The Results Are In
We got the county report today with their formal recommendations. No real surprises since they’d already given us their informal ones. While I haven’t digested the entire eleven page report, the gist of it is as follows.
They’ve concluded that Porter has “significant deficits in the social use of language” and ditto “play skills and his ability to interact with others.” This, along with other observations and testing, indicates a “pattern of deficits” that suggests Autism Spectrum Disorder. Which is pretty much what we already knew. They conclude that he should benefit from the special education class designed for kids who “exhibit autistic-like behaviors.” In the two test results, Porter scored a 98 on the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale, which indicates “likely” ASD (the range for likely is 85 to 115), and 37 in the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (or CARS), which indicates mild to moderately autistic (over 30 is the benchmark).
Overall, the report emphasized that they were hopeful that the severity appears to low to medium and that he should respond well to the specialized training. A week from today is the IEP, at which time this will all be formalized and a start date for his new school will be determined. It’s looking like he should be able to start the Monday following this meeting, which is the Monday before Thanksgiving, the 22nd of November.
Porter, looking smart and sophisticated in Daddy’s glasses, as Grandma whispers something witty in his ear.