How would you approach this SD meeting?

[jal]

I first posted last October, but haven't been around until yesterday, but I have been lurking. We had been in limbo...A little refresher on my situation...difficult child began issues around 18 months - 2 yrs of age. Been through 3 daycares, loads of professionals. In Aug 06 difficult child, then 4, diagnosed with ADHD. Tried Metadate (bad reaction), took him back to psychologist and was told he was Bipolar. Tried Risperdal (it didn't help). Meanwhile psychologist "dropped" us because we questioned Bipolar diagnosis. (He is very well known and respected in ADHD community). Meanwhile set up a meeting with the SD to evaluate my son and see if he qualified for Special Education preschool. (This was done at the urging of his daycare providers). They found upon initial meeting/evaluation that all behaviors etc. were out of the norm. During this time we began seeing a child psychiatrist. She said he's not Bipolar but he's ADHD. Began Ritalin LA in am and a Ritalin booster in the afternoon. By the time they did the field evaluation of him at daycare and spoke with the teachers before our 2nd SD meeting he had been on the Ritalin and showed some improvement. They found that now on Ritalin all behaviors are in the norm and he did not qualify. Daycare was finding that by 11am he was totally melting down and the afternoon booster wasn't touching him. He was taking Ritalin LA at 6:45am and it was supposed to last around 8 hours. We dropped this psychiatrist for reasons I won't go into and have started with a new psychiatrist last month. We really like him. He is working with an evolving diagnosis of Bipolar. difficult child is now on 5mg Abilify 1x day. Daycare has said ODD behavior greatly improved, difficult child being able to better maintain control of temper :thumb: However they find him flitting from activity to activity, not completing "projects", seems anxious. (This was present before too, as we have seen it, but the ODD overshadowed it at school). psychiatrist wants to stabilize Bipolar before working on ADHD (We agree). Daycare teacher been in constant contact with preschool sp-ed teacher as we were to revisit difficult child's situation this month. Daycare teacher called last night and we have a meeting with elem school principal, kindergarten teacher, evaluation team, daycare teacher and difficult child next week. She wants to make sure that if anything happens when difficult child goes to kindergarten that he will have services in place if need be. She loves difficult child and knows what a bright, smart child he is (as do we) and doesn't want him to fall through the cracks in SD (same as us, as we have been fighting for 2.5yrs). My question is how should we approach this meeting? What should I expect? Has anyone ever looked at putting an IEP in place for a child getting ready to enter kindergarten? difficult child will enter kindergarten in Sept of this year.

 

[smallworld]

You might want to post on the Special Education 101 board, where moderators Martie and Sheila can give you great advice. There's also already a post (by Totoro) on this very subject. Good luck.