Getting the Most from an IEP or 504 Plan

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to present a national webinar for ADDitude Magazine on "A Parent’s Guide to Evaluating and Troubleshooting Your Child’s IEP or 504 Plan." 

As with other presentations I have done, I planned out a series of slides (and you can see them and the entire free presentation if you click on the link above) that set out how to tell if there were problems with an IEP or 504 Plan and what parents can do if there are such problems. Some of the remedies I mentioned were:

• How minor issues with an IEP can be dealt with without needing to hold a meeting of the IEP Team. These include increasing or decreasing the frequency of a service (such as OT or PT) that is already provided in the IEP, or adding a minor accommodation, such as having exams taken in a quiet location in addition to extended time.
• More extensive changes to an IEP will likely need a meeting of the IEP Team. These might include adding a service or support, changing a class setting, or even changing the school a child is attending. Parents need to keep in mind that they are entitled to request an IEP meeting at any time, not just once a year as is customarily scheduled. That is a right, not a favor being done by the school.
• Parents are also entitled to a new evaluation once each year. The IDEA requires re-evaluation every three years, but if parents feel that circumstances warrant it, they can have their child re-evaluated more often. As with a new IEP meeting, this isn't something that the school might do as a favor. It is a legal right. 
• Also, parents who have had a recent evaluation and realize that it was inadequate, can seek a publicly funded Independent Educational Evaluation, an IEE, which can then be the basis for a modified IEP. We have an extensive blog post on this subject.

Almost as interesting to your blogger as preparing and presenting a webinar, are the questions parents have during (and after) the webinar. Some parents wanted to know:

• What happens to their child's IEP when they move? We were able to point them to a blog post on this too. 
• Several folks wanted me to explain again the differences between an IEP and a 504 Plan. We were able to tell them that these stem from two different laws, both designed to help individuals with disabilities, but having different procedures and sometimes offering different supports.

In addition to this recent webinar, you can check out and listen to my several other webinars for ADDitude. 
 

First Stop: Your Pediatrician

Our colleagues at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) just released an extensive report aimed at informing their members of their important role in recognizing and helping to treat many problems that relate to learning and development,. Starting in infancy, long before a child is first enrolled in school, it is the pediatrician who often can spot a problem that can be addressed early to improve a child's chances of success in school. Screening for vision and hearing deficits, lags in motor and language development, and psycho-social family issues can all lead to interventions that can improve a child's chances of succeeding in school and in life.

As children reach school age, even before parents turn to their school system for help with learning or behavior issues, a child's pediatrician can pick up on a wide array of conditions -- genetic, neurological, medical, emotional -- that can have a wide ranging affect on how a child functions in and outside of school. While the AAP article is aimed at pediatricians, to guide them in their role in diagnosing issues that can get in the way of school success, it is also important that parents understand how their child's pediatrician can be an important first stop when things are not going well developmentally or academically.

There is a concept in medicine called "differential diagnosis" that plays an important role in helping to understand what is going on when children struggle. Pediatricians are trained to apply this concept when dealing with their patients and it is at the core of what we do here at The Yellin Center. As Dr. Yellin (a pediatrician and a member of the AAP) explains, you can use the analogy of a child with a cough. Before treating the cough, it is crucial to understand why the child is coughing. Does he have an upper respiratory infection, a bone stuck in his throat, asthma, or pneumonia? Only by looking for the cause of a problem can an effective solution be applied. Many learning or school problems require this same approach; only by looking deeply and ruling out many of the problems pediatricians are trained to consider can families begin to help their child get the help he or she needs.

Pediatricians are also excellent sources of referrals. They will be able to suggest educational evaluators (and many of our families are sent to us by their pediatrician for an evaluation for suspected learning or attention difficulties), or send a child to have their vision or hearing explored in depth, or recommend a therapist or other professional if there are signs of serious emotional or family difficulties. Parents should use their child's pediatrician, and the expertise and experience he or she offers, as an important resource when children are struggling in school.

Photo: Alex Proimos/Flickr Creative Commons

The Joys of Comic Books and Graphic Novels

Here at The Yellin Center, we have long recommended comic books and graphic novels as ways for children who struggle with reading and writing to experience success.

There are many reasons why a child might find reading, especially chapter books with complex plots, hard to follow. Reading disorders, such as dyslexia, can make it difficult for a child to decode the words on the page. Sequencing problems may cause a reader to confuse the order of events in a chapter or story. Memory difficulties may make it hard for a child to keep the beginning of a story in his or her head by the time they get to the end. Even attention difficulties may get in the way of concentrating on the material with sufficient depth to retain what was read.

Similarly, there are many reasons why children may struggle with writing. They may have limited expressive (oral) language, which makes it hard for them to find appropriate words to express what they are trying to say. They may have difficulties with organization, which make presenting a story step by step to be a struggle. They may have a reading disorder, such as dyslexia, which makes it hard for them to spell. They may even have an attention issue which makes it hard for them to concentrate on a complex task like writing for the time needed to produce written work.

For all of these children, graphic novels and comic books may provide access to written materials that can help build the skills children need to be successful readers and writers. These mediums are no longer just the sensationalist superhero stories (POW!, BAM!) many of us encountered in our own youth. Today's graphic novels are sophisticated and contain the same kinds of themes, characters, and language that can be found in books. Many comic books are very similar to graphic novels, with somewhat shorter stories. The key to both of these are that they are supported by high quality graphic images that allow students to more readily access the written words that accompany the illustrations.

These forms of storytelling are not just for reading. Creating comics (or even graphic novels, for older, more sophisticated writers) can allow children to tell their story through the medium of pictures, without needing to use the language skills that are so difficult for them. There are a number of good tools available. Take a look at the list from Common Sense Education or at some of the tools we often recommend to students: Storyboard Creator and Comic Creator. And we have written about some terrific graphic novels in prior blog posts:

• Graphic Novels - Don't Call Them Comic Books
• Great Graphic Novels for the Middle Grades
• Motivating Reluctant Boys to Read

Finally, there is a great story in today's New York Times about Loot, a comic book store in Brooklyn where children are encouraged to read, borrow, and create their own comic books. It sounds like fun for kids and the parents who accompany them.

Photo: Enokson