IEP & Thanksgiving

Livi's IEP--Last week we had Olivia's IEP meeting at school. After the first of the year, Olivia will no longer be attending the Spec. Ed. Preschool. She will attend her other preschool full-time and 45 minutes per week a teacher will come to that preschool and assist with whatever Olivia might need to succeed in that environment. With that, all of Olivia's therapies have been dropped from her plan for the time being. I say for the time being because I believe speech therapy will be back on the plate within a few months. Currently, it is agreed by the school and our speech therapist that Olivia is technically at an age-appropriate level. Her articulation, while not perfect, is considered to be appropriate. They said her vocabulary is quite good. Her consistent struggle seems to be with choosing the way in which to say the words and getting them to flow as quickly as she would like them to. The teachers feel as though a lot of this is related to stress and anxiety. She is quite the leader at the Spec. needs preschool and does not need a lot of assistance to speak there.

Anyway, with all of this information, it will be difficult to qualify Olivia for camp again this year. Unfortunately, to be able to plan a trip like that in the most efficient way, Jason and I had to make a decision now for camp next year. We have decided that we will not attend Adam's Camp next year. Adam's Camp was a great experience, but it is focused for children who have multiple needs and require focused therapy. I feel Olivia still needs some speech therapy, but Olivia's primary needs right now is to be merged into more mainstreamed activities. Adam's Camp is not mainstreamed. So...right now, Jason and I have made a commitment to renewed focus on homework time and working to get Olivia very comfortable with some of the concepts she will be learning in kindergarten. We will continue speech therapy on the side and keep her enrolled in gymnastics as long as she enjoys it. We will also look at other activities that may help with balance, following directions and building consistency with other children.

Thanksgiving--It was a great weekend and a nice opportunity to visit with all of our family! Thanks for playing hosts to us through the long weekend--we appreciate it! All the food was wonderful and it was great to spend time with everyone. The one damper on the weekend was MU getting beat by KU....and boy, did it hurt...