What it boils down to..

The County looks at these areas when determining if a child with Autism (or, I would assume, any disability) qualifies for services: self care, self direction, capacity for independent living, mobility, learning, and language. Jack meets the criteria for the first two. (Now, how they can say that he cannot care for himself, but he can still show the capacity for independent living? Yeah.. ok..). He's "aced" the last three, so no major concerns there.

On Monday, I called Jack's "Service Coordinator" to find out how long I should expect to wait for a decision. She emailed me to call her back. That's never a good sign. On the phone, she told me that as of that moment, none of the examples that I had given, or that she had passed along, were enough. Everything we came up with fell under the category of "self direction". Even some examples that clearly affected health and safety- which is the biggest issue for "capacity for independent living". Can he be left alone? So I needed to come up with anything that would possibly work.. and the day I called the Service Coordinator, my darling son gave me something perfect- the attempt to open up a coconut with a steak knife. This wasn't enough for her, though. I called the person who was handling our case with the County, and while she voiced concern over this behavior (and wanted to know whether I've since put away all of our cutlery- uh..), she still kept mumbling things about "self direction".

I have the right to appeal if they deny Jack continued services. I can take it to the County first, then to the State. During this process, the County still keeps Jack's case file open, and we can still get services. That said, what are we using them for, beyond emotional support w/in the school district? I'm just a bit fed up with the fact that they agree he has Autism (with serious social deficits), ADHD, and even ODD (oppositional defiant disorder), and agree that he cannot care for himself or properly self direct, but sorry- somehow he's A-OK for the "capacity for independent living" bit. So, I grabbed my folder containing all of this school year's Weekly Behavior Charts, "Think Sheets" from the principal, extra notes from his OT at school, and emails from the teacher. If that doesn't give them some sense of who and what we're dealing with, then screw them.