Special Education Services

The workshop I mentioned in my earlier post consisted of presentations of how to navigate the special education services offered by our public school board. My son has just been diagnosed as mildly autistic but for the past year my husband and I have been gathering assessment reports and submitting them to the school special services co-ordinator as they become available. But the school still needed his formal diagnosis before we could even begin to apply for his placement as one with special needs. Now that we have that information, we have started to look at what we will need to do to get my son any resources available within the school system. The workshop provided me with valuable information about the process of IPRC, what to expect and how to work the process to get what your child needs from it. Then there's the IEP (Individual Education Plan) that the parents, along with the teacher and the school special education services administrator, will need to chalk out outlining modifications and accomodations to address the specific needs of each identified child. It is indeed a giant maze that will require parents to be resilient, persistent and patient. The most important message I came away from this workshop was that it is doable but one that will challenge me to be most driven advocate there is on the planet on behalf of my child.