Today was the big IEP meeting. With only 6 days remaining before school begins, we had to finally choose a placement for Miss Kat.
(A reminder for the folks at home), our choices are:
1. ASL bilingual bicultural, voice off program. She can receive up to 40 minutes a week (though in the past it has been limited to 20) of SPEECH therapy. It is not spoken language or aural rehab, simply speech. All of speech therapy will be conducted in SIM-COM. "SLP" has never worked on spoken language acquisition in deaf children with CI's. She herself admits she doesn't know what to do, and only knows "speech". Interaction in spoken language in the classroom would be limited to phonetic awareness, and always used with signing.
2. Auditory oral (oral only) classroom for the deaf. Miss Kat would get no ASL support here. No one signs or understands sign.
3. Mainstream with an interpreter. She wouldn't have any direct instruction from a Teacher of the Deaf and she would be the only deaf child in the school. Oh, and our neighborhood school sucks!
So, we sat down at the table, with the booklet that I sent out to all the team members. It was a compilation of all the assessments Miss Kat has had, her audiograms, and our goals. Right from the start I said, "We believe that Miss Kat will use ASL everyday for the rest of her life. We also believe that she can learn to listen and to speak. We don't mean that she will use an interpreter, or a pen and paper when she communicates with hearing people. We don't mean that she will lipread, or that she will learn a few simple phrases. We believe that she will use and understand spoken language fluently. So, we need to find a plan that will help her achieve this."
What we finally came up with was this: Miss Kat will be attending the Oral deaf education class. She will receive Teacher of the Deaf services from a teacher who specialises in ASL, at least once a week, for 30 minutes. That teacher will pre-teach material from the classroom, bridge information, and just generally continue to help Miss Kat learn and use ASL. We are sort of modeling as "ASL therapy" pull-outs instead of speech!
We will be having another IEP with the new teachers to write new goals.
This IEP is valid for the first semester. We will be having another meeting to reassess after that time, to make sure this placement is working.
This is the very short and tidy version. I have cut out all the crying and the confession that Miss Kat told me she want to go to the "talking school" and all my fears about becoming the dreaded "oral mom".
I think this is the best plan we could come up with. I am glad we found a way to make sure Miss Kat is still getting ASL. We are also going to continue to be active in the Deaf community, and attend our Deaf church. We have a monthly playdate set up with one of Miss Kat's best friends, and we will be attending the bi-bi school's 10th anniversary party a week from Saturday.
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Yeah, Miss Kat will still be signing. We want her to be BI-lingual. We have spent 5 years on her L1 (ASL) and now the focus is shifting to emphasis her L2 (English). It has been a difficult decision, but we need to allow her the opportunity to succeed in both, and this is what
we believe is the best way to make sure that can happen.
6 comments:
Yes, it's been a difficult but good decision to arrive at, and the best thing about it is that it combines both alternatives and is open to flexibility, also it is a limited-term IEP good for one semester.
Very bright children will do well no matter what school they go to as long as their parents are involved and flexible. As time goes on, it will become clearer what the next step should be.
Keep the books coming in! Reading brings so much more language and information that it makes both oral and ASL pale in comparision.
I was worried reading about your options but your solution sounds ideal! I know that deaf children need concentrated attention to learn speech. The pull-out model for ASL should be very handy. Pre-teaching in ASL and using ASL to bridge to English is exactly the right approach.
Congratulations.
Yeah! Look forward to hearing all about it.
You are an inspiration to other parents. Thank you for sharing. Miss Kat has a bright future ahead of her and I can't wait to hear more.
Sounds like a great decision, at least for now, you'll have to update us on Miss Kat's progress!!
She is at the beginning of her educational journey, and my daughter is nearing the end of hers--I can see the end of your daughter's road from here...and it looks awesome! :) My daughter's first language is spoken English and she LOVES using it...your daughter's first language is ASL and she also seems to love to use it. My daughter is becoming quite fluent in her second language--ASL--and your daughter will surely become very fluent in her second language--spoken English. All is good! Our daughters will be ready to live independent lives while being very proud of who they are: sweet and beautiful deaf girls who have the best of both worlds. Hey...is Kat into Hannah Montana? You know--the best of both worlds song and the whole idea in the show?--kind of applies, doesn't it?
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