IEP's - More questions.

[Piglet]

I have asked a few questions on here before about our MAW Trip to WDW, but now I need some other information......

My 5 year old is in school and is now requiring some Physical Therapy. We are trying to go through her school to provide this. She has a "hidden disablility", which involves slight muscle weakness and requires her to eat often and take medicines on a strict schedule. I have been told that we need to get an IEP for her. What does this involve?? Any info on this would be great as we are just starting to deal with all this.

Thanks

Melinda

 

[teri]

You need to call the school district's special education office and let them know that your daughter has a medical condition and needs special service or accomodations in the classroom. Persist. Keep a notebook with notes about each and every phone call, letter, and encounter, with dates, times and names. Some districts are very easy to deal with, others are thick and difficult.

If they do not immediately set up an apointment for you to discuss your child's needs... Follow up with a registered letter with return receipt. They must respond with an evaluation plan within a certain time period, usually 30 days or so.

The IEP itself is the plan that is developed after evaluations have been done and the evaulation team has had an IEP meeting to discuss the results and make a plan to accomodate your child's special needs.

You should also click on this link and look up your local chapter of PACER for local advocacy information.

 

[SueM in MN]

trei already wrote what I was going to say, so I just wanted to add my good wishes.
I'll just add that the IEP team has different members depending on the needs of the child. In your case, since medications are an issue, you should make sure the School nurse is involved too. She's sometimes not a member of the team, but in your child's case, the school nurse might be very important. Things to think about would be scheduling of her meds/food and getting her out of class without her feeling "funny" or like she is disrupting class.
If her muscle weakness involves fine motor skills too, it might be worthwhile to have an OT (Occupational Therapy) assessment/involvement on her team too. An OT might be able to come upn with some energy saving ways for her to do her daily activities. OTs and PT work closely together on motor/muscle problems.

 

[teri]

In our district, there are no PT services, only OT and adaptive PE. Only the kids in the county program get PT, and those are the kids who are severely multiply handicapped and not in regular special ed or the regular classroom. Every district is different.

Sue is absolutely right, you should specifically request an OT evaluation, since fine motor skills are critical for school performance.

 

[Piglet]

Thanks for the information. I have contacted the School and the Special Education Department is supposed to call me today.

I will definetely ask for an OT evaluation also. She does have some problems with fine motor skills also. Does anyone know if I need input or approval from her peditrician on these services or do they just do evaluations and go from there?? There is a possibility that she may need an aid as she gets older. Will this help us to obtain one???

Thanks again, I knew you guys could help.

Melinda

 

[teri]

I am sure your pediatrician will back you up with a letter stating that she has problems with fine motor skills that may affect her ability to perform routine classroom academic activities. But you just go in there and be confident, and say, "She will need an OT evaluation for her fine motor coordination issues."

 

[SueM in MN]

I agree with teri. The school OT doesn't need a doctor's order (at least not in my state or in Wisconsin) to see your child for an evaluation. If you have questions about your state, follow the link that teri put in a previous post to go to the PACER Center. They are a Parent Advocacy Center for Education Rights. There is an organization like that in each state, payed for with your tax dollars.

 

[nancycels]

and have had kids in sp ed for ah.... 23 years! yikes! my youngest is about
to graduate. i've been lucky, most of my battles w/the district have been
resolvable! w/o advocates etc. but i strongly recommend no matter how
accomodating the group may seem at the IEP meeting, keep really good records
because i've heard some real horror stories. The good news is, where i live in
PA, PT is provided if needed, especially in grammar school. You also might want
to ck into what model the OT is using to practice, there are assorted models,
neurodevelopmental(same w/PT's by the way), model of human occupation(MOHO)
ot's only as far as i know, etc. different types of OT's are better for different
conditions.

If you have feeding issues other than just frequency, you might want to be sure
a speech therapist and the OT get together on this. OT's also handle feeding
problems, but i'm pretty sure the speech therapists do too. There's a lot of
overlap in services and educational needs can frequently be overlapped between
specialists. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at nancycels@aol.com
just be sure u label it distinctly because i have TONS of junk mail!! <g>

You probably won't have any problems, but do keep good records. Try getting a
binder for each year of school and filing all the IEP papers in it. Be sure at the
beginning of each school yr you go over it with the new teachers. We've had some
teachers tell us 'they don't believe in IEP's so they don't read them'...despite the
fact that its the law. So good luck!! Staying on top of it is half the battle. Once
the district knows you r serious they get better about doing things on time!

 

[Piglet]

Thanks again everyone. That is just the info I needed. Now I just need to gear up for the meeting.

Melinda