Career and Education Planning

I participated in the career planning for a 17-year old student that has never attended public school.  He has been homeschooled all of his life and has lived in Jordan for the past seven years.  Mom felt as though it was time to receive some assistance with him transitioning into adulthood because he becoming more difficult to manage.  Mom stated that he was diagnosed at age 7 with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and then diagnosed with Autism but there were no medical records to substantiate so we were required to complete a full and individual evaluation to determine if any eligibilities exist.  After an extensive evaluation that took place over the course of five days, the student met the criteria of Autism, Intellectual Disability, and Speech Impaired. 

In order to make the final determination of eligibility, the information was presented to a panel of evaluation specialists to review.  We had to assure that the student was not meeting the criteria for the previously named disabilities due to lack of educational opportunity and culture and life style factors.  It was determined that there was not any exclusionary factors influencing the outcome of the evaluation. 

The Licensed Specialist in School Psychology, Speech Therapist, Vocational Adjustment Coordinator and I met with the student on 2/8/13 to review the results and design an educationally appropriate program.  The evaluation session took approximately two hours and a lot was accomplished during that time.  The mother asked a lot of important questions when we came to information that she did not understand.  Based on the sociological data that mom shared with us regarding the student not having a concept of fear and understand the true meaning of consequences, it was determined that he would be better served in our self-contained Alternative Academic program for the remainder of this year and the beginning of next year.  His programming will consist of functional academics, vocational training on campus and in the community, specialized transportation, and speech therapy.  The speech therapy will provide direct services that will consist of social skills training and social stories that address his deficits in understanding danger.  The mother was very pleased with the draft proposal and at the end of the meeting she cried tears of joy because she feels as though he has missed out on so much due to being sheltered in the home. 

I definitely feel as though we did our due diligence with this student and followed all of the required steps to make sure that the student was not misidentified.  I also feel as though we made the right call by expediting the evaluation timeline and not using the required 90 day timeline.  All evaluators felt that it was crucial to get the student enrolled in school as quickly as possible.  I do not think that we could or should have done anything different for this student.  I feel as though his eligibilities, programming, and placement is appropriate.