School Conferences

I met with Shea's teacher this week for school conferences. Even though he is in the Developmental Preschool, they still do conferences just like the upper grades. I was relieved to see it wasn't a full blown, IEP discussin' meeting. Just a nice little conference about how he is doing so far this year.

First the teacher did a little bit of marveling at how much more focused, social and talkative Shea is this year. It's true; he is really getting to be a big boy and now knows what is really expected of him at school. But, again, the changes since we started the gluten, egg, soy free diet have been profound.

She did say that his fine motor skills are still lagging and would like to have the school Occupational Therapist run the Peabody test again which measures development motor skills.

He is 4 1/2 and although he knows how to spell his name he can't or won't write it. If we help, he will do it. If we make dot, dot, dot letters, he will trace over them himself. He is also having a hard time cutting out shapes with scissors.

He was given the Peabody when he was 3 and being evaluated for his IEP. He just missed getting OT services by a very small amount. If they retest now, he may be able to qualify for OT services at school.

Even though Shea sees his private OT every week, so much of being a special needs parent is fighting for more services for your kid. Whether your fighting the school district to get services or fighting the insurance company to cover services, "special" parents learn to fight pretty darn quick.

In fact, one excellent example of the passion, focus and energy of "special" parents is the film documentary, Beautiful Son. Parent filmmakers tell the story of their son Beau who is diagnosed on the Autistic spectrum. A very touching and indeed a beautiful film, I caught on my local PBS station. Check out the website for a trailer and more information.

Warning: hanky alert!