Labels, labels why so many labels.....
Slowly his brain began recognizing his eye & turned it back on! He still needed his glasses, they became his safety blanket. Upon starting he wanted nothing to do with them but now is was the first thing he wanted when he woke up & we had a process to get them off of his face at bedtime.
The longer we patched & Bubba wore his glasses some of his quirks seemed to lessen & other things seemed to be arising.
Over the next year we had some household changes, I had to return into the workforce finding a job that I could bring my son or worked with my husbands schedule....
I ended up becoming a bus driver, something I NEVER thought I would do!
When I started there were a lot of moms & kids there; I was excited to get Bubba around other kids & for me to find some friends!
It was a couple months into the school year, I was noticed a lot of things about Bubba & the other kids around his age; he was not even close to where they were with A LOT of developmental areas. I knew that he was behind in some areas, but I didn't realize how behind until I was around kids all the time. I felt like a really bad mom! I knew that made the right choice to address the eyes first, he made a lot of progress with just him being able to see properly. There were things that I didn't know he was really behind with, serious Mommy guilt set in.
Bubba was 2.5 years old when I started at the bus company, thankfully my mother in law asked me if I was going to take him to the 3 year old birthday screening in the midst of me trying to figure out where to even begin with having him evaluated. I don't remember if I called or if she did, all I do know is that the Family Resource Center & his Special Education teachers were my saving grace!
3 year old birthday screening, you know what a deer in the headlights look is?
Well that was me on the day of his screening, I was feeling like a bad Momma who failed at her job.
We went to the school & into a room that I was told the Family Resource Center where I met some very nice women.
We sat I explained my concerns with his delays & behavior quirks that he was showing; as they explained the tests that they were going to do, what would happen depending on his scores. I felt very comfortable & my mommy guilt was subsiding.
When the testing was over they sat with us briefly, said that they were pretty positive that he would qualify for services. They asked that we come back for him to see the speech/language pathologist to be evaluated. There would be another meeting to go over the scores of his tests & what services he qualified for; I would get a letter in the mail explaining why & what the meeting was for.
The ladies from the Family Resource Center gave me a schedule of playgroups that they have during the week & encourage me to come, meet other moms; let Bubba come play he would meet some kids in his new class!
Bubba at the birthday screening & speech evaluation displayed some of the behavior that I had mentioned as being a concern as well which was helpful so the teachers had seen what I was talking about.
Our first official Planning and Placement Team Meeting aka PPT.
We got our letter & set up the time for the PPT, off we go. Bubba was deemed services for being developmentally delayed; under the umbrella for this label meant he was delayed in in gross motor, visual reception, receptive language, significantly delayed in fine motor & expressive language.
We set up his first Individualized Education Program aka IEP. In the IEP Bubba would go to school starting that next week until the end of the school year; Bubba would go to school 3 days a week he would get 7.5 hours of school & 1 hour a week of SLP out of the classroom setting. It was noted that at the end of the school year we would discuss the plan for Summer & the following School year.
HOLY WOW!
Now mind you that when you go into these meetings they are in a conference room; there are 2 administrators, whatever specialist that did evaluations & the teacher. It feels like when you first walk into the room, well it did to me like I was in school again & in big trouble. I was kind of intimidated to be very honest.
That is a lot to take in by the way if you are a first time parent who had no idea how any of this stuff worked or what all those acronyms meant or what all those labels meant or why he needed them. My husband was not thrilled with having him be labeled as Special Education (sigh this is another whole subject BTW) it is a BIG pill to swallow, no one tells you about this stuff in the traditional parenting books. I felt really alone none of my friends had kids yet, I hadn't really made friends at the bus company yet & Bubba would have fits sometimes that made people look at us kind of like what the hell is wrong with that kid.....
I had some Mommy guilt to say the least, but thrilled that he would be getting help, hopefully the behavior that he was showing would subside with gaining skills to help him express himself!
That is what I was thinking at the time......
Comments
Post a Comment