide for these classes.  And she was flourishing!  She really seemed to be enjoying it too.    At the end of the year, we decided that although she was doing well, she really wasn't ready to move on to the first grade.  Even though she would still have the same teacher through second grade in this classroom setting, her mainstream classes would remain in kindergarten.  At this point, I was ecstatic that she was mainstreamed and decided that holding her back so she could really absorb it was the best thing for her.

During her kindergarten year, we learned of budget cuts that had to be made through the school system.  The one place they were looking to cut was their special education programs.  They wanted to increase the size of the classrooms, decreased the number of teachers, aides, and therapists.  This infuriated me!  Did they not understand how important one on one interaction with these students was?  Did they not understand that the therapies some children got in school was the only therapies they received because the insurance companies were so awful.  They didn't understand, and they didn't care.  Amanda's teacher held several meeting informing us parent what were within out legal rights, and what we could do.  Together we attending board meeting, town meetings, voiced our opinions, did the best we could.  They assured us they were listening.  They lied.  In the end, just like insurance companies, money rules everything.  Who cares how many teachers there were, as long as they had a "program" they were legal.  It was a bunch of BS!  Budgets were cut, jobs were lost, and the children were to suffer their next year.

Amanda's teacher was not going to let that happen to her students tho.  She continued with the current IEP, and did not leave anything out that she thought these kids needed.  You see, supposedly, if it's in the IEP, but law, the school has to do it.  Yes, Amanda was still mainstreamed, but she didn't have her aide anymore.  Which I thought was fine.  She was still going into the typical classrooms.  She wasn't getting as many therapies as she was last year, but she was still getting therapies.  I wasn't happy, but what could you do?  Her teacher understood, but her hand were tied.  Budget cuts were ruling the system, and they just don't care.  They don't listen to their parents.  As long as the high salaried jobs and bonus continued, the school board was happy.  At the end of this school year, her teacher and aide were going to retire.  I was so sad to hear this!  She would still see them over the summers through her camp which I will explain in a later post.  Briefly, Camp I.D.E.A.S is a Summer camp in the month of July that her teacher and aide started and runs as a non-profit organization.  They work on the children's IEP goals set, and socialize them in a day camp type setting.  Ok.

First grade came.  I hated her teacher.  I'm convinced she hated me.  All of a sudden, mainstreaming Amanda was no  longer a good idea.  Even though she'd been doing it successfully for two years.  Truth is, she didn't have and aide to take her there anymore, and the teacher didn't want to deal with a special needs student.  I fought this.  I fought so much bullshit they were trying to pull.  The school system that had help her for four years, now didn't seem to care.  They used to take field trips to "trick" these kids into fun therapy,.  Roller skating, swimming, bowling.  The parents paid for these field trips, but the new teacher didn't want to bother.  When I complained, I was asked if it was in the IEP.  Really?  They're field trips you idiot.  They're good for the kids.  It helps them!  Besides, it wouldn't matter if it was in the IEP, you're not doing with the IEP states anyway!  And yes, I said that.  pretty much verbatim.  My temper flared so much that school year!  I was happy to say that teacher stepped down.  I would like to hope I had something to do with it, but I think I'm just stroking my ego a little bit.

I hate to say that her second and third grade years were not any better.  Her teacher who Amanda would call Betty Boop, lol was a wonderful person.  She had a kind heart and was wonderful with Amanda.  But with the budgets still getting cut, Amanda was simply not receiving the help she needed.  She was plateauing and so young in life that was NOT acceptable to me.  I had conferences, spoke with the school psychologist, spoke with the principal, but got nowhere.  Absolutely nowhere!  Like I said I really liked this one teacher, and she loved Amanda.  Almost too much.  She wouldn't push her.  She didn't like to see her upset.  I say PUSH her!  If you don't push her, she won't learn.  What do I know?  I'm just a Mom, right?

It was by accident that i learned of the Ohio Autism Scholarship.  MacKenzie was going to start kindergarten at a private school, and we had learned about the Ed Choice scholarship for her.  Since we lived in such a piss poor school system, the state would pay for your child to go to a private school.  We had always planned on sending Mackenzie there, that's where Jake went, but to not have to pay for it was a blessing.  Amada's therapies and treatment were costing us so much, and we never qualify for any help, so this was a blessing.  A blessing in disguise.  While I was researching the Ed Choice (as you can probably tell, I'm huge on research), I came across the Autism Scholarship.  Autism scholarship?  What's this?  They'll pay for private schooling if your child has autism?  They'll pay for therapies and such they receive in school?  They're not affected by budget cuts?  Interesting.  I called about it.  Gee...there's a school right here.  Right in my back yard. 

Cheryl and Christie came over for the intake interview.  They were wonderful.  The therapies, life skill training, education, in home services, consulting, counseling.  They did EVERYTHING!  They insisted on keeping the student to teacher ratio very small.  I thought it was too good to be true.  I went for it!  We had to get her current school system to release her.  This took a lot of time, and fired me up.  To top it off, THEY KNOW ABOUT THIS PROGRAM AND SCHOLARSHIP AND CHOOSE NOT TO TELL THE PARENTS!!!!  I went OFF!!!  I said "How DARE you withhold this information from parents with autistic children!  How DARE you want to keep these children in your schools just for the money?  How could they with a clean conscious keep this to themselves?"  All I got in response was Uh, uh, uh..Yeah..Uh uh uh uh shove it!

So Amanda starts her new school.  She hated it.  She was used to the coddling and not having to try.  See can do so much if she's taught correctly.  You just have to push her, and they did.  They pushed her....and she started to grow...