Going Downhill Fast
Discussion of topics to build awareness, increase knowledge-base, and ultimately assist in conquering the challenges of being special parents of kids with special needs, such as those with autism or adhd.
So, my son's first day of Kindergarten was on August 9th. By August 22nd, he had been transferred to a different elementary school by the Special Education Department because they said they felt it was in my son's best interest to be moved. While my son was in Pre-K, he had started to act out very aggressively toward the end on the school year. The behavior seemed to come out of nowhere. Not that he had never previously had moments of aggression. He had his moments. However, the Special Education team he had at the time described an escalated level of violent behavior that had not been taking place earlier in the school year. We actually had an IEP meeting about it close to the end of the school year. Needless to say, I was very concerned about how my son's behavior would be as we started Kindergarten in a new school with new teachers and classmates.
Well, days were going by and I was not getting much feedback. There were no daily reports coming home. My child was not even bringing home any completed work. Most times when I dropped off and picked up my son, the paraprofessionals were pretty non-communicative. They were tight-lipped. I sensed that they were quite eager to release him to me in the afternoon, but not quite as eager to receive him in the morning. It was very subtle. So, sometimes I would ask, "How was today?" I would get back something like, "The morning was good," earlier on.
One para in the previous school, was so kind to give me a little more detail when I asked how the day was. She told me that my son had kicked another student, but that she noticed he was imitating another child when he did it. She said that my son, "likes to copy his peers." My son saw a boy kick someone, then he kicked the boy too. Doesn't make me happy to hear that he kicked another child, but this was valuable information to me and I appreciated her observation. It is beneficial to ask questions.
Obviously, though, I can't get much feedback at drop off/ pick up times. In fact, one of the times I was talking to a para to inquire about how the day went, I believe it was the assistant principal of the school that discouraged us from having that conversation there in the waiting area of the main office. She told the para that a conference room needed to be used for our discussion. We can't be having official meetings in the conference room everyday after school, can we?
Therefore, on August 29th, I reached out to his teacher to tell her that I would really appreciate as much feedback that she could give me regarding my son's performance and behavior everyday. She told me that she was currently working on a daily sheet because she couldn't find one that she liked for reporting behavior and other things throughout the day. I received his first Daily Note Home on September 6th.
In the beginning, for the most part, his Daily Reports reflected good mornings. The afternoons were either ok or bad. There were a couple of days where he was good all day earlier on.
Some examples of his earlier reports:
Now, one of the paras left and was replaced by someone else. I believe her last day was September 16th. Shortly after her departure, my son's behavior started to decline rapidly. Later on, I was told by the Principal that the para who left was not the one who generally worked with my son in the classroom. However, I do know that that para had, at least, some contact with my son during the day because she would bring him up to the office a lot when I picked him up. On one occasion, I watched her tell my son she was proud of him when he had a good day.
On September 19th, there was a message on his daily report that said my son had refused to go with the Speech Therapist and began attacking friends and teachers. He was "scratching...pulling hair... throwing things." His Daily Reports were like this now:
Of course, it was very disturbing to receive such negative reports. A couple of times, I got a call from the school nurse. The first time she called, she said the teacher or paras said that my son said his ear was hurting. They observed him pulling on his ear. No problem. I simply went to pick him up from school so I could take him to the doctor's office to have his ear checked out.
The doctor's office was packed and we had to wait a long time to be seen. No easy feat to wait an hour in a waiting room with a kid who has autism and adhd. But we survived and he was seen. The doctor looked at him and his ears and found nothing alarming. Due to his speech delay, my son often does not speak clearly and accurately to express how he feels physically. He may say some part of his body "hurts" when it is just itching. The doctor reasoned that if he said his ear hurt, he may have just been referring to some little pressure he felt in his ear. She saw no infection.
Understandably, from the teacher's standpoint, my son's aggressive behavior may have been attributed to him not feeling well. The doctor did prescribe more Flonase and Claritin as she said the pressure he may feel may be due to a combination of allergies and virus. I sent my son back to school with a doctor's note.
Just two days later, I was getting a call from the school nurse again. Again, she said my son was pulling on his ear and saying his ear hurt. I told her that I had just taken him to the doctor who said his ears were fine. The school nurse told me she looked into his ear and saw globs of earwax. On my child's doctor's visit, the doctor indicated that she saw a little earwax. She used an instrument at that time to remove it so she could clearly see into his ear to make sure there was no infection. So, I told the nurse that that was strange, her seeing globs of earwax, because the doctor hadn't seen globs of it. I clearly saw the small amount of earwax on the instrument the doctor used to remove some. I explained that perhaps some earwax had loosened and shifted down in his ear because he likes to go under water in the bathtub. For some moments, there was dead silence on the phone as I believe she expected me to say that I would be right there to pick up my son. "I'm sorry," I said. "You want me to come pick him up because he has earwax?" She replied, "The Principal wants you to come pick him up, yes."
I thought it was ridiculous. I had just taken him to the doctor and was told his ears were ok. Now, I should pull him out of school because the school nurse says she sees earwax?
Clearly, this was about something else. They were unable to manage my son in the classroom, I thought. He was problematic, so they were looking for ways to relieve themselves of having to deal with him. It seemed I had no choice but to pick him up. But before I did, I called the Principal. Our conversation confirmed what I had suspected. My Special Ed kid was acting up; they don't know why and want to blame it on ear pain; they need me to pick him up.
I went to get him and called the doctor's office to explain the situation because what else was I to do? Bring him back to school the next day just for them to call me to come get him again because 'he said his ear hurts' or because 'he has earwax'?
Basically, the doctor's office was reluctant to see him when he had just been seen. I was assured that there was no infection. All he needed was some Debrox for earwax which I could do at home. I was told that having a kid's ears cleaned at the doctor's office could put them at risk of having their little eardrums damaged. Better to try Debrox. Ok, I thought, but what about the school? They were going to keep harping about something being wrong with his ears if I didn't come back with a doctor's note. So, they prepared a note for me stating that his ears had been checked and were fine; that Debrox was prescribed for any earwax; and that he was ok to go to school.
Interestingly, the lady at the doctor's office with whom I spoke said, "The schools don't want to do their job." She said they want to keep sending kids home and to the doctor's office instead of figuring out how to manage them at school. I couldn't argue with that. It seems to be the case, occasionally.
After the second doctor's note was provided and a few days later, the Principal called me directly to come pick my son up. I spoke with her in her office on that day. She was describing his aggressive behaviors and asking me what triggers him. I was trying to get a better understanding of what was going on with him at school because at home there had been no sudden increase of aggressiveness or bad behavior. I told her that I felt like was son was nose-diving.
I didn't tell her this, but I thought I was having symptoms of PTSD. When it came time to pick up my son, my heart would beat fast. I dreaded it. All day, I was worried about what bad behavior they would say my son had committed. If my phone made a ping sound, I would jump, thinking that someone was calling me to pick him up.
Plus, I never saw any work from him. On September 15th, I messaged his teacher my concerns that he never came home with any completed work since he started in her class. I asked if he was completing anything at all. Her response was that most of their learning activities were not done with paper and pencil at that time. She said my son was participating in activities and was often a role model for participation by the others as he understands instructions quickly. I found it hard to believe that he was a role model for anything with all of the negative reports I was getting. And it seemed like all they were doing was recording his bad behavior. Nothing was being done successfully to prevent and correct it.
Were they simply planning to record his bad behavior without really attempting to correct it so they could justify sending him to another less appealing alternative placement? That's certainly what it felt like. I had heard and read horror stories about such placements for kids with special needs. Immediately after that meeting with the Principal, I requested an IEP meeting. It took 2 weeks before the meeting was held. On the day before the IEP meeting, my son was suspended from school for a day because he damaged some property.
The situation was really escalating. At this point, I called the Coordinator of Special Education and had a long conversation with her. The last time we spoke, she said my son was doing well in the class. Now, he was crashing and burning. I told her that the teacher and Principal keep asking me about what triggers my son at home. The fact is, his home environment is very different from his school environment. He is an only child at home and it's a small, contained environment where he interacts mainly with me. At school, there are many other people and scenarios that could arise to trigger his aggression. Asking me what triggers him was not good enough, especially since I'm not there in the school with him during the day to know exactly what is going on. I asked if we could get a Functional Behavioral Assessment done on my son. Yes, that is something they can do, I was told. The FBA would bring to light what triggers him. Why hadn't they suggested it to me before? Why did I have to stumble across it while frantically researching online? Why did I have to ask for it? It appears that if you don't ask for it, you won't get it. At any rate, it felt good to take action and have the IEP meeting and the FBA to look forward to.
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