Tuesday, July 04, 2006

The New Normal: Stats from our typical classrooms

6/22/06 - The new normal is amazing, isn't it? They are much higher in the younger years like this and taper off as you look at middle and high school.There is also a great stat from the American Acad of Peds that states one in 6 kids born today have a developmental disorder or developmental delay.

Here is what my son's typical playgroups and classes looked like through the years so far:

New Mommy Group 0-1 year old:10 kids in total (natch, they all didn't have a dx then):2 kids with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, 2 kids with ADD, 2 kids with Sensory Integration Disorder (he had a real panic attack while eating a bagel with cream cheese. The cheese was all over his tongue and he didn't like it), 1 kid with a speech and fine motor delay. The speech kid couldn't be understood by his peers until he was 5 years old, so it wasn't a redefinition of criteria.

Preschool: Class of 18 kids: my kid with Autism, 3 kids with a speech delay, 1 kid with sensory integration, one kid with ADD.

Kindergarten: 20 kids total in typical classroom in a public school. 2 kids ASD, one kid ADD, 3 kids speech and OT delays. Again, the speech and OT delays affected their ability to be understood and do any projects. The teacher had been doing the "same ole" for 20 years, so it wasn't a change in criteria here anyway.

1st grade: 22 kids in total. One kid Autism, one kid Down Syndrome, 3 kids with a behavior plan, have IEP - unsure of an actual label, 2 kids speech, 1 kid OT, and 4 kids get pulled out of class for reading help 2 times a week(they are barely reading, criteria could be argued here?).

In total, in our little po dunk elementary school, 12% of all kids attending have an IEP. And this doesn't include the kids that we all know need one.

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