IEP Investigation: Classroom

After completing the child's ability investigation, the second part of the IEP investigation is the classroom. You will discover the resources, professionals and paraprofessionals available to the children and the amount of time in structured activities versus the individualized instruction time your child receives.

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.

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IEP Investigation: Child's Ability

The most important person to consider when building an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) is the child. Whether the special need is a physical, mental or learning disability or a combination, an IEP which actually provides an education for him needs to be based on his abilities, capabilities and potential.

Personal Observation

You know more about your child than his doctor, his teacher, his therapist...anyone else. By now you know what is expected of him at school. It is up to you to give your insight to everyone else on the team as to what he can accomplish.

Gather Resources

Buy a composition book. The pages do not tear from the book. Each time you write in the book, date the entry. While you may be tempted to video tape some activities, a written record can be reproduced to become part of his permanent school records. Tapes can easily be lost, damaged or erased.

For one week, write down all of the things you child accomplishes. Did he climb the kitchen cabinet to get a treat from on top of the refrigerator? (motor and cognitive skills) Did he ask you for chocolate cake for lunch? (language and social skills) Did he let you have a turn kicking the soccer ball? (social and motor skills)

Over the next week, try out some of the activities you foresee putting into the IEP. Did he name two of the colors correctly? Did he match five? Did he spontaneously point out a color in a book you were reading?

All of these accomplishments show readiness for the skills he needs to master. Staple the page where he matched the colors into the book. You will need to show your child is prepared to be challenged rather than coddled.

Audit a Class

Take a day to go to school to see what he does in school. Write your observations in the book.

• How is he interacting with other students?
• How much individual time is he getting with the teacher?
• Are the group activities aimed at satisfying his current (and/or future) IEP goals?

Your child will act differently in the school setting than he will at home. Be as unintrusive as possible in your observation of the class. You will see different strengths and weaknesses which present themselves only in the classroom.

Take a Day Off

Whether it is a day at the park, a trip to the zoo or simply a day care visit, being out of "his natural habitat" will produce a child you may not see that often. You will observe interests which can help you determine the best avenues for teachers to approach subjects to hold his attention. He may also excel in certain areas strictly by being exposed to a new environment.

Professional Observation

When negotiating IEP goals, therapists and paraprofessionals will give added weight to the opinions of professionals in their fields. Have your child seen by his speech pathologist, neurologist, gastroenterologist, orthopedic, audiologist and any other doctor or specialist treating him.

Bring your book when you go to the professional assessment. Your observations will be vital to the professional in accurately assessing your child beyond just the clinical observation which can be done during a regular appointment. Again, you are the primary resource the professional has in assessing your child.

Ask the professional to prepare a report with both progress and recommendations for integration of current therapy techniques into the educational classroom setting.

Assessments provided to the IEP team should be no more than six months old. Ideally, assessments should be one to three months old at the time of the IEP meeting.

Recommendations should be followed as closely as possible methods used to reach the goals. Often, recommendations from professionals will cross segments of the IEP presenting the possibility for more than one provider to help your child reach his goals.

You need to read the recommendations as well. Many of the recommendations can be implemented in your everyday experiences with your child. He will be no more the wiser you are helping him reach his goals!

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