Its IEP time

Ok so the Christmas time I posted about a while ago is nothing compared to IEP time. Its a time where lack of experience in the IEP team when it comes to a blind child becomes extremely apparent. The entire team minus the VI has never worked with a blind child before our Ethan and have said as much. So you can see how this is a struggle each time with coming up for goals for a child who has no impairment except for he can't see.  We've been through them with him and revised them.  I do not however think the team understand that this isn't for pre-school anymore its for the big K.

The difficulty though gets bigger this year...

This time, our cute little two year old is turning three and moving from the IFSP to an IEP. Here I do not think the team understands how different this will be. She has no sight and no light perception. Ethan at least can see light/shadows/colors which helps him to maneuver and orientate himself among other things.  Evie is also behind in where a kid her age should be in mobile, social, verbal skills. The goals we have with her from an IFSP standpoint show that no one understands what good goals should be for her.

If previous IEP interactions are a sign of how these ones will go, everything will be rushed and hurried to get done. You would think there would have been lots of conversations already about what needs to be done, goal ideas etc. As far as I know the only conversations are the ones my wife starts up with various members of the team.  I should mention that they did get the evaluation done for Evie, again it was rushed since I guess the state has pulled her file from the school for review. They knew about it for quite some time but by the time we had the meeting, we had one day to sign off on the eval. Ya, the IEPs probably wont be much different.

I hope the school district provides the training the team desperately needs.

If it wasn't for all the work my wife puts in, I can't imagine how bad it would be for my kids.

Perhaps it will go smoother then I'm thinking but I doubt it. I don't like my kids being used as an experiment on how to teach a blind child when there is so much info already available if the training was just provided.

Bah? Humbug?

We are at that most frustrating time of year when it comes to Christmas and trying to find toys for two blind kids.  The oldest sighted kid is easy, he'd pretty much play with anything.  The youngest blind girl is not all that difficult since she's only two and a half next year should pretty much suck, then again I'm a guy so buying a doll isn't all that interesting to me.

The four and a half year old boy however is proving to be difficult. He has a little vision so he likes lights, he has about a bazillion and a half flashlights. We are avoiding that road this year. I suppose if money was not limiting choices it would probably be fairly easy since there are lots of toys and other items that provide accessibility that he would use/need but unlike non-accessible items, the price seems to always jump if its targeted at a visually impaired person.

Sure we have already got clothes and audio books etc but I happen to like to get something they can play with.

The other part is I like to keep my options open to stuff they can all play together with.  Kind of wish Legos were not so dang expensive.

So perhaps its time to get some more musical instruments in the house. Bigger and louder I guess. I'm thinking drum set.

Gotta run, more to come later on this topic.

The start

I'm a father of three great kids. The oldest has no vision issues, the middle child has some light perception and can see colors and shadows, though the detail is yet to be determined and the youngest has no vision at all. This blog is going to be used to discuss what life is like for all three of them along with my wife and I from the perspective of a dad. I should add that neither mom or dad have vision problems.

In the coming days and months and years there will be posts of things that go on in the average life of us. For now though, I'll just get the site put together.