4 hours worth of Evaluations

Avery has started having an evaluation for the school system to come up with an IEP for him.  We went to a first evaluation 2 weeks ago and the assessments and evaluation took 2 HOURS!  Anyone who has a 3 year old knows that there is no 3 year old in the world that will sit still for 2 hours while people ask questions and test them.  After about an hour and 20 min or so Avery stopped cooperating with them and we had to schedule a second testing day for them to continue.  Today was the day we went back.

We dropped the older boys off at school this morning and headed to the other elementary school (where the have the RECC (Regional Early Childhood Center) preschool).  This is the preschool that has the children with developmental delays and also your "typical" children.  We got to the school and signed in then had a seat in the office and waited.  After a few minutes we were taken back to the assessment room.  In this room the lady had Avery doing things that I guess somehow test where he is at educational wise.  Or how "smart" he is LOL.  She put 2 plastic cups on the table and then put a ball under one of the cups.  She then "switched" the spots the cups were in and asked him where the ball was.  He got it right probably 4 out of 6 times.  She then did an activity that reminded me of those "hidden picture" things.  She had a picture of some sort of "scene" and then pulled out some flash cards.  She then asked Avery to find the objects on the flashcards.  He had to search the picture scene and find a ball, bird, squirrel, ice cream cone, and teddy bear.  He spent a LONG time searching that picture scene and did find ALL of the objects!  She then did another activity where she took a little figurine and then put a napkin over it.  I guess to see if Avery would pull the napkin off to find the figurine (which he did!).  She hid the figurine in one hand then put the hands behind her back then brought them back out front and asked which hand it was in.  Avery got that wrong almost every time.

He was able to match objects (she held up a red square and asked him to point to what she had on the paper and he pointed to the red square).  He did it again with a blue triangle and yellow circle.  Although when she asked colors he got them wrong.  She put 3 objects on the desk (a shoe, a spoon, and a dog figurine) and then covered them and took one away.  She then asked him which one was missing. He got that right.
It was then that things started kind of going downhill.  We had already been there for an hour at that point sitting at a desk answering questions.  Then they started asking him "what is that" and holding up a picture of a dog.  Well I KNOW they wanted him to say "dog" but he's never said "dog" he's always just done a growl for dog.  He would growl and she would say "yes a he does bark, but what is he?" and he would growl again.  After a few times of asking he started getting mad at her and just started responding with "no!"  She held up a picture of a monkey and then said "can you say monkey?" and he said "ooo ooo eee ee" and she said "yeah, can you say monkey" and he yelled "NO!"  Then he kept wanting to climb in my lap and started to not cooperate anymore.  I told her that if he can't say the word he gets upset if he's asked over and over to do it.  I told her that he's never said "dog, monkey, car, cat, etc" and always just made the noise it makes.
They did more of the showing 4 pictures and asking "which picture has a boy waiting for a girl to come down the slide?"  "which picture has something you do at night?" "which picture has a boy with shoes on?" "which picture is something that flys?"  I kept telling Avery "we'll leave as soon as you answer this question!" and "ok just tell her which one flies".  Avery was SO done at that point.  We had been in the room for almost 2 hours at that point without a break and I said to the lady "can he take a break or something?" And she said we could go to the gross motor room (the OT room) and he could play while they finished asking me a few questions.  So we did that and he used the swing, and the ball pit, and the trampoline, etc, etc while they asked me questions.  "Does he ask for help when he needs it?"  "does he ask you questions?"  I told her "well he does, but it isn't like a full sentance.  It's more of a "juice?" or "outside?" and things like that.  So it's one word, but it's a question."  She asked me if he tells me what he wants.  I told her he does, but it's non verbally.  She asked if he has any seperation anxiety.  I said "Oh yes".

After the questions she told me that they were done, and the next time we saw each other it would be for the IEP meeting and that the meeting would be held soon because it had to be done by April 11th.  She said the meeting would be on a Wednesday or Thursday.  I told her that I was free anytime so just schedule it and let me know.

We left and got some lunch and now we're home.  A total of 4 hours worth of assessments and evaluations to get this IEP so that Avery can start at the preschool.
A preschool I STILL am going back and forth with on whether I want him going. *sigh*.