Triennial IEP

We recently had Nathan's triennial IEP. This is a 2 hour meeting to summarize his assessments and discuss his progress, goals and services. Every 3 years, the school psychologist must assess to determine whether he's "eligible" for special education. She determined that Nathan continues to be eligible, under the multiple disabilities category (autism, cognitive disability, and other health impairment: Down syndrome). No big surprises there, and she was very open about the limits of her cognitive testing as Nathan wasn't super cooperative. In fact, pretty much everyone who assessed him (speech, OT, PT, etc) said they didn't use the full protocol of their tests or didn't formally assess since he might not understand or follow the directions fully. However, this isn't a problem since we all agree he's still eligible for all the services hes been getting, plus some new ones. He had a behavioral assessment and will now get 30 minutes per month of classroom consultation with the district's behaviorist to work on being more compliant with directions. And he will be getting 60 minutes per week of music therapy! Thanks to a change in state law, this is now considered a "related service" under special education law, and this means that if the service is needed to help him benefit from special education, the district can provide it! I had requested the evaluation and the district was able to contract with a provider to do the evaluation and now the weekly service. I'm super excited for this since Nathan benefits so much from music therapy. I'm also super excited about his progress in reading and math and his goals in these areas for next year. Nathan has many sight words and is sounding out and beginning to blend 3 letter words. This was a productive meeting, and I'm very excited about the team he has working with him, the willingness of the district and the team to add the music therapy, and the progress he is making, especially on reading!