Case Conference

Also, we had Anthony's Case Conference, or IEP (Individualized Education Plan) at school today. It went fine. We really love Anthony's teacher and love his speech therapist there. We are working on a relationship with his occupational therapist, but it's hard because she was gone on maternity leave at the beginning of the school year. It is very frustrating and I really hope for all of our sakes that Anthony makes some progress before he gets older and needs more. The OT told me today that 30 minutes per week is what is recommended for ALL the students there, I guess the ones that are Anthony's age? All of them, I asked? Ones with autism, ones with Down Syndrome, ones that are mentally retarded? All of them, she said. I asked do the people that make these decisions know that neurological disorders are somewhat complicated? Can you imagine? So we pushed back and got his OT time doubled at school, it really wasn't a problem. But it's sad, really, because I am a mouthy girl and I have nothing better to do than haunt his teachers and therapists but there are LOTS of parents at Anthony's school that don't have the time nor inclination to fight like we do and should their children not get what they need because of that? It's very frustrating and makes me weep for the future. At one point today I thought we had to decide whether or not we would work on Anthony 1) becoming toilet trained, 2) washing his hands, or 3) learning to color with crayons. I said that we had HIGH hopes, we wanted him to pee in the toilet, wash his hands after, and then color a freaking picture of the toilet when he was done. Good God.