Assistive Technologies for our kids?

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

I have an ARD coming up and a pre-ARD meeting for me to suggest extra

goals that I don't see present. (They are very kind to my Asperger's and

the fact that I clam up in meetings with large amounts of people. So I

sit down one on one to discuss things with the head Sp Ed that I'd like

to see, that way the goals are written out before the day of the ARD.)

Anyways, my son is mainstreamed despite a definite expressive language

delay. His receptive is gerat, and his academic grading is on target for

his age/grade level. My biggest worry is that his handwriting is quite a

bit delayed. Since his academic testing is done on the computer, it

doesn't pick up on this problem.

I'm wondering how many of you have had your verbal Autistic kids

evaluated for AT for handwriting skills. He'll be in first grade next

year. And I'm deathly afraid of him falling back academically because of

the handwriting issues. I'd still like them to work with him on those

skills during normal classroom 'handwriting' exercises, with his school

OT and private OT. Does that make sense? Have any of you had luck with

asking for this especially at such a young age?

We've been working on his Handwriting since he was 3 trying to get him

ready, but at this point we can only read maybe 50% of what he writes.

And he doesn't do nearly as much work as the other kids. And most of his

behavior issues ('work refusal') are with his handwriting.

Sorry for droning on, but I'm at a loss.

Melody