UNDER CONSTRUCTION

January 2005

· Owen Matthew is born.

February 2005

· Intense Colic.  Pediatrician suggest changing formula and see if helps. It didn’t.

· Parents found that tight swaddling works to calm him.  Also holding him close, tightly, and covering with a blanket helps.

· Easily upset by environmental stimuli — particularly sunlight and loud random noise.

June 2005

· At a well visit appointment with pediatrician, Dr. expresses some concern over lack of gross motor skills – Owen does not put weight on his legs nor does he push back on Dr.’s hands when legs are pushed on.  Rx: Gross motor delay.   Dr. gives parents suggestions on what to do to help Owen.

July 2007 – October 2007

· family moves to Buenos Aires, Argentina

· Owen is delayed in hitting most developmental milestones — rolling over, crawling, walking, talking

· Parents begin to have concerns but do not panic.  Consult with pediatrician and embassy doctors who suggest we keep an eye on things but note that all kids develop differently…some faster than others.

· begin to notice particular behaviors, including:  not responding to his name, playing with toys in a particular way and not deviating from that routine, lining things up, like pencils and stickers and cars, intense and unpredictable tantrums – including throwing himself backwards on the floor and hitting is head, repetitive behaviors, rocking, toe walking, lack of interest in other children…and so on…

February 2007

· Owen begins Pre-K 2 class

November 2007

· Parents receive school progress report.  At end-of-year meetings, preschool teachers express concerns with Owen’s development.  Request that he be evaluated by either a developmental pediatrician and or psychologist before he can enroll for upcoming year.

· After consulting with the State Department’s Regional Psychiatrist it was suggested that Owen be sent for a comprehensive developmental evaluation.

December 2007

· The school report, combined with parents’ previous concerns over Owen’s lack of speech/language, frequent and intense tantrums, repetitive behaviors, and other “autistic like” traits, leads to a medical evacuation of Owen for testing.  Evaluation is scheduled for mid February at the Children’s Development Center of South Miami Baptist Hospital.

Feb 2008

· Owen undergoes a week long evaluation at South Miami Hospital, including comprehensive psycho-educational evaluation, speech and language evaluation and hearing testing.

· Immediate results show that Owen has a bilateral hearing loss at 500 Mhz.  It is recommended that he sees an ENT and that he is retested.  At this point, not sure if it is temporary or a permanent loss.

· Results for Speech/Language evaluation and Psycho-educational evaluation to be expected in March/April time frame.

March 2008

· Receive Speech and Language evaluation report.  Owen is within age range and scores are consistent for a child you had just started speaking only 1 month before testing.  Suggests additional testing in pragmatics, etc.  Parent’s consult with lead psychologist on the evaluation regarding results — she does not fully agree with findings.

April 2008

· Meeting via phone with psychologist to review Owen’s evaluation results.   Conclusion is a diagnosis of PDD-NOS, placing him on autism spectrum.

· Owen’s State Department Medical Clearance Downgraded to Class 2.  Started to look for services in Argentina that would fulfill the recommendations made by the report.  Was unsuccessful.

· With support of Department of State Medical, curtailed assignment from Buenos Aires, Argentina to return to United States to get Owen the services he needed.

· Assigned to office in Greensboro, NC

· Arrive in North Carolina on April 19th.

· Met withOrange Country Public School Exceptional Children’s preschool coordinator on April 22. Presented school with evaluation reports, preschool report and all materials relevant to Owen’s educational needs.

· Met Casey Palmer of New Hope ASD Consulting regarding behavioral therapy options.

· Owen had an Occupation Therapy Evaluation, as suggested in initial report from Miami. This was conducted by Triangle Therapy.

May 2008

· Have Initial Referral Meeting with IEP team on May 23rd.

· Received an email from LEA on May 24th that included the following “Since all testing scores indicate that Owen is not delayed in any area of development, he would not be eligible for services based on testing results. But, since you and your husband had concerns regarding behaviors that might interfere with his ability to successfully interact with peers or be successful in an educational setting we decided that we would include him in our playgroup this Wednesday afternoon which would allow us to observe him with peers in an educational setting.”

· Owen attends playgroup for observations at Pathways Elementary School on May 28th.  Classroom includes 5 boys, all with IEPs, and 2 adults – 1 SLP and 1 OT.

June 2008

· Owen attends playgroup for further observation at Pathways Elementary School on June 19th.  Classroom includes 3 girls, all with IEPs, and 3 adults – 1 SLP, 1 OT and 1 School Psychologist.

July 2008

· IEP Eligibility Meeting on July 10th. New LEA is present.  To our surprise — surprised because of the email received in May – the team determined Owen eligible for EC services under autism (AU).  Decided to draft IEP goals and objectives and meet again on July 22nd to combine, edit and finalize.

· On July 22nd, IEP team met to develop goals and objectives and to discuss placement.  IEP goals and objectives were drafted, agreed upon and finalized.  Discussions on placement ended at an impasse with OCS offering 3 hours/week of services provided via a 2x week 90min playgroup and60 min of related services withOT therapy.  Meeting concluded with team deciding to explore options and re-meet.

· Team reconvenes to discuss placement on July 30th.  No progress made.  Schools wouldn’t discuss, let alone offer, any other options aside from the 2x week 90 min playgroup and the 60 min of related services with OT therapy.  Parents brought up all the possible options that they were aware of – FPG, CLC, Head Start classroom, More at Four classrooms, private placement — and asked for school district to tell us about the other options that they have available on their continuum of services.  They responded by saying the only thing that is available to Owen is the playgroup.  We requested a matrix or some sort of outline/instructional plan showing how the services offered would allow Owen to meet his goals.  School representative said that she could not provide us with such a document but would get back to us.  We requested that the schools respond to our requests for placement – including a preschool classroom, behavioral supports, at minimum 25 hours/week of services, and an instructional plan – on a Dec 5 form — Prior Written Notice – and gave them 10 working days to get back to us in writing.

to be continued….