DW and I participated in back-to-back IEP meetings for our two boys on Wednesday. If you have special needs children, or have close friends or relatives with special needs children, you probably know that IEP stands for Individual Education Planning.

We had IEPs in March, and we asked for some special evaluations for each son. For DS2, we asked that he be evaluated for occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy. He has Cerebral Palsy and hearing loss.

So, this IEP was the school's opportunity to present their findings, and discuss the changes to the IEPs that were set in March. DS2 was granted one-on-one speech therapy and consulting physical therapy, and maintains consulting occupational therapy, as he had before.

For DS1, we requested an educational diagnosis of autism. Three MDs and two psychologists have diagnosed DS1 with autism. I'll point out that a medical autism diagnosis is different than an educational diagnosis. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, children with an educational diagnosis of autism are eligible for specific educational accommodations and supports at school. That can also be read as "children with an educational diagnosis of autism are more expensive for the school."

What I think happened in the early '90s, after the ADA was passed was that (some) doctors would willy nilly hand out diagnoses of autism so that children could receive services from schools. Schools became overwhelmed, and provisions were made so that the diagnosis (for services provided by schools) had to be made by a team of education professionals. For example, the team that evaluated DS1 was made up of: the school psychologist, the school social worker, and the school speech pathologist.

I'll also add that we had DS1 evaluated by the school two years ago, just after he began attending there. At that time, he was evaluated to have "autism like tendencies", but he was one check mark away (on the sheet of autism markers used for evaluation) from having an educational diagnosis.

Interestingly, after this new evaluation was complete, he was again one check mark away from having an educational diagnosis, but the check mark was in a different spot on the sheet. That is, an item that was not checked two years ago was checked this time, and an item that was checked two years ago was not checked this time.

DW received the results of the evaluation the day before the IEP (less than 24 hours). We knew we had a challenge ahead of us, and we began brainstorming ideas. What we came up with was to invite DW’s sister to advocate for us. DW is the youngest of eight children. The sister we invited is her oldest sister, and she is about 19 years older than DW. She is very strong willed, and can be a great advocate, or a terrible adversary. And, her background is in Human Services.

I’ll leave out most of the details of the meeting. What I will say is that IEPs are typically scheduled for 45 minutes to an hour. Our second IEP lasted nearly two hours. Sister-in-law did a great job advocating for us, but DW didn’t do so bad herself. I even made an impassioned point, while slamming my fist down on the table, which is uncharacteristic for me. The education team excused themselves for five minutes, and came back, and granted us the educational diagnosis.

DS1 now has an educational diagnosis of autism. Let me also add that DS1’s classroom teacher (who was strongly advocating against an educational diagnosis) does an absolutely great job with him in the classroom. But, he will now be getting more intensive services from the school.

A secondary, but important reason for the diagnosis is that families who have children with an educational autism diagnosis are eligible for a $200 per month stipend from the state. DS1 (and DS2) both started at an autism therapy clinic in March. The clinic is about 20 miles away, and DW drives them there four times a week. That $200 per month will be helpful to offset the cost of driving them to the clinic.

DS2 also has a medical diagnosis of autism, but his diagnosis is not “classic autism” like DS1’s is. His diagnosis is “Pervasive Developmental Disorder – not otherwise specified”, which would not meet the criteria for an educational autism diagnosis, but it does meet the criteria for treatment at the autism clinic.