Resources
Each classroom is equipped with some standard items: desks or tables with child-sized chairs, chalk or dry erase boards, bulletin boards, calendars, globes, art supplies. Special education classrooms need other items as well:
- Tactile teaching aids
- Visual teaching aids
- Communication aids
- Physical accommodations
- Auditory aids
- Social skill teaching aids
- Disability specific curricula materials
While your child may not need all of these materials, the last one on the list is mandatory for a successful IEP. You already know what the grade level curriculum expects. Now, the IEP goals must use the curriculum which will educate your child to the grade level requirements and is best suited to your child's disability and abilities.
Self-contained Classrooms
Certain disabilities offer self-contained classrooms where all students have the same disability. Arguments for and against these classrooms are not equal.
Arguments for self-contained classrooms favor the instructors. The curriculum is applied to the class in more structured activities than individualized time with students. Resources are located centrally, thus costing the school district less money. This practice allows for more instruction time to be spent documenting the work done.
Arguments against self-contained classrooms favor the students. Mixing children with different disabilities of varying capabilities offers all students the chance to learn from one another. They will inadvertently observe the instruction of other children and learn in the process.
Segregating single disabilities can stymie progress in certain areas, particularly speech and social interaction. Children whose disabilities include poor socialization skills need the outgoing nature of children who are not equally or more gravely disabled.
Peer pressure in a mixed environment is a positive influence. Children will naturally emulate the more advanced students. More advanced students will often empathize with their more disabled counterparts, taking on leadership and helping roles. Overall, this is the most widely accepted argument for mainstreaming all special education children for at least some part of their day.
Most poignantly, in mixed classes, instructors must spend more individual time with each student in order to meet IEP goals. Special needs parents use this argument most often.
Professionals
All of the great tools on the list are useless if there is not an instructor trained to teach your child how to use them. The professionals are the special needs teacher, speech therapist, occupational therapist, physical therapist and psychologist.
Each school should have at least one of each of these professionals available to your child. If you are unsure if your child would benefit from one of these professionals in the school setting, ask your pediatrician to prescribe an evaluation to the school district. The school's professional will conduct an assessment to determine if your child meets the criteria for his grade level.
If he does, you will receive a report stating he does. This report may contain suggestions for you to pursue outside the school environment to help your child advance to stay on par with his peers. Discuss these suggestions with your pediatrician and a related, certified professional in the field who holds a minimum of a master's degree.
If he does not, you will receive a report stating he needs to be served by the school to address the areas in which he is deficit. When your child is receiving a school service, he should also be receiving a supplementary service from the private sector either in your home or in a clinical setting. The private therapist will create goals which will help him reach his IEP goals faster and/or will help you promulgate appropriate IEP goals.
Paraprofessionals
Paraprofessionals are the intermediaries between you and the professionals. Aides, curriculum coaches and guidance counselors are paraprofessionals.
Aides are the most important element to your child because they lower the student-teacher ratio. They can help your child with classroom activities, self-help skills and especially social skills. An aide is often your child's favorite person in the classroom. The aide will tend to place less pressure on your child, encouraging better results.
Curriculum coaches help keep you on track. By comparing IEP goals to grade level goals, the coach will keep your IEP goals high in your child's strength areas and reasonable where weaknesses arise. If this position does not exist in your school, employ the principal to play the role. As the school's administrator, she should have the complete knowledge of what is required.
Guidance counselors help both you and your child. Whether smoothing transitions, helping with social streaming or counseling you on behaviors which manifest during puberty or the IEP journey, the guidance counselor can give you information on how to help your child emotionally handle the changes.
Structured Activities
All classrooms have certain daily or weekly activities which all of the children do together. If the majority of the day is spent in structured group activity, begin asking important questions.
- Which IEP goal does this activity pursue?
- What progress toward my child's IEP goal has been made with this activity?
- How long will this activity remain in the daily/weekly schedule before it is exchanged for another activity?
- Can my child be scheduled for individual therapy during this activity, since it does not pursue an IEP goal?
Structured activities are a necessary part of the school day. They teach skills like sitting still, paying attention, being quiet, turn-taking and group participation. They do not provide the "I" of the Individualized Education Plan.
Individualized Time
Individualized time includes both therapies and instructional time in the classroom. How much time is being spent directly on the IEP goals for your child? Even though the only child you truly care about may be your own, there are other children in the class.
- Of the time not spent in structured activity, is the remaining time split equally among the students?
- Is the time productively pursuing IEP goals for your child?
- Is time being wasted on goals already mastered?
- Is the curriculum being followed?
Only the third question should be answered "no". If more than one "no" is answered, an IEP meeting is in order after a conference with the principal and the special education teacher.
The next portion of the Investigation is Disability Education Training.Visit Virginia's Dream. International shipping available on request. All proceeds from the website through December 31, 2009, are being donated to the Autism Research Foundation.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment