1st evaluation

When Jayden turns 3 years old, he will no longer be on his IFSP. We have started the evaluation process to see if he will qualify for services through an IEP. IFSP is for kids Birth-3 years old. An IEP is for kids who are 3 years old and older.

Jayden has received occupational therapy since he was 7 months old and speech for almost 2 years now. Sadly, if he doesn't qualify for an IEP, his speech therapy will stop in February when he turns 3. He still really needs speech therapy, as most of his language is still jargon and very hard to understand to the untrained ear. We have gotten better at home to start recognizing things he says.

Today he had his first evaluation to see if he will qualify for early childhood play therapy. He did really well during the evaluation and only got upset twice. Now, doing really well is good and bad. It made me feel very proud to see how smart he was and how well he could do what was asked. He did things that I didn't think he could do, like matching shapes and colors. Doing bad, so to speak, is bad because you would likely need special ed services. But that's our goal.

He needs speech therapy.

He still has to go through a behavior evaluation for his fits and severe tantrums and also another evaluation for his speech. The lady who was here today felt like he would still qualify, but did say about the time she says that, he won't qualify.

As much as I want my son to not qualify, I want him to qualify because I can see how beneficial the speech therapy is to him.

After the next two evaluations then we'll have a meeting to go over everything and discuss whether or not he qualifies for an IEP and then go from there. I'll keep you posted.