Getting a "Grip"

Well, Rachel's meeting is in 2 days -- Monday morning. This is the first meeting I'm attending since each of the twins were officially placed in their respective programs last December. For Rachel's meeting 10.5 months ago, I was terrified, but prepared. We knew where she was, what she needed and everything went pretty much exactly as predicted. And from that point forward, things have gone so well for her. But has it gone too well?

Fortunately for me, this meeting is about Rachel, and not Simon. Directions are totally clear. She is thriving and things need to continue. The best way for that to happen is for things to remain the same. And I'm not the only person who sees it that way. There will be at least 2 others in that meeting who feel she belongs in her current program. However, unlike the initial meeting where everyone was on the same page, it has been implied to me that there will be others in the room who will feel that she needs to move to a less-restrictive program and her placement will be a discussion.

I know that the current philosophy is that children should be in the "least restrictive environment". However, what happens when the "more" restrictive environments provides the services that a particular child NEEDS? The CAPP program always appears, to me at least, to be the MOST restrictive program offered to autistic children by the Montgomery County Public Schools. However, this is the ABA-intensive program that is offered. As we've seen over and over again, that's what works for Rachel. And, to borrow a long-existing expression, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". I only hope that the rest of the committee sees things in that same light. If not, I have a lot of convincing to do.

But, surprisingly, I'm calm, and relatively collected. I know things will work out. As I said earlier, Rachel's the easy one.

We are still hopeful that in, say 5 years, that we will bring Rachel in for a visit at KKI and they will inform us that she no longer qualifies as being on the spectrum at all. That, we know, is unrealistic. But the possibility of her being in a mainstream classroom for kindergarten was unrealistic 14 months ago and now we are seeing some early signs of this becoming a "reality". Given where we started and the positive strides she's taken to date, wouldn't that be an amazing thing!