It’s a new week, and we hit the ground running with a pretty busy morning on Monday. I was back to work, Amelia was back to school, and Henry had ABA therapy. We also had an appointment via Zoom to get Henry assessed for preschool in the district, and Erin had been working hard on pulling together information and applications for that.
Several weeks ago, we had a really good conversation with a district psychologist, learning about the kinds of support Henry can get at the local public school. We were impressed by their overall approach, which seeks to keep kids with special needs in class with their peers, bringing in support where needed. To move forward, we needed to get Henry assessed to see if he qualifies for an individualized education program (IEP), which would provide him with the support he needs.
So we got that scheduled, and Monday was the day of that assessment. Leading up to it, they asked us to send various videos of him doing certain things, and also requested us having things ready for the virtual meeting. We needed to have Play Doh, books, paper to draw with, and a few other items at the ready so they could see how he reacts to instructions, how he handles things physically, etc.
We are certainly no stranger to these kinds of telehealth appointments at this point, but that isn’t to say anything is ever a sure thing with Henry. And this was a particularly tricky call, for a few reasons. I will say that Henry is generally pretty good interacting with people on the screen, because he did work with therapists via telehealth quite a few times. Still, depending on his mood, that knife can cut both ways and sometimes he just ices out the screen and refuses to participate.
We were worried he might do that and make the assessment impossible. And on the other side of it we didn’t want him to do TOO well and leave the assessors with the idea that he didn’t need any additional help. When we started, I was a little fearful that Henry was leaning toward the “not participating” side of things, but our ABA therapist was there and helped get him going with a few little rewards. Sometimes a bite of chocolate can work wonders.
Once he got over the initial hump, he actually did great. He answered questions, engaged and did really well showing them how bright he was, but the reviewers also got a window into some of his tendencies and challenges.
The assessment lasted close to 90 minutes, and in the end we felt like it went as well as we could have hoped. That was a relief. Now the district will go back and work on a potential IEP, and we’ll get our follow up meeting in a few weeks.
Given, once all of that is established, we may still not want to be sending Henry to in person pre-K with the current state of COVID. We were relieved to find out that once he gets assessed and accepted, we have the flexibility to start him whenever we feel the conditions are best. We just look forward to having this legwork completed so we can make the call when it feels appropriate.
After a super busy morning, it felt like all of us were feeling a little tired in the afternoon. It was pretty low key, and after Amelia was done with school, the kids once again gathered to watch Spongebob videos on Amelia’s new loft bed.
For dinner, I made some risotto and scallops.
I love making scallops, because it feels so fancy (and indeed these do cost a few bucks), but is about the easiest thing imaginable to make. You heat some oil and butter, salt and pepper the scallops, and sear each side for about 3 minutes. Viola! Fancy dinner.
That’ll do for Monday. Another week…started.
