Services for Students
An initial Individual Education Plan (IEP) may be held with a minimum number of people, including a parent, special education teacher, regular classroom teacher, administrator and the person who assessed the student for eligibility (psychometrist, psychologist).
It is also important to include the student, even in the primary grades, since the education plan focuses on the child's needs, abilities and potential. In the past, the student was frequently left out of the planning. That is an oversight, since it is a plan for the student and the student is the holder of potential, of dreams -- the motivation for the whole process. When a child feels included and empowered, s/he has an understanding of why he or she has been singled out, it can counterbalance a sense of being labeled, having something wrong, feeling excluded from others.
IDEA 97 strongly recommends that the student be included at least by age fourteen and deems it necessary that the student of sixteen or older be included during the transition planning.
Though it is not mandatory, any person providing services is encouraged to participate in the meeting. This may include any of the following service providers listed below. In addition, any interested parties are encouraged to attend.
Parents may bring an advocate or an attorney, and in some cases the student may also have a friend of the court in attendance.
|
Name of Service
|
Definition
|
Providers
|
IEP Team
|
| Assessment | Observation, criterion and informal assessment | Classroom teacher, Special educator, psychologist | YES |
| Assistive technology | Devices that improve capacities that are impaired | AT specialists, teachers, OT, PT | YES |
| Audiology | Ability to hear | Audiologist, initial screening - nurse | Sometimes |
| Counseling | Support pro-active change, relationships, feelings, growth | Therapist, psychologist, social worker, guidance counselor | Sometimes |
| Infant Stimulation | Early support services, including developmental screening, PT, Speech work | Large cadre of people may support the child to make developmental progress prior to school age | IFSP |
| Language evaluation | Screen for primary language and facility in communicating | Speech pathologist, school personnel, social worker | Sometimes |
| Occupational therapy | Improving or developing lost or impaired functions | Occupational therapist | Frequently |
| Parent training | Provide skills to parents to work more effectively | Therapist, psychologist, social worker, paraprofessional aide | Rarely |
| Physical therapy | Physical therapist | Frequently | |
| Rehabilitative counseling and transitioning | Career and employment development, preparation for independence, work placement | Social worker, job coach, aide, paraprofessional assistant, | Transition IEPs |
| Speech therapy | ID, and provide services to enhance ability to communicate | Speech pathologist | Frequently |
| Transportation | Community or school van / bus | Speech pathologist | Rarely |
| Unusual but possible | |||
| Foster Parent | |||
| Foster care social worker | |||
| Residential provider | |||
| Juvenile Probation | |||
| Attorney |