Progress Report

Liam came home today with his 3rd quarter progress report.  It tracks his progress towards his IEP goals.  I don't know if it was the fact I have been awake since 4:40am when Dave was called into work and Ben woke up....or if it is the fact that I came down with the cold virus circulating our house, but I am feeling emotional about how far Liam still has to go.  It might be that Liam made so much progress with his last progress report (blogged about here: January progress report ) that it was hard to get the reminder that he does need extra help.

First goal: Liam will communicate using verbal means.  Given daily picture cues, Liam will respond to 2 simple "wh" questions about activities he did at school.  Baseline is that he cannot do this at all.
Progress: 20% of the time could not answer either question even with a picture cue. 40% of the time he could answer both questions with both picture cues. 20% of the time he could answer both questions with just a picture cue to one of them. 20% of the time he needed no picture cue to answer both questions.

Second goal: Liam will manage his behavior in effective ways. In role play activities, Liam will learn, practice, and use strategies for dealing with stress in 3 out of 4 trials.  Baseline is that stress causes Liam to become tearful and once upset can no longer communicate.  His biggest problems are dealing with change.
Progress: Liam has learned to ask for help which keeps him from getting behind his classmates which causes him stress.  Next Liam will learn to count to 10 when upset.

Third goal: Liam will be able to use the restroom independently. Baseline is that Liam was remaining dry 87% of the time at school but had difficulty with his pants and other steps in using the restroom.
Progress: Liam was able to complete the toileting routine independently (remaining dry, pulling pants down, pulling pants back up, and washing his hands) 82% of the time.

Fourth goal: Liam will put on outerwear with help with fasteners only in 4 out 5 opportunities presented. Baseline is that Liam was able to do this before Christmas break but now gets distracted and then when he sees his classmates leaving to get on the bus becomes very upset and starts crying.
Progress: The teacher is having Liam dress in an area away from the other children in order to limit distractions. Even with this, it is difficult at times to get his attention. He knows the order of which clothing goes first and can almost dress himself independently.

Fifth goal: Liam will communicate with adult and peers using a variety of modalities.  Liam will appropriately initiate communication with peers to initiate play, share materials, take turns without adult prompting in 3 out of 4 opportunities. Baseline is that Liam makes verbal attempts to play using demands only with prompting.
Progress: Liam does well in this area.  He is good at initiating play and/or going along with what someone else is playing.  Liam does not like to play alone so he is always with a peer. However, once play is initiated, Liam tends to play in a more parallel fashion.  It should be noted that Liam is very encouraging to others and roots them on during games.  He is very sweet and is always a good, supportive friend.

Sixth goal: Liam will increase expressive vocabulary skills.  When given a social situation, Liam will identify and name an appropriate matching emotion with 90% accuracy in 3 out of the 4 opportunities.  Baseline is that Liam was unable to identify how a peer was feeling when she was crying.
Progress: Liam can name happy, mad, and sad in a picture.  He can identify happy and sad on peers' faces with 70% accuracy in 2 out of 4 opportunities.

Seventh goal: Liam will maintain a conversation with adults and peers.  In unstructured settings, Liam will maintain verbal turn taking with adults by using voice and or gesture, by staying on topic, extending the conversation with a minimum of 1 comment or question, and waiting appropriately for communication turn.  The baseline is 0% in a structured play situation using a script.
Progress: Liam maintained verbal turn-taking in 33% of the opportunities.  It is difficult to maintain a conversation with Liam because he does not make eye contact regularly so it is difficult to know who he is talking to.  At other times, he becomes distracted and just stops talking and/or answering questions.