Last week we met with Justin’s teacher, the school psychologist, speech pathologist and the Special Ed K-2 teacher to discuss the results of his psychological assessment, speech evaluation, annual IEP and placement for next year. As suspected J will be starting kindergarten BUT will be in a special education program. What I wasn’t expecting to hear is that J’s diagnosis was changed from early childhood developmental delay to cognitively impaired; I probably knew it in the back of my mind and repressed it but seeing it in writing as part of his evaluation and his official diagnosis really stung and I actually started crying during the meeting. His IQ is in the 1 – 2 percentile ranking; average scores are between 90 – 109 and J’s average score was 65. You can’t help but feel like you’re doing something wrong as a parent when you hear something like that but they all assured me that is not the case and how they’re impressed with how much we work with J at home.
The 2nd half of the meeting was spent going over goals for next year and how he will be mainstreamed into a general education kindergarten classroom. He will attend calendar (similar to homeroom), art, music, and gym with a general education kindergarten class but his core curriculum will be with the special education teacher. If he meets his goals earlier in the year he may be able to spend more time and do some math curriculum in the general education classroom. I expressed my concern about the stigma associated with special education and how it may impact J but the teachers said that it’s nothing like when we were in school and that nowadays many kids are in and out the classroom for various things such as speech or occupational therapy that the kids don’t think anything of it. They also mentioned that J is a lovable boy whom everyone adores and he gets along with everyone so they were confident he would adjust well.