When you are someone just starting on the Down Syndrome journey as a parent, you learn to dread the IEP (Individualized Education Plan). What comes before this is the dreaded evaluation, where your child's under-developed skills are put into words all at once. Today was Evie's evaluation day. I want to say right now that we had a great experience. It wasn't horrible at all. But our experience may be completely different, depending on the town, the staff involved, and the child's needs. I thought I would jot down my thoughts here, in hopes of helping the parents who come after us. 1. You go through a ton of paperwork. Not only do you have the school district paperwork that everyone else has, but you have a packet of forms to fill out about your child's needs for each category. This is the first achievement. 2. You hear from the schools about the date of the evaluation. Having an actual date makes you hyper aware that something is coming, and you try to i
While sharing our journey with Down Syndrome, we want to help other parents with our experiences, as well as spread awareness about what it means to have Down Syndrome (spoiler: it means great things!).