IEP meeting for Marcus

We went to Marcus' IEP meeting on Thursday. Overall, it went as expected. He's extremely behind in speech. This test was the "Verbal" score where he tested in the 12th percent and at a 2 year 10 month level. I was actually expecting it to be pretty low, but that was a little bit of a blow. I can't really say I'm surprised though... He's really got no concept of back and forth conversation and being able to communicate in real sentences.

However, he scored very high in his fine motor skills. One test they gave him consisted of stringing beads, cutting along lines and copying pictures. In that test he scored at an almost 6 year level. This was the "Spacial Cluster" score and he actually scored in the 95th for that one.

He did petty good on everything except communication. I'm actually pretty proud of him! We've started him in the STEPS program at the preschool he was tested at. We go for 2 days a week, 3 hours each day. I'm actually really excited that he only qualified for 6 hours a week! They're working on his communication rather than speech specifically. He's got speech therapy already, so I think this will be a perfect fit!

We went for our first day of school on Friday and he was so excited! I told him on Thursday night that if he wanted to go to school, he had to go to bed, so he rushed to his room, put on his pjs and climbed into bed as fast as he could. The next morning I had to wake him up to get there on time. All I said was "Marcus, do you want to go to school??" and he excitedly said "OK!" and got up to get ready. He was so excited! He had absolutely no problem with leaving me at all!

Jamesen was pretty upset when we left Marcus though, especially when we got back into the car, and even more so when we pulled into the driveway. It took awhile to calm him down at one point he was actually running away from me and screaming :( broke my heart. He calmed down after a bit though and we had an ok 3 hours alone. When it was time to go pick Marcus up, I asked if he wanted to go get him and Jamesen lit up and was so excited! I love seeing that brotherly love!

When we got to the school, they brought Marcus to me and he turned and ran away from me, screaming no. Totally broke my heart. I'm so glad he enjoyed it though! We had a pretty rough day afterwards, but I think it was mostly just due to the changes and things. Friday was pretty rough too. Marcus has been having a hard time, from what I assume is Sabe being gone on top of all the new stuff we have him doing. Sabe's only got another week or so left before he comes back. I hope our world settles in ok with Gemma coming right after that! It's gonna be pretty crazy around here!

Anyways, we've got J's autism test on the 28th. I'll update again then