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Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Big News for Arie!

Well, today we had our "eligibility" meeting for Arie at the county's elementary school to see if he is eligible for their special ed pre-school. This will sound strange to some of you, but we were REALLY hoping he was eligible. We knew he would be close, but not sure if he would test low enough to qualify (but again, we knew that he wouldn't test well, so our fear was that he would just barely test out of it which would mean he wouldn't get the services he needs).

Anyway, he had to score low in 1 out of 5 areas to qualify and he scored low in 4 areas. So, next year he will go to school from 8am to 1pm and recieve special ed services, speech, OT, PT, and psych. It will be GREAT for him. Until then he will meet with the special ed teacher a couple hours a week. The goal is to have him caught up by Kindergarten so he can be mainstreamed into a "typical" class.

Ben went to this meeting and had a hard time hearing the results . I've been the one at most of the other evals/meetings/therapies because they are during the day, but this was a biggie. Basically there were 6 profesasionals around the table (the principal, speech therapist, psychologist, special ed teacher, and social worker). They had all evaluated him and had scores, and they took turns telling us what those scores showed. It was very hard to listen to... after all, NOBODY wants to hear that there child is delayed... but for Ben it was especially hard because he hadn't ever heard it from anyone other than me (relaying what others had said).

Anyway, I'm SO THRILLED that he will go next year! And his nunna (Elaine) is SO EXCITED that her baby brother will go to her elementary school.

It's been SUCH a long road, but I can see that light at the end of the tunnel now!!!