Schooled

One of the many things accomplished this week was Maggie's IEP (Individualized Education Plan). That's an annual meeting of all the members of Maggie's team to discuss progress and set goals and services for the next year. As I've said before, this meeting can be very contentious for many parents but I have never experienced that. I am always amazed at the professionalism of the various disciplines involved in her education and I learn something every year. This year was no exception. Maggie's team includes her teacher, a teacher of the visually impaired, physical and occupations therapists, speech therapist, and specialists in orientation and mobility, augmentative communication (aac) and assistive technology (at). Because this is Maggie's first year in high school the members of the team changed. Only the augmentative communication specialist and the teacher of the visually impaired worked with Maggie before this year. It amazed me how well folks had learned about Maggie's complicated needs.


Maggie cannot talk at all. She never could though she used to make a lot of noise. Now that she has the trach she can't even do that. All of her education is reliant on her ability to communicate so her communication always becomes the focus of the IEP. The report by the speech therapist and augemtative communication specialist becomes very important because Maggie's progress or needs in that area will affect all the other areas. The report was thorough and helpful. As I looked at the last page I noticed it said Maggie has a "mild to moderate" receptive and expressive speech and language delay.

Mild to moderate? Really. I thought to myself she cannot talk at all, how can this be classified "mild to moderate." I wasn't challenging anything but I wondered about that. I said, "what does it take to be severe". All three of the speech people (speech therapist, aac and at) at once said "OOOOOH you'd be surprised" Of course speech and language is not limited to speaking. There are many folks who can talk but do not have the language abilities that Maggie does. Maggie understands pretty much everything anybody says so her receptive language is good and she has developed tools to express her needs and wants and uses technology to get those across.

I consider myself to the THE expert on Maggie. Turns out mom needed to be schooled a little bit. I learned again, that I'm ONE of the experts, but Maggie is very lucky to have all these highly trained professionals in her corner.