Hello I am new here I have son recently DX with Aspergers

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Hi everyone my name is Theresa. My 1o year old son Ty was dx with aspergers about 3 months ago. It has been a long road to finally get this dx. He was dx as having ADHD, Sensory issues, and anxity while he was in preschool. My husband and I knew there was something wlse wrong. All the peds. we seen would tell us we were to protective of him, he was just being a typical hard headed boy, we needed to be more firm with him until a friend told us about a ped she had taken her son to He has been a god send. It only took a couple of appointments with tylor for him to tell us there was something else going on with him. He sent us to see a specilist who deals with children who show autistic tendencies. She did all her evaluations and told us we were not imagining things and he did indeed have AS. I was told when he was younger from one professional he could not have the disorder because he had speech problems. We were informed by this new Dr. that the speech issues had nothing to do with the AS but was due to the fact of him having ear problems as a baby. Now that we have a acurate dx we have been trying to help ty understand that he is not a bad kid and he just needs a little help understanding the world around him. He changed schools this year and now we are fighting to get his IEP reviewed. We are calling the school I swear everyday because he is having issues with his homework he is not bring it home so he is getting detention for not completing it. We called today to tell them we need to redo the IEP since the new dx the school informed us we need to get ahold of everyone o set up the appointment IF they all argree it is the best thing. We are at our wits end this is all so new to us. We have no idea what we should request to be in the new IEP. The IEP from the previous years dealt with his handwritting and speech (which he no longer needs). it also states he can not be disciplined for not completeing his work. Any help/ suggetions would be greatly appreciated. I want to have all my ducks in a row before we tell them Exactly what we want.

It is so good to know, isn't it? I remember feeling like someone had handed me a set of keys. Of course, it took a lot reading to figure out where those keys needed to be used

I am going to have to get back to you on the IEP suggestions, however. I do have a few, but its time to get dinner started. And I am sorry to hear they are putting you through the ringer on that - soooo frustrating! Just keep advocating, you know what he needs.

Um. They don't have a choice about the IEP meeting, as far as I'm aware. My understanding of that area of law is not great (given that I worked in higher education), but I'm reasonably certain that they have to update the IEP fairly regularly. It's usually standard procedure to do that at some point after transferring anyhow, to make sure that the new school/district can provide the necessary services and to make modifications in case circumstances are different.

There's usually a district advocate or ombudsman you can call, or perhaps the school has a specialist who works with disabled/exceptional students.

It's hard to remember everything that you need to address at an IEP meeting, so write things down! Start now, if you haven't already. Every time you get or make one of those school phone calls, write it down - keep a log with the date and a summary of the reason. Also, try to reconstruct the reasons for the calls since the beginning of the school year.

The log should give you a good start for making a list of the things that you need to address at the meeting, and since they've all been discussed, school can't pretend they don't know about them. They know, because there've been discussions already, and from now on, you'll even have the date when you discussed each thing! Many people recommend sending a follow up "thank you" email confirming the content of the phone call: "thank you for taking the time to speak to me about Johnny's difficulty with homework. As we discussed, I think that his homework requirements need to be modified, in accordance with his current IEP. You disagreed and insisted that he would be required to serve detention, in violation of his IEP." LOL! Whatever the conversation was, if you thank them for their time and concern, reiterate the topic(s) of concern and the resolutions (if any) reached during the phone call, you have documentation for the conversation. It's even better if you can ask an innocuous question that requires an answer, like: on what days does Johnny have gym? I want to be sure he wears appropriate clothing.

Back to what you need to ask for - don't put all the pressure on yourself to have all the answers. Try to have lots of the questions. If you can figure out where the problems are, the team can work together to solve them. If your son can't do all the homework, the obvious solution is to modify the homework requirements; but it's not just up to you to come up with solutions. Other members of the team might have issues you don't see from home. They also may have ideas for dealing with things that you haven't thought of. Make sure the school allocates enough time for the meeting so you arent' feeling rushed - an IEP can't usually be completed well in 45 minutes or an hour, and that's all that most school allocate. Tell them you want to allocate two hours (minimum), and if the team doesn't need that much time, great! Everyone will get back to their other work earlier. But you can't afford to shortchange your son at this point.

Take copies of any evaluations with you. Take copies of any logs or notes you have. Make a list of the things you want to cover, and make sure that each thing is dealt with fully. If something is going to be done, make sure there is an individual who is assigned responsibility for monitoring what is going on. Make sure there is a plan to keep you informed on a regular (state what "regular" means) basis. Include a plan for communication between school and home. Also, make sure that there is someone who is the "point person" for coordinating services and issues as they come up.

If there is a parent group for parents of students with special needs, get in touch with them - they can be extraordinarily helpful in dealing with your school. They know the players and the politics of the individual school and district. If there's no group, try to find and get to know other similarly situated parents who can provide some support and guidance.

I still mean to give you a more solid response, and still am looking at this when I don't have time to do so, but here is a quickie list:

- permission to leave the room and go to (TBA) whenever needed due to sensory overload or pending meltdown, no questions asked
- extended time on tests
- permission for the parent to cut down the homework when the parent feels it is appropriate
- permission to dictate v. write certain assingments (assuming handwriting issues are co-morbid)
- speech therapy for pragmatic speech and social skills
- resource pull outs to work on areas of acedemic weakness
- OT to work on physical issues
- seating that respects the need to wiggle and move
- permission to wiggle and move
- prewritten notes or assignments (assuming copying from a board or taking notes is an issue)
- extended to time to change before/after PE

Thank you everyone for the great information. I have finally gotten the school to argree to set up a meeting after letting them know I would not be intimidated by them. I now have a solid starting point.