We recently had our son’s IEP meeting. We are, from what I can tell from other stories I hear, very rare in our experiences. Our IEP meetings have always been friendly and upbeat. You can feel how much his teachers and therapists love him and only want to set him up for success. A story from his IEP got me to thinking. First… the story.

At our IEP meeting his teacher leaned over and said “OMG, I have to tell you this story about Dylan. Not only does he recognize his own sensory needs but can now spot them in the younger kids”. Dylan is in a self-contained classroom that runs Kindergarten through second grade. “Just the other day he said “Mrs. W. Pablo is driving me nuts! He needs my vest!” With that he went over to his compression vest, took it off the hook and put it on the younger boy who immediately settled down. I heard this story and was, as you can imagine, beaming with pride. Then I realized that it wasn’t something that just happened. It was years and years and years of work on my son’s part, with his OT, that brought him to this point. …continue reading