Maggie's IEP meeting

Another marathon 3rd grade IEP meeting has passed.  The school had agreed with us that Maggie was nowhere near where she should be for her grade level and they have done a full evaluation.  It had many similarities to Ben's, but also was very different.  As with Ben, Maggie's IQ tested in the normal range, 100.  Her performance scores were well below this in all categories.  To qualify for Special School District services, she has to be performing at least 22 points below her IQ score.    She qualifies in all areas and so now SSD will take over much of her remedial education.  She will get pulled out of the classroom for 2 hours every day to work on math, reading and comprehension.  She also qualifies for speech therapy, but her language is OK.

She also has a lot of behaviour problems both at home and school.  Her teacher reported that she is very hyperactive and aggressive in the classroom.  SSD will also work on her social interaction skills with her.  I asked her teacher if she thought Maggie needed some kind of medication to help her concentrate.  Her teacher (who also had Ben) said that Ben was more distracted by others in the classroom that were disruptive, but Maggie was the disruptive leader in the classroom.  I guess medication is something we can consider in the future, but we are hoping that if they can improve her understanding of the material, then she may do better.

Essentially, Maggie is performing at the beginning of 1st grade level.  This means that she really doesn't understand the majority of what they are being taught right now.  It's not surprising that she gets bored and starts trouble.  Maggie's strength is visual concepts (exactly the same as Daniel).  They are going to work much more on visual clues for her, I think this will help a lot.  Many of the data they obtained would explain a lot.  I'm really not sure exactly what she thinks when she talks to people on the phone.  She can talk to Jan & Julie or Milly and then doesn't really seem able to associate the phone call with the person.  When she sees them, it's almost like she is learning who they are all over again at the beginning.  She has certain things she latches on to-fishing with Milly, the dog with Jan and Julie, but everything else is very vague.  More than anything, Maggie is really drawn to animals, I'll have to get her a job in Comparative Medicine!!!!
Overall, I was very happy with the meeting.  The results were exactly what we have seen over time.  I think this is really going to help Maggie in the future in all kinds of ways