IEP meeting--round 1

kcisthebombdotcom · September 2012

..didn't go so well. I get the distinct impression that the special ed director doesn't think my son needs services. Luckily the SLP jumped in and mentioned she had been listening to my DS talk to himself while playing with some toys for about 10 minutes and understood little of what he was saying so that helped I'm sure. She did give the caveat that in 2 more months when they make their final determination for eligibility that he may no longer qualify.

I know I'm putting the cart before the horse here, but how does the process of appealing the school department's decision go if they deem him ineligible for services? Is there anything I can bring to the eligibility meeting that might help my case--a letter from my pedi or anything? My EI service coordinator and SLP came to the meeting and they were both amazing and very helpful in pointing out while he made much improvement there was still work to be done. However, my SLP will likely be on maternity leave by the time our eligibility meeting rolls around and we'll have a fairly new service coordinator we have a new one starting next week.

Princess_Lily · September 2012

Any paperwork would help them review your child in greater detail, letters from a pedi and/or any private therapist evaluations.

If an IEP wouldn't be applicable to your DSs case, would a 504 work for them? This way he has some sort of plan.

MaxandRuby · September 2012

I am going to be in the same boat in 1.5wk. I have reason to believe that he will not qualify for speech, yet I feel he will still require services at least to be understood by his teacher, the teacher aides, and his peers. I will still have him in private speech so I am not sure how much I will pursue this (this year at least). This will be our very first IEP and I am being cautious as to not taint my relationship with the school since I will be dealing with them for at least a year and more if we do not have to PCS prior to that.

Our problem is that he did exceptionally well during his speech eval. He was talking fairly clearly that day or at least the SLP was able to determine some of what he said more then likely my visual prompts (flash cards or whatnot) she had with her and was presenting to DS2 (I was sitting outside the room but the door was open).

For your specific question, I would assume the next step is to get an individual evaluation. The school will have to take what they say into account but it doesn't mean they have to change their mind.

malcivar · September 2012

MaxandRuby:
I am going to be in the same boat in 1.5wk. I have reason to believe that he will not qualify for speech, yet I feel he will still require services at least to be understood by his teacher, the teacher aides, and his peers.

Neither did my little guy. The City person latched on as soon as I said that he can make requests by saying "I want XXXX" to which she responded "child speaks in full sentences" I then tried to explain that they are learned sentences and that it's only in response to a question but nope, she had already written down her little statement and that was all there was to it, so he went from speech 5x a week to 2x week. I'm hopeful that the speech therapist he has now will realize that he needs more than 2x a week because while he has a lot of words, he's still not calling anyone by name and not telling - his speech right now is still pretty much limited to making requests but only after being asked what he wants or learned answers to questions like what's your name and how old are you?

It definitely felt more like a fight to get services than EI did.

kcisthebombdotcom · September 2012

-auntie-:

The change from the EI to IEP paradigm is a challenging one for lots of families. Parents shift from being serviced to particpation in the CST. As an active participant, you can weigh in on his educational needs as you see them. If he can't make himself understood in a preschool setting, either with peers or adults, this would be an educational need.

Sharing privately obtained evaluations can help bolster your argument, but the district can deem him ineligible if his delay/impairment is minor. A private SLP or physician can't prescribe tx to be done by the district.

You can then move to an IEE/due process but I would proceed with caution. This can get expensive and can set the stage for a bad relationship with your schools. And you might not prevail. If your son's issues are minor, it wouldn't be a hill upon which I would die. I have a friend who went to IEE and due process- she "won" 2 years at a private theraputic school and attorney's fees. (about $70K) But she so poisoned her relationship with the district she felt compelled to enroll all 3 of her children in private school despite living in a great district. She won the battle, lost the war to the tune of about $132K.

I certainly wouldn't fight for a section 504 for a speech issue. These are civil rights rather than IDEA. A Section 504 can be useful for a child with physical disbilities (it's good for the ramp to the classroom) or even for something like ADHD where accommodations, rather than services, are needed. But if your child requires something that costs money- you need an IEP.

My son has made amazing progress in the last year, but I do fear that without continued speech services he will stop progressing. I don't want him to start school at a disadvantage. His errors in speech are nowhere near age appropriate--he may be mildly apraxic, but no one wants to touch giving him the testing for it. The problem is that my school district doesn't want to look beyond test scores and his are great. The scores really doesn't reflect how poorly his quality of speech is.

Is private speech therapy my insurance likely will not cover my only option if I'm not successful in getting him services through my school district?

Justinlove · September 2012

Here is your problem. If he is performing well on assessments, then he is not showing a significant delay which is what drives services. Even a slight delay will usually not qualify a child--if memory serves me correct, in order for a child to qualify for services in our county at the preschool level, he/she must be 2 SD below in one are or 1 SD below in 2 or more areas (such as Speech and OT).

I think the hardest thing for parents is that EI hands out services VERY easily, whereas once a child is 3, the services are only deemed necessary if it is impacting the child's ability to access the curriculum. HUGE difference.

Private speech isn't bound by the same parameters. They'll take just about anyone!

kcisthebombdotcom · September 2012

-auntie-:
KC_13:

My son has made amazing progress in the last year, but I do fear that without continued speech services he will stop progressing. I don't want him to start school at a disadvantage. His errors in speech are nowhere near age appropriate--he may be mildly apraxic, but no one wants to touch giving him the testing for it. The problem is that my school district doesn't want to look beyond test scores and his are great. The scores really doesn't reflect how poorly his quality of speech is.

Is private speech therapy my insurance likely will not cover my only option if I'm not successful in getting him services through my school district?

It may come to that. Sometimes parents of special needs kids have to pay out of pocket to access the therapy they need. This is especially true in the preschool years where the bar for skills of typical kids is so low.

The school district does not have to offer services if he currently is at an appropriate level of functioning. IEP services are not meant to gain ground beyond grade/age level. Why don't you trust the evals? Why do say no one will "touch" the notion of apraxia? Is it because of his age? I know a lot of SLPs who won't even entertain the notion until a child is 4 or 5.

What I really don't understand about the evals is how his expressive language scores were on track if the articulation of the words is so poor. My child cannot even pronounce simple words like dog appropriately. I don't even know how he gets credit for having words when they're so far removed from what the actual word should be pronounced like.

I'm not trying to get an IEP to gain ground beyond his age level. My end result is him having age-appropriate articulation skills. I would like to get him in a preschool program around his third birthday but it would be incredibly difficult because he needs me to translate for him frequently unless someone spends a whole lot of time with him.

From what I have read/have been told a test to distinguish apraxia from other language disorders can be given once a child can speak in multi-word sentences/uses multisyllabic words which can be around age 3 (or later if the child is still nonverbal). My child has reached that milestone yet his SLP doesn't want to "label" him and she said the school department might not even take her diagnosis seriously since they didn't do the testing, but the school department likely wouldn't test him because they don't like to diagnose preschoolers. Sigh.

Justinlove · September 2012

KC_13:

What I really don't understand about the evals is how his expressive language scores were on track if the articulation of the words is so poor. My child cannot even pronounce simple words like dog appropriately. I don't even know how he gets credit for having words when they're so far removed from what the actual word should be pronounced like.

Articulation is not a component of an expressive language assessment. Articulation and expressive language are two different issues and are tested seperately. In our preschool, articulation is typically NOT addressed since many sounds are considered developmental for many years. Maybe it will help you if you think of articulation as the way the body makes the sounds, whereas expressive language is the ability to use language (liguistics...ie vocabulary, etc.).

kcisthebombdotcom · September 2012

-auntie-:

KC_13:
What I really don't understand about the evals is how his expressive language scores were on track if the articulation of the words is so poor. My child cannot even pronounce simple words like dog appropriately. I don't even know how he gets credit for having words when they're so far removed from what the actual word should be pronounced like.

Piling on to what JIL said. The production of certain sounds is developmental. Another way to think of expressive language is to look beyond words. Can the child get his point across? I have a young adult friend who has severe verbal apraxia- like no words until he was 5 and in kindie. And yet, he attended a traditional half day nursery school and had playdates because he could communicate in other ways. 90% of communication is non-speech.

I'm not trying to get an IEP to gain ground beyond his age level. My end result is him having age-appropriate articulation skills. I would like to get him in a preschool program around his third birthday but it would be incredibly difficult because he needs me to translate for him frequently unless someone spends a whole lot of time with him.

But if you're always there, they won't.It's a hard leap to make.

From what I have read/have been told a test to distinguish apraxia from other language disorders can be given once a child can speak in multi-word sentences/uses multisyllabic words which can be around age 3 (or later if the child is still nonverbal). My child has reached that milestone yet his SLP doesn't want to "label" him and she said the school department might not even take her diagnosis seriously since they didn't do the testing, but the school department likely wouldn't test him because they don't like to diagnose preschoolers. Sigh.

It is his right as a student to be evaluated by the district. This is to avoid a hypothetical situation where a parent could potentially violate his right to LRE by "shopping" for a dx. Many districts don't test for or recognize apraxia until 4 or 5. The SLP who doesn't want to "label"- is she working for your family or EI? Who cuts her check?

I get that certain artic errors are just developmental and certain sounds don't come until school age. His speech is just a mess though. It's beyond just artic errors of words you'd normally see an almost-3 year old make though--it's omissions of most ending sounds as well. I literally have to translate for my husband a lot of what he says. He's practically unintelligible to anyone who doesn't know him.

His current SLP is through EI.

kcisthebombdotcom · September 2012

-auntie-:
Maybe what you need is an SLP who works for you and not the district or EI. A second opinion would either strengthen your argument for increased services or perhaps relieve some of the urgency you feel about his speech.

I was considering doing this for a while but he showed so much improvement that I decided to stick with solely EI. I think this is probably the next best step.

Thank you for the advice/insight.

kcisthebombdotcom · September 2012

Kind of off topic too, but why does the model of care change so much from EI to the school department?

On my son's developmental assessment from EI, his SLP wrote "(DS's name) scored in the average range across all areas. He continues to be eligible for EI services based on informal clinical opinion due to articulation skills and sensory modulation difficulties."

It seems like the school department attitude is we'll try to find any reason to not cover services and unless you have some horrible test scores we don't care.

Why is that?

JenGK · September 2012

DS (5) has apraxia and has been in private speech therapy since just before his second birthday. When it came time to have his school district eval, I brought in his report from his private SLP (a PROMPT/apraxia specialist) and pointed out how she had been treating him for X period of time and how this was her diagnosis. The school district was reluctant to say apraxia, but I made sure that it was included in parental concerns, and the school evaluator said in her report that she did not disagree with the apraxia diagnosis (but would not go so far as to affirmative agree). He qualified readily, and our private therapist was very helpful in getting an extra session of one-one-one speech at school (which is practically unheard of here). Zach still gets private therapy with an apraxia specialist twice a week privately, in large part because there are no PROMPT/apraxia therapists in our school district. If you can afford it, I would suggest bringing on a private therapist.

MaxandRuby · September 2012

Not to beat a dead horse but I'm just not understanding why intelligible and meaningful communication is not an educational need. If a teacher cannot understand what a child is saying because they are unable to produce the correct sounds for words, then isn't that an educational need? Couldn't this cause potential behavior issues (acting out in frustration due to not being understood) or social issues with peers (being made fun of on how they speak, kids not wanting to play with them or something)? What if the child is unable to effectively communicate their need in another way?

I might be reaching and it may pertain to older children vs 3 or 4yr old (I know they still mispronounce words) but I'm just trying to understand the reasoning. I sort of get it from what was said but I don't feel I'm 100% understanding it yet.

funchicken · September 2012

MaxandRuby:
Not to beat a dead horse but I'm just not understanding why intelligible and meaningful communication is not an educational need. If a teacher cannot understand what a child is saying because they are unable to produce the correct sounds for words, then isn't that an educational need? Couldn't this cause potential behavior issues (acting out in frustration due to not being understood) or social issues with peers (being made fun of on how they speak, kids not wanting to play with them or something)? What if the child is unable to effectively communicate their need in another way?
I might be reaching and it may pertain to older children vs 3 or 4yr old (I know they still mispronounce words) but I'm just trying to understand the reasoning. I sort of get it from what was said but I don't feel I'm 100% understanding it yet.

The way it was explained to me is that it's about the child's ability to "access the curriculum." Like auntie said, the demands of preschool are not particularly rigorous. If a three year old is able to understand instructions, follow directions relatively well, and communicate needs at a basic level that's probably all they're looking for there.

Our private OT assessed my DD's fine motor skills at a 20 month level, but when the school district tested her they tested such a small range of things that they found her abilities to be in the normal range. The things that my husband and I are really concerned about (inability to pedal a tricycle, button or snap clothing, comfortably drink out of a regular cup) are not concerns to the school district because they don't interfere with her ability to learn in the classroom--she can write her name, copy shapes, and draw a stick figure.

We're doing private OT because I want to get ahead of potential problems. It's basically our only option at this point. It sucks, but that's where we are.

light52 · September 2012

I highly recommend looking at private therapy. After a year and a half of educational based ST for my oldest, he still hadn't met a single goal. We finally had a doc who would listen to us and he referred us for further testing. At that time we started private ST, OT, and PT and he was suddenly hitting goals left and right. Medical based therapy is different than educational based therapy. We still take the free therapy from the school but also go 2x week to private therapy.

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