Wednesday, 18 February 2015

Be Aware Of The IEP Parent Rights To Protect Your Child

By Beryl Dalton


Individualized education programs (IEP) are services offered in both public and private schools for children with special needs. Normally, the services are available for kids that have one form of disability or the other or even those kids that have delayed skills. In public schools, these services are normally available free of charge. However, the parents need to be the advocates for their kids to ensure that they access the right services, from the right educators at the right time. In order to achieve this, the IEP parent rights form the basis on which the parents can engage the concerned parties to develop a tailor-made program that guarantees the student's success in school.

The service is normally available for the children that have difficulty in learning or functioning. They are examined and can be considered as the special need students. This means that they are taught in special ways. This can be as a result of any of the conditions such as learning disabilities, the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), developmental delay, autism, visual impairment, emotional disorders, cognitive challenges, hearing impairment, and speech or language impairment.

It is most probable that these services will be delivered in the normal (standard) school environment. It can be in a normal classroom where the teacher offers extra assistance to the student or in a specialized resource room available in the regular school. Specialized school environment is only used for the students who are in need of an intense intervention.

Since the teacher and the parents are the ones closest to the kid, they are the ones to recommend the student for the IEP services. The school counselor or the psychologist first assesses the kid and gather the necessary data by interviewing the concerned student, the parents, and the teacher and also take time to observe the child.

The child is then accessed after the permission of the parent. A professional team is formed and the parents have the chance to permit the types of test to be performed and who is involved in the said process, In most cases, the team consists of the psychologist, the physical therapist, the occupational therapists, the speech therapist, specialist in hearing and vision, and special educator among others.

It is this team, parents and teachers included, that develops an appropriate IEP program. This is a program that is tailor-made to address the child's short-term and long-term goals. It consists of specific and measurable goals that take account of the child's shortcomings.

In order to fully represent your child, you must be well aware of the parental rights at all stages of the process. These rights are contained in a procedural safeguard documents that should be availed to the parents at the moment their child get a referral.

It is possible to access the legal services from the low-cost attorneys and advocates who are also very familiar with the IEP processes. They are always willing to provide representation services when the need arises. In some cases, the services can be available for free and this information can be available from the school district.




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