Here’s your dose of geography for the day…Matt Harding traveled around the world, videotaping himself dancing a goofy dance in dozens of countries. Make sure your speakers are up, and get ready to smile.
(Obligatory disclaimer for parents viewing with young children: the title of the video has a mild swear word.)
First things first: I am happy to report that Friday’s adventure in ick wasn’t the first wave of something worse; Wonderboy stayed healthy over the weekend. Must have been carsickness (again).
But I promised to tell you how the IEP meeting went. It was a very good meeting and I got exactly the outcome I was looking for: Wonderboy will receive speech therapy and audiological services (ear molds, hearing tests) from our local school district.
There were six people at the meeting, plus me (and the boy and the baby). Audiologist, district school psychologist, two speech pathologists, itinerant deaf/HH teacher, deaf/HH preschool classroom teacher. That’s six, right? A goodish crowd. All very nice, all respectful and eager to meet us where we are.
After introductions, we discussed the various options open to my boy (preschool, private speech therapy, etc.). We talked about the results of his speech evaluation and his history. The deaf/HH preschool teacher described her program, which is a four-hour/five-day preschool in which three other students are currently enrolled. It sounds like quite a nice little program, but I don’t think it best fits the needs and situation of Wonderboy and the rest of our family, so I declined that option, choosing private speech therapy sessions and audiology services instead.
Then we looked at the "goals" that had been drawn up by the speech therapist, itinerant deaf/HH teacher, and audiologist. The way it works is you must spell out, on special forms, the goals you’re aiming for and the specific services that apply to each. For example, one goal for Wonderboy is to be able to make several additional consonant sounds in a year’s time. ("Child will correctly produce consonant-vowel-consonant words containing the phonemes b, p, m, t, d, with amplification [hearing aids], with 90% accuracy.") (That doesn’t guarantee he definitely WILL meet that goal by this time next year, but that’s what we’ll be aiming for.)
I was in complete agreement with the speech therapist’s goals and recommendations. I approved those pages and they made it into the final IEP.
However, I did not agree with the necessity of the itinerant teacher’s goals/recommendations. Her goal had to do with language development—not sounds, but using words and sentences—and I do not see a need for outside help in that area. (To put it another way: we can homeschool him in that just fine.) The teacher, who is a very nice and pleasant person, described a curriculum she would like to use—both directly with Wonderboy and "training" me to use it myself. I had to suppress a smile. The curriculum is designed to get a child talking about all the different parts of his day, using conversation about household objects and activities to develop facility with sentences and individual parts of speech.
I think we’ve got that covered.
So we scrapped that goal and its accompanying recommendation for services. This was not a big deal; there was no tension involved. As the parent, the final say on goals and services is up to me. But it was also up to me to decline this section of the proposed IEP.
I mention that here because I think it’s an important part of understanding the IEP process. The school district can make recommendations, but the parent must approve every syllable of the documentation. If you’re not happy with what’s in the IEP, don’t sign it until you are!
Which leads me to a very interesting and important thing I learned at the end of the meeting. I need to look into whether this applies to California only or the entire nation. As my pen was poised to sign the final paperwork, the psychologist notified me (as she is legally bound to do) that once the parent signs the IEP, the child is officially "in the system," and the parent can’t just decide later to pull him out of services without a big to-do. From that point on, the appropriate district personnel (in this case, speech therapist) must agree that the child no longer needs these services in order to cancel them.
This is a significant point. Apparently, it is a recent change to the law (again, I’m not sure whether we’re talking state or federal law—I’ll get back to you on that) during the past year.
Naturally, this caught my interest. I don’t like to be boxed into anything! Now, this news did not affect my course of action, because Scott and I had already made the decision to access these services through the school district instead of seeking them privately. We weighed the pros and cons before I ever picked up the phone to call the district.
But I was curious about how exactly this provision works. I asked what would happen if a parent wanted to pull her kid out of services, say, a month or two down the road. One of the teachers explained that if the speech therapist (or physical therapist, OT, etc) did not agree that the child’s special needs no longer existed, the case would have to go to mediation. If an agreement could not be reached—which I assume means "if the parent still wants out"—then the school district would initiate a due process hearing.
Got that, homeschoolers? If you decide to tap into the public schools’ special-needs services (which is your right), be sure you’re completely comfortable with the goals and services spelled out on the IEP before you sign it. Because once you do, you’re committed. Or rather, your child is. In California, at least.
So did I sign, you’re wondering. Yes. I do want to access the speech therapy and audiology services (ear molds, hearing tests) to which my son is entitled. After all, my tax dollars are helping to pay for these services. But this new law makes it all the more important to do your homework and to read the paperwork with an eagle eye. Make sure the IEP says exactly what you want, and not a syllable more, before you give it your John Hancock.
Related posts on accessing public services for special needs:
I seldom cross-post, but I posted this on the bread blog today and thought it might be of interest to my Lilting House readers too:
Jane and I are exploring the science behind the sourdough loaves we’re baking. Found this fun site: The Science of Cooking. An excerpt from the sourdough page:
In addition to flour, water, and yeast, your starter also contains
bacteria. When these bacteria feed on the sugars in flour, they produce
acidic by-products. This is what gives sourdoughits sour taste.Actually, all doughs contain at least some bacteria. So why aren’t
all breads sour? In doughs made with bakers’ yeast (the kind you buy in
the store), the yeast outnumber the bacteria. Since both compete for
the same sugars, the yeast win out, and the bacteria don’t have a
chance to produce their acidic by-products. In sourdough, yeast and
bacteria are more closely balanced, so the bacteria have a chance to
add their flavors to the bread.Sourdoughs and other raised breads also differ from one another
because of the eating habits of the yeasts that make them rise. The
predominant yeast in sourdough, Saccharomyces exiguus, cannot
metabolize maltose, one of the sugars present in flour. Baker’s yeast,
on the other hand, has no trouble feeding on this sugar. Since the
bacteria that give sourdough its taste need maltose to live, they do
much better in the company of sourdough’s yeast because they don’t have
to compete for this sugar.
Other links:
The history & microbiology of sourdough
That Science of Cooking site has a lot of other neat stuff. The candy page is especially interesting. We might just have to do a unit study on candy one of these days…chemistry AND physics! (And with sourdough we’ve got biology too.)
Hmm, the high educational value of this topic might make it a good post for Lilting House.
Jane and I are exploring the science behind the loaves we’re baking. Found this fun site: The Science of Cooking. An excerpt from the sourdough page:
In addition to flour, water, and yeast, your starter also contains bacteria. When these bacteria feed on the sugars in flour, they produce acidic by-products. This is what gives sourdoughits sour taste.
Actually, all doughs contain at least some bacteria. So why aren’t all breads sour? In doughs made with bakers’ yeast (the kind you buy in the store), the yeast outnumber the bacteria. Since both compete for the same sugars, the yeast win out, and the bacteria don’t have a chance to produce their acidic by-products. In sourdough, yeast and bacteria are more closely balanced, so the bacteria have a chance to add their flavors to the bread.
Sourdoughs and other raised breads also differ from one another because of the eating habits of the yeasts that make them rise. The predominant yeast in sourdough, Saccharomyces exiguus, cannot metabolize maltose, one of the sugars present in flour. Baker’s yeast, on the other hand, has no trouble feeding on this sugar. Since the bacteria that give sourdough its taste need maltose to live, they do much better in the company of sourdough’s yeast because they don’t have to compete for this sugar.
Other links:
The history & microbiology of sourdough:
Sourdough culture is a yeast living symbiotically with a friendly
lacto-bacteria. We need to start with enough of the right organisms so
that they can become the dominant culture, food and water and the right
temperature.
Given the right organisms, the optimum temperature is just
over 80F/27C. Much hotter and the activity of the yeast declines. Above
95F/35C the yeast is effectively dormant or dead. The bacterial
activity peaks at 93F/34C, so some bakers choose to ferment at 90F/32C
to get a sourer bread. At 70F/21C the activity of the yeast has roughly
halved, so the fermentation will take twice as long.
I’ve been meaning to put together a post containing the various links helpful people have sent me since Jane and I began this blog. I really appreciate all the great advice you folks have sent my way—thanks so much!
Someone (sadly, I cannot remember who) recommended this site: The Fresh Loaf, a vast collection of articles and links about all aspects of bread-baking. The site also includes a discussion forum where newbies can post questions for more seasoned bakers to answer.
Some articles on this site that particularly caught my eye:
Wild Yeast Sourdough Starter (how to make your own starter using flour and pineapple juice).
Deluxe Sourdough Bread recipe
Why Yeasts Attack (background info on sourdough baking; good walkthrough with pictures)
More About Sourdough (part two of the above)
Lesson Two (step by step instructions for yeast bread, not sourdough)
Domenico Bettinelli left a link to a much-discussed NYT article about a slow-rise, no-knead method of breadbaking. You need an NYT account to access the article, but there is a video demonstration here.
I continue to spend a lot of time on Teresa’s Northwest Sourdough site and blog. I really appreciate her detailed walk-throughs with pictures. (And I can now testify as to the scrumptiousness of bread made with her NW Sourdough starter!)
…in baking a really fine loaf of sourdough bread.
It isn’t a perfect loaf, but it’s a vast improvement upon our first two attempts with sourdough, and it tastes really, really good. The crust has a nutty flavor so delicious we can’t stop breaking off little bits for "just one more" taste.
The recipe we used calls for a starter at 166% hydration, which is to say: maintained with one part flour, two parts water. We had to figure out how to adjust it for a 100% hydration starter (maintained with equal parts flour and water) because—and I know this is a little silly but we don’t care—it is such fun to have a nice thick starter bubbling in the crock a little too vigorously so there’s always that danger it will overflow. For the same reason, I don’t want to keep the crock in the fridge even though we aren’t yet baking enough to justify feeding a starter daily. We don’t care. Flour is cheap. We’re having fun.
Jane says she still likes baking yeast breads best, because there is so much more kneading. We’re going to shoot for one sourdough baking and one yeast bread baking each week. I’m so grateful to JoVE, whose post inspired us to start!
Things we need to figure out:
• The recipe said to proof the dough in a bowl lined with a proofing cloth sprinkled with flour. No problem there, but how do you then transfer the dough to your baking stone without deflating it? Ours was a pretty oozy dough (don’t know the right terminology)—not firm like our honey wheat yeast bread dough has been—and by the time I got it onto the stone, it was a big flat blob and I was sure it was going to be a complete flop. It did rise more in the oven, though, so we wound up with a nice big round loaf, a little dense but not a bad texture at all. But still, there has got to be a better way to make the switch. I wish I could watch a real baker do it. I have no technique.
• The slashing! Why can’t I get this right? I even got the special bread slashing tool. I’m too timid with my cuts. I don’t go deep enough. Again, I think it would help to see someone do it. But I guess I just need to cut deeper, with less hesitation.
What a treat is in store for you today! The latest Carnival of Children’s Literature is up at Big A little a. This month’s host, Kelly, has done a marvelous job. Thanks so much, Kelly, for your hard work.
Now go enjoy!
Yesterday’s IEP meeting went very well, and I was going to tell you all about it during quiet time today, but there WAS no quiet time. Because we went out this morning, and Wonderboy threw up in the van on the way home. And Rose got a bad splinter stuck in her palm. And I’m still doing laundry to clean up from the massive nosebleed my poor boy incurred yesterday when he face-planted on concrete as we left the aforementioned IEP meeting. Also, he has diarrhea.
Oy.
But I did learn some interesting things, and I’m happy with the outcome of the meeting, and I’ll try to write about it this weekend. When, you know, Scott is home to help clean up the bodily fluids my children cannot seem to keep inside their sweet little bodies.
Last month I posted about beginning the process of setting Wonderboy up with speech therapy services through our local public schools. These things take time (especially during the holidays), and we are just now moving to the next step. Today will be the "goals" meeting with various district personnel to determine what will go in Wonderboy’s IEP, or Individualized Education Plan.
This important document will spell out what services Wonderboy will be getting from the district and what our goals are for his progress in the next six to twelve months. If he were enrolled in a public school, the IEP would also define what special arrangements would be necessary to help him in a classroom: accomodations such as an aide, an FM system, seating near the teacher, and so forth. (I’m giving broad examples here, not necessarily things that would apply to a three-year-old.)
In the home, meeting Wonderboy’s specific needs is much easier and more intuitive than would be the case in a preschool setting, so his IEP will serve chiefly to get him speech therapy. We have a couple of options for this, and part of my job as his "case manager" has been to educate myself about the possibilities. Our district does have a dedicated deaf/hard-of-hearing preschool classroom, and I have been strongly encouraged by district personnel to consider placing him in this class. I don’t at all mind their making a pitch for the preschool: it’s part of their job.
Neither do I have any qualms about politely declining the offer. Deciding what’s best for him is part of MY job.
Here are the steps that led up to today’s meeting:
• Knowing Wonderboy qualified for speech therapy, I called the district special education office and requested an evaluation. (Even if you are only wondering whether your child qualifies for services, you can call and request an eval. The purpose of the eval is to assess whether there is indeed a qualifying need. For children over three, call the local school district’s special ed office. For children under three, call the Early Intervention office. Google your town’s name and "early intervention" and you’ll probably find the number easily.)
• The special ed office asked me to fax over his IFSP (Individualized Family Service Plan). This is the equivalent of the IEP for three-and-unders. If we had not had an IFSP—that is, if I were seeking services for the first time—the special ed office might have asked to meet with us before setting up the eval, but not necessarily. The eval itself is what determines the child’s need for services. Certain medical information can be helpful, such as Wonderboy’s latest audiologist report.
• Special ed passed our name and number to the district speech pathologist (since I was asking for speech therapy). She called and set up the evaluation I wrote about in December. If I had wanted, a physical therapist could also have been present. (I opted to postpone his PT eval for a few months.)
• Also present at the evaluation was the district’s school psychologist. This is standard practice.
• The evaluation determined what we all already knew would be the case: Wonderboy does qualify for speech therapy through the district.
• Today’s IEP meeting was scheduled. This took some coordinating, as there is a rather large team of folks involved. This is why I think it’s important for parents to do their homework—especially homeschooling parents, but really it applies to all of us. It can be intimidating to walk into a roomful of school-system professionals. They are there to help, and as parent, you are the person in charge; but it can be hard for parents to remember that.
The "team" of people at Wonderboy’s meeting will be: speech pathologist, school psychologist, traveling deaf/HH teacher, dedicated deaf/HH classroom teacher, and district audiologist (yay!!). I think that’s it. And me, of course—on this team, I’m the coach!
• After the IEP meeting was scheduled, I got calls from most of the folks on this team. I had short preliminary meetings with the traveling deaf/HOH teacher and the school psychologist.
• Which brings us up to today. I’ll let you know how it goes.