What is Special Education??? Good question. In different parts of the country, it is known as different things. Special Education, Exceptional Student Education, Special Needs Education, Aided Education, Exceptional Education, SEN or SPED are all used for the practice of educating students in a way that provides accommodations that address their individual differences, disabilities and special needs. My own preference is Individualized Education which isn’t used.
The 13 Disability categories used under IDEA (The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) include:
1. SLD (specific learning disability including Dyslexia, Dyscalculia and written expression disorder (Dysgraphia)
2. OHI (other health impairment), conditions that limit a child’s strength, energy or alertness such as ADHD and executive functioning.
3, ASD (autism spectrum disorder) is a developmental disability affecting a child’s social interaction, and communication, and can impact behavior.
4. Emotional Disturbance may include anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression.
5. Speech or language impairment covers difficulties with speech or language including stuttering, trouble pronouncing words and expressing themselves.
6. Visual impairment includes blindness and eyesight problems if eyewear cannot correct the visual problem.
7. Deafness is for children who cannot hear most, or all sounds even with a hearing aid.
8. Hearing impairment refers to a hearing loss not covered under the Deafness category.
9. Deaf-blindness is used for children having both severe hearing and vision loss.
10. Orthopedic impairment is a category for children lacking function/ability in their bodies such as cerebral palsy.
11. Intellectual Disability is for children having below average intellectual ability. Down Syndrome is an example. Children may have poor communication, self-care skills and social skills.
12. Traumatic brain injury is a brain injury caused be an accident of physical force.
13. Multiple Disabilities is a category used for a child having more than one condition under IDEA.
Once your child meets the criteria to receive services under the special education umbrella there are countless acronyms used. The following are commonly used:
1.SPED=Special Education
2. DOE=Department of Education
3. ESY=Extended School Year
4. FAPE=Free Appropriate Public Education
5. FBA=Functional Behavioral Assessment
6. FERPA=Family Education Rights Privacy Act
7. IDEA=Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
8. IEP= individualized education program/plan
9. LRE= least restrictive environment
10. O.T.= occupational therapy
11. P.T.= physical therapy
13. RS= related service
12. SLD= specific learning disability
What can I expect at my first IEP meeting? At this meeting scores, assessments and grades will be shared with you. You are part of this team so please ask as many questions as you need to until you fully understand the process. Your child is not responding to the extra intervention given to them so there may be another reason for your child struggling. Our brains do not easily accept strategies for reading. We need to teach our brains what to do. All children learn to read at their pace.
At your next IEP meeting results will be presented. This can be a very overwhelming meeting. A lot of information will be shared. Bring a notebook and a folder and again ask as many questions as you need to fully understand this process. Special Education is no longer provided like it used to ne. Many services and accommodations are provided in your child’s general education classroom. They may be pulled into a small group to work on skills and strategies that were not successfully learned in the earlier extra intervention. Special Education Teachers are trained to work with your child differently than their general education teacher. Scores will be shared and compared to other children who are the same age in the grade your child is in. The scores are gotten from individualized testing from a professional trained to give the test and it is given in a quiet and 1:1 setting. Your child shows the evaluator what they know. Again, ask as many questions as you need to. Parents often feel the evaluation may not be accurate because they do not see the struggles at home. Imagine your child sitting in a classroom of 25 students, sitting at a desk solving math problems within 3 minutes of time. Picture your child at home, sitting on the floor solving math problems within 10 minutes using a math chart to refer to. Now picture your child listening to their teacher read a story aloud, pausing to answer other student questions for 20 minutes. Now picture your child at bedtime. You are laying on your child’s bed reading them their favorite story again for the 20th time and your child retells their own version of the story by looking at the pictures. Your child is learning in all scenarios but being evaluated in a 3-minute time period and sitting at their seat for 20 minutes are really hard for your child. You don’t see this at home because they are completing the activity with success.
If your child meets the criteria for special education a checklist will be used to rule out and determine the most appropriate category under IDEA. An IEP will then be created/reviewed. This IEP is the Individualized Education Plan created specifically for your child to focus on those skills they are struggling with and how this will happen. Taking in all the information presented will also provide reasoning for certain accommodations to be given to your child to help them achieve these skills in a year. Accommodations could include preferential seating, small group testing, extra time while taking tests, using colored overlays, using sensory supports, masking portions of the assignment, allowing breaks and the list goes on. Data will be taken to see if these accommodations work. You will be given a lot of paperwork to be taken home. If you have questions reach back out to any member of the team to have your questions answered.