5 years - parental concerns

Parental input to IEP goals - 5 years old

Before each IEP meeting we prepare a letter for our IEP team, which we send out couple of weeks before the meeting. This is our annual review - we comment on what we think was achieved, we raise our concerns, and we propose our goals for next year. With each year we are getting better at this and so our letter has more details every time. The purpose of making a list with our goals is not for all our goals to be used in the IEP (although we would loved it, it never happened). The purpose is for the school to know that we are serious about the upcoming meeting and that we are prepared. We have thought carefully about what was achieved and even more carefully about what our son should do next. We want the school to know that we have high expectations for the coming year and expect appropriate goals.

This document was sent to the team before the IEP meeting.  


 Augmentative Technology Evaluation
While The Student has made good progress in all areas of development, his expressive language lags behind his receptive language, and his communication skills are severely delayed compared to his peers. We believe The Student would benefit from evaluation for augmentative technology support by a certified augmentative technology therapist in order to identify ways to support The Student ability to produce language.

Gross Motor Skills
Over the last year, The Student has made great progress in his gross motor skills. He has gain strength in his upper body and arms. He enjoys all physical activities. He enjoys dancing, yoga and stretching exercises. We believe The Student will continue to benefit from activities targeting his posture (walking and sitting) and body coordination. While The Student made good progress with both gross motor and fine motor skills, some activities are still unexpectedly difficult for him, in general those activities requiring some precision, such as placing pegs on foam board, lacing buttons, screwing/unscrewing large toy screws. He is especially lacking in skills necessary for reciprocal bilateral integration and cross body coordination, which is impacting his fine motor abilities. The occupational therapist has suggested that The Student would benefit from whole body movement activities before fine motor activities. We hope the PT and OT specialists will collaborate to identify strategies to support The Student’s need for increased body awareness before detail oriented activities. We believe The Student will benefit from gross motor activities targeting his core stability, as well as arm muscles. We hope that, with appropriate support and help, The Student will continue his gains over the next year. 

We expect gross motor skill goals will focus on balance, as well as on reciprocal bilateral integration and cross body coordination. The Student will refine his running and jumping skills, will learn to jump upward on a step up, will learn to jump forward, to balance on each foot for at least 5 seconds, to walk on a line, to throw balls overhead and catch balls, to throw balls aiming at a target, to kick and intercept balls, and to bounce a ball. We also expect The Student to learn how to descend stairs without hand rail support, while alternating feet.

Fine Motor Skills
Over the last year, The Student made great progress in his fine motor skills. He started showing preferences for fine motor activities and persistence with activities that may be more challenging for him. We hope his new IEP will build on these strengths. As mentioned in the gross motor skills section, while The Student made good progress with both gross motor and fine motor skills, some activities are still unexpectedly difficult for him, in general those activities requiring some precision, such as placing pegs on foam board, lacing buttons, screwing/unscrewing large toy screws. He is especially lacking in skills necessary for reciprocal bilateral integration and cross body coordination, which is impacting his fine motor abilities. The occupational therapist has suggested that The Student would benefit from whole body movement activities before fine motor activities. We hope the PT and OT specialists will collaborate to identify strategies to support The Student’s need for increased body awareness before detail oriented activities. We believe The Student will benefit from activities targeting his core stability, as well as arm muscles.We believe The Student will continue to benefit from activities encouraging bilateral integration and crossing the midline.

 We expect that by the end of the 2013-2014 IEP year The Student will cut a small piece of paper into two parts, fold a piece of paper in half, draw a cross, purposely circle a particular object (number, sticker, ets.) from a choice of several objects. He will draw horizontal and diagonal lines between two related objects for matching purposes, connect dots on paper. He will string small beads, lace strings through holes, squeeze tweezers (small tongs) to pick up objects.

 Self Help
We expect The Student will become increasingly more independent through self-feeding, self-dressing and undressing, potty training and improved personal hygiene practices. The Student will open Ziploc bags, remove lids from small containers, unscrew screw-on lids, pour water from a small jug, remove his sweater and shirt, put on his shirt, put shoes on correct feet, identify front and back of his pants, learn to position his jacket for overhead flipping, learn to zip his jacket.

Speech and Language
Over the last year, The Student has greatly expanded his speaking and listening vocabulary. He can make requests and comment on his environment. He is consistently using 3 word sentences with occasional 4 or 5 word sentences. He can carry on short conversations, especially with familiar people. With increased speech we are more aware of articulation, intelligibility and pacing issues with his speech, and we hope his new IEP will address these aspects of his speech.

While The Student has made good progress in all areas of development, his expressive language lags behind his receptive language, and his communication skills are severely delayed compared to his peers. We believe The Student should continue to work on basic expressive language and communication skills, while advancing towards more sophisticated receptive language skills.

The use of sign language was instrumental in his speech development and supported him with (1) new word acquisitions, (2) use of longer sentences as a combination of spoken and signed words, and (3) clarification of less intelligible words. We believe it is essential to continue using sign language as an augmentative communication tool for The Student.

Receptive language:
The Student will sequence 3 pictures to proper order of events, and practice time sequencing terms (first, next, last). He will identify activities and nouns associated with morning, afternoon, evening, and nighttime. Given 5 items, he will identify which item does not belong to a semantic category for food, things we wear, things for play, and animals. He will point to appropriate picture identifying the concepts of comparison and superlative (bigger/smaller, older/newer, taller/shorter, heavier/lighter). He will point to the appropriate picture identifying two or more critical elements (ex. identifying object by adjective and action).

Expressive language
The Student will use “subject-verb-object” sentence structure consistently. He will answer “where” questions using locative prepositions (under, in front of, next to, behind, on) in complete sentences. The Student will answer “why” and “how” questions after reading a book. The Student will describe a picture using at least 3 sentences with simple structure (I see a…, There is a…, I like the…), and at least one adjective. The Student will use singular and plural personal pronouns. He will use singular possessive personal pronouns “mine/yours/hers/his”.

Communication
The Student will maintain conversations with adults by staying on topic for at least 6 turns or lasting for at least four minutes. The Student will maintain conversations with peers by staying on topic for at least 3 turns or lasting for at least 2 minutes. He will verbally ask permission if wanting to give or receive physical contact such as hugs, and adapt to response. He will verbally ask permissions to use another’s property, and adapt to response. The Student will say “no/stop” appropriately and state reason for refusal.

Articulation and intelligibility
The Student will produce age appropriate phonemes and early blends. He will increase his loudness level given verbal cue. He will include all syllables in 3 syllable words.

Phonetic awareness
The Student will identify initial sound in words. He will become aware alliteration. He will recognize and provide simple rhymes.

Educational Development
Over the last year, The Student has worked very hard to improve his pre-academic skills. He can recognize his written name; can state his full name (first and last name) as well as those of his parents. He recognizes the numbers from 1 to 20, and can count up to 12. The Student recognizes the whole uppercase and lower alphabet, and can identify letters both by their names and their sounds. He can suggest words that start with specific letters. He recognizes most colors and most body parts. He recognizes shapes (circle, star, heart, square, rectangle, diamond, and oval). He has a sight vocabulary of at least 60 words. He understands the concept of same-different (opposites). He can count small sets and shows understanding of one-to-one correspondence.

We expect that by the end of the IEP year The Student will recognize and name the numbers from 1 to 100. He will be able to describe and compare objects by identical attributes (larger/smaller, colder/warmer, etc.). He will work on math readiness skills (copy/extend patterns, compare shapes by size, organize objects from small to large, use manipulative to combine two sets and identify a sum, etc.). The Student will be able to compare numbers and sets (smaller, larger, and same). He will show increased awareness of time (seconds to years) as well as better understanding of past-present-future. He will sort objects by function. He will name the days of the week in sequence. He will read.