I never heard the words Individualized Education plan - or IEP for short - in my life.
Then my son Jack was diagnosed with autism when he was eighteen months old.
A child doesn’t qualify for an IEP until he or she is three, so it would be well over a year before I found myself sitting in a small conference room, reviewing this huge document with a team of strangers. They referred to him as “child” instead of Jack.
“Child has delayed speech and motor skills.”
“Child lives at home with both mother and father.”
“Child will demonstrate ability to make eye contact three out of five times.”
That last one may or may not have been an actual goal. It’s been seventeen years and many, many meetings since that particular conference room.
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