we had a mtg today at our school (counselor, teacher, vice principal, principal) for converting dd's campus documentation (for her Selective Mutism) to a 504. it was at 7:15 in the morning and thankfully dd's (amazing) therapist was able to attend for support.

the school counselor reviewed current plan in place for my dd, which consisted mainly of accommodations for allowing her not to speak, (vs. interventions to get her talk). i asked about the stimulus fade-in technique that we are trying to get dd's main teacher to use (next year) which involves 2 or 3 sessions of 20 minutes each of teacher with dd (and a parent) in the classroom. this is the technique that dd's therapist used in her office when she first met DD and got her to talk on the FIRST VISIT (whereas she had never spoken to any other adult other than family save for 1 person).


it sounds like even with the 504, it will be difficult if not impossible to get the school to agree to allow teacher to do this fade-in technique with DD, even for next year. principal said it would take too long, and that she cannot take away instructional time from the teacher's 20 other students. though - we never ever suggested we wanted to take away instructional time from other students - we suggested getting someone to cover for teacher during recess duty so that she could do this techinque with dd.

therapist suggested parents volunteering to do recess duty - principal says they don't have parent volunteers for recess duty for liability reasons. and then mentioned they are short-staffed and thus they can't have people to sub for teachers during their recess duty. i am stumped on this - we have parent volunteers all the time at the school helping with various activities and working directly with kids - but somehow cannot be considered supervision at recess or lunchtime?

anyway, the thing that gets me is this - we have these regular meetings for DD since kinder (she is now in 2nd grade) -accommodations have been put in place and documented, but she has never once talked to a teacher or inside the classroom. these meetings and documentation i'm sure is a lot of busy work for the teachers - therapist pointed out, this fade-in technique may sounds a lot of work up front but it will save time later. makes sense to me - if this gets dd to talk in the classroom, that solves a lot and could easily lead to dd no longer needing any accommodations , documentation, which i'm sure would save the school time and money.

dd's therapist did point out that her experience, kids with SM who get this fade in technique do very well whereas doing the whole "wait and see" approach do not.

later after the meeting, therapist did say that in her experience, our district unfortunately tends to be pretty bad re: flexibility for allowing interventions for kids with SM. on occasion when some schools allowed it, it may have been more "off the books" , more out of ppl wanting to help vs. sticking with the legal red tape. which i guess really sucks. the thought of dd starting another year (fourth year at school) still being unable to speak at school is heartbreaking. i can tell as she gets older she is more and more aware of her limitations and how peers perceive her.