Category:School Education Issues
From Holoprosencephaly
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Special education is instruction that is specially designed to address the educational and other needs of children with disabilities, or a child experiencing developmental delays. Special education is provided free of charge through the public school system. It is available through the same law that makes early intervention services available—the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. More will be said about special education below.
If you are concerned that your child is not developing at the same pace or in the same way as most other children, your child may have special needs. He or she may have a developmental delay or a disability. There’s help available! As mentioned above, special education services are available to eligible children through your public school system. Under IDEA, your child will need an evaluation to determine whether he or she is eligible for special education.
Eligibility
If you think your child needs special help, you should get in touch with the special education system in your area. The easiest way to do this is to call your local elementary school. Ask to speak to someone who knows about special education services for children ages 3 through 5.
There are other ways to connect with special education services for your preschooler. You may want to look at the NICHCY State Resource Sheet www.nichcy.org/states.htm.for your state under the heading “Programs for Children with Disabilities: Ages 3 through 5.” Call the agency listed. Explain that you want to find out about special education services for your child. Ask for the name of a contact person in your area
More about special education
As stated above, special education is defined as instruction that is specially designed to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability, or a child experiencing developmental delays. Specially designed instruction may include adapting the content, methodology, or the delivery of instruction to address the unique needs of an eligible child. Special education can include classroom instruction, home instruction, instruction in hospitals and institutions, or other settings. It can include speech-language pathology services or any other related services, instruction in physical education, vocational education, and travel training.
Special education services are provided free of charge through the public schools. Even though your child is a preschooler, he or she may be eligible for these helpful services. To find out if your child is eligible, your child will first need to be evaluated to see if he or she has a disability. The evaluation is conducted by (or arranged by) the special education system. It is provided free of charge.
Evaluation means the procedures used to determine:
- if the child has a disability as defined by IDEA, and
- the current educational needs of the child.
A group of people, including you, will be involved in your child’s evaluation. This group will begin by looking at what is already known about your child. More information may need to be gathered. The group may look at the following sources of information about your child:
- Doctors’ reports;
- Results of developmental tests given to your child;
- Current classroom-based assessments and observations;
- Your child’s medical history;
- Developmental and behavioral checklists;
- Observations and feedback from all members of the evaluation team, including you as parents; and
- Any other important observations, records, and/or reports about your child.
Evaluation
Under IDEA, the group involved in your child’s evaluation will include these people:
- at least one of your child’s regular education teachers (if your child is, or may be, participating in the regular education environment);
- at least one of your child’s special education teachers or service providers;
- a school administrator who knows about policies for special education, children with disabilities, the general curriculum (that is, the curriculum used by nondisabled children), and available resources;
- you, as parents or guardians;
- someone who can interpret the evaluation results and talk about what instruction may be necessary for your child;
- individuals (invited by you or the school) with knowledge or special expertise about your child;
- your child, if appropriate; and
- other qualified professionals, as appropriate (such as a school psychologist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, physical therapist, medical specialist(s), or others).
The evaluation must be provided at no cost to parents. If your child is eligible for special education services, he or she will also receive those services at no cost to you.
After your child has been evaluated, you and school personnel will meet to go over the results. Your child’s eligibility will be discussed. The group will decide if your child is eligible for services or not. You are part of the team that decides your child’s eligibility.
If your child is found eligible for services, then you and school personnel will sit down and write what is known as an Individualized Education Program, or IEP. Your child’s IEP is a written statement of the educational program designed to meet your child’s individual needs. Every child who receives special education services must have an IEP. The IEP has two general purposes:
- to set reasonable learning goals for your child; and
- to state the services that the school district will provide for your child.
Yes, most likely there are several types of parent groups in your state. Parent groups can offer information, support, and/or training to parents. They can help parents take a more active role in helping their children. Through such groups, families meet other families with similar needs to talk about resources, day-to-day problems, and personal insights.
Individualized Education Program (IEP)
When a child receives special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), he or she must have an Individualized Education Program (IEP). This is a written document listing, among other things, the special educational services that the child will receive. The IEP is developed by a team that includes the child's parents and school staff. The IEP is an extremely important document in the educational lives of students with disabilities receiving special education under IDEA.
IDEA and the IEP
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law that underpins most special education services in the country. In 2004, the IDEA was reauthorized by Congress, and several changes were made to what's required by law and regulation with respect to the IEP. These changes aren't sweeping, but they do mean that the information and links presented below must be viewed through the screen of how the law has changed. The full story with respect to the IEP can be found in NICHCY's reauthorization pages, most notably at this link: http://www.nichcy.org/idealist.htm#iep
Transition
Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), transition planning from school to adult life begins, at the latest, during high school. In fact, transition planning is required, by law, to start once a student reaches 16 years of age, or younger, if appropriate. This transition planning becomes formalized as part of the student's Individualized Education Program (IEP). The IEP is a written document listing, among other things, the special educational services that the child will receive. The IEP is developed by a team that includes the child's parents and school staff.
Transition services are intended to prepare students to make the transition from the world of school to the world of adulthood. In planning what type of transition services a student needs to prepare for adulthood, the IEP team considers areas such as postsecondary education or vocational training, employment, independent living, and community participation. The transition services themselves are a coordinated set of activities that are based on the student's needs and that take into account his or her preferences and interests.
RESOURCES FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION
Locate a Special Education Center
www.eric.ed.gov (ERIC) Educational Resources Information Center. The ERIC database contains descriptions of over 1 million educational materials, including articles published in journals and related to children with and without disabilities.
http://www.napsec.org/network.html The National Association of Private Special Education Centers (NAPSEC) Use their Networking Directory to identify a center with the services you need.
Advocacy Services
www.directionservice.org/cadre CADRE's site and find two special education mediation databases: (1) Locate professionals (an online searchable data base of special education conflict resolution professionals); and (2) Locate trainers (an online data base of experienced special education mediation and conflict resolution trainers and consultants).
IDEA and IEP information:
www.wrightslaw.com/info/iep.index.htm Wrightslaw.com. The link above will drop you right into the soup, where you'll find articles, law and regulations, tactics and strategies, tips, books, and free publications about IEPs.
Wrightslaw offers us all a "Roadmap to IDEA 2004: What You Need to Know About IEPs & IEP Meetings" www.wrightslaw.com/idea/art/iep.roadmap.htm
www.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/iepguide/index.html The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), at the U.S. Department of Education, issued A Guide to the Individualized Education Program in 2000 as a resource for parents and teachers. (Again, keep in mind those small changes IDEA 2004 has made to the IEP process.)
www.iep4u.com/ IEP4U.COM has over 4000 free goals and objectives (IEP-ITP), each with changeable benchmarks. The statements are spread out over seven subjects (domains) and four functional levels. This information is free of charge and is designed to help you with the daunting task of writing proper IEP's Teachers, parents and students...just input key words, phrases, or test names in the search engine to find just the correct objectives for your students needs. Copy and paste any information you want, then modify the objectives (examples) to exactly describe the needs of your students.
www.nolo.com Nolo: Law for All offers Preparing for the IEP Meeting: What you need to know before you meet with the representatives of your school district. From the home page linked above, search using the term "IEP"---be sure to change the drop-down menu option from "Search for Products" to "Search the Entire Site." This brief will be among the results. (You'll find other resources you'll probably like, too!)
www.fape.org/pubs/index.htm FAPE (Families and Advocates Partnership for Education) is also available in Spanish at the link. Planning Your Child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP): Some Suggestions to Consider to view suggestions for the IEP meeting.
http://nclid.unco.edu/nclid/bvi/ The IEP Pop-Up gives you responses to common "hurdle talk" (words and attitudes that keep an IEP meeting from being successful) you might hear in the meeting.
Transition Planning for High School Students
www.hrtw.org/index.html The Healthy and Ready to Work (HRTW) project provides information and connections to health and transition expertise nationwide for youth with special health care needs. Use the "site search" on the home page to find a wealth of information.
http://www.ncset.org/stateresources/default.asp NCSET (National Center on Secondary Education and Transition) to find contact information for the following education-related offices for all states and territories in the United States: state transition coordinator, RRC office contact, state director of special education, monitoring and state improvement planning Part B contacts, Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) transition contact, and state director of vocational rehabilitation.
http://www.thearc.org/faqs/qa-idea-transition.html The Arc does more than tell you why transition planning is so important for youth with disabilities. It also provides an overview of the process and the roles that parents, students, and school professionals play in that process.
http://www.nichcy.org/pubs/transum/ts10txt.htm NICHCY's Transition Planning: A Team Effort for a wealth of useful ideas about who to involve and what role they might play
Source:
A comprehensive and useful site for information, The National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (NICHCY) provides information to the nation on: disabilities in children and youth; programs and services for infants, children, and youth with disabilities; IDEA, the nation's special education law; No Child Left Behind, the nation's general education law; and research-based information on effective practices for children with disabilities. This information was obtained from their website (http://www.nichcy.org/)
