Ive got the first IEP coming up in 5 months and the transition mtg coming up in 3. our early intervention in the section of the district is as pathetic as it gets. i was told so far to ask for the things below, but how does anyone know what you can ask for? its not written anywhere, and although its based on a childs individual needs, there should be a list. maybe we all can come up with one. what have you asked for on the IEP? and what reasons did you give? outcome? MANY THANKS!!!
*Transportation-I was told to get bus transportation included in the IEP, then you can call the school and say right now you don't need it. But in an emergency it would still be in your IEP and you wouldn't have to wait for a new meeting to get.
*Music Therapy-I really want this. My special educator said will ask for it in the IEP, so write up a document on what music has done for him, and how it would help (outcome unknown until IEP)
*Personal Assistant-Ive read where the only way Im getting one in an IEP here is to have one going into the school system. Although I dont necessarily want to, I am entering my son into our county Early Start program now that its been redone and made safer, 4.5months before he can get in school. his special educator is going with him twice as a prereq, so we can give reasons why a personal assistant is needed. then i can carry them to school. (outcome unknown)
*Does anyone know what to include in an IEP when it comes to food allergies and food intolerances? Id love to know how to address that.
AGAIN, THANKS EVERYONE!!!
The only thing that I can say....you want EVERYTHING in the IEP...transportation needs (they tend to not like it if it's not an everyday thing), diet/allergy, meds...EVERYTHING. the EVERYTHING is what im unclear of, and what im looking to break down. medications, dosage - when and what?, transportation - aide on the bus?, allergies - to what and what are the side effects? Follow up - meds? call squad? call parents?, ALL Therapies - how much? how often? what type? GOALS too. Make sure you get copies of ALL records from these meetings on the spot.thank you for the clarification. its just all so overwhelming. right now he only gets 7 hours per month for early intervention and ive been fighting that for over a year now when we only had 4 hours of worthless services (mind you only 4 hours of our services are helpful). even in written reports from the specialists, he needs at least 20 hours per week. can i go in and say hey, i want him to be as normal as you and me and use his full potential and ask for at least 12hrs per week therapy?
how much are people getting?
Payne gets 45 minutes of OT and PT every week. I have been fighting about that. They still haven't allowed ST. Insurance won't cover much b/c school is supposed to do it.my son is a little over 2and a half. hell lbe entering the school system the day after his third bday in preschool. i am fighting to put him in one of the two special ed classes in our county with a specific autism preschool class. that is the only part that should not be a problem and i have an advocate for that if needed and all of his doctors and therapists are in agreement thats where he needs to go. its the ins and outs of what to ask for im unaware of. and id love for everyone on this site to contribute so anyone can look it up and be more prepared when going into the iep. the more we know about autism, it seems the harder the schools are getting about what theyll give up. i do know, here in maryland, the state keeps cutting funds to spec. ed, services, even rolling access. just like this year you can get 3k rolling access, noone out there has any moneys to give. i get some, but i have to wait months til its available.
im hoping to help myself, but also everyone, and when i do my ieps, ill come back to this post and update what i got and how.
its just a matter of what i can get and knowing it. im hoping everyone will contribute to this post and anyone can come back to it for future reference. what im seeing is funds getting cut every year in md for spec. ed, serivces, and rolling access. we have to fight incredibly hard for stuff they should have got 2 years ago. im hoping this will not only help me, but others. and as i do ieps, ill come back and update this post.
For starters, here is a link to the U.S. Department of Education's guide to IEP's.
http://www.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/iepguide/index.html
In our case, we did not have to ask for busing or an aide, as it was a given. Also, I never thought to ask for music therapy. However, music was a big part of my son's day at school.
We do have speech and occupational therapy, as well as a sensory diet. The district has also added social skills training, which is about an hour a week. My youngest has 90 minutes of speech and another 60 minutes of social skills training.
At your son's age, other things to incorporate into the IEP are things like potty training, educational goals (i.e. Will label circle, square, triangle...; Will demonstrate the use of colors and numbers in functional classroom activities; Will follow 2 step directions; Will position scissors and cut a straight line...), a visual schedule if needed, physical adaptations (i.e. a cube chair), food tolerance goals (if applicable), play goals (parallel and reciprocal), staying on task goal, classroom participation goals, and social goals (will greet teacher/classmates unprompted).
As others have suggested, ask for everything and shoot for the moon!
mbrogue - How old is your child? What grade is your child going into? I can did out some old IEPs (I've got a lot of them - 2 kids) and see what they said.Here is a 12 minute video from Autism Speaks on developing an IEP. Unfortunately, it won't link directly to the video, so you have to use the link near the end of the article (Developing an IEP with Gary Mayerson).
http://www.autismspeaks.org/howtocope/iep_mayerson.php
You might want to give this a look. http://www.autismspeaks.org/howtocope/iep_mayerson.phpI would look up what typically developing children are doing and write up goals based on that too. Since you are a member if the IEP team, you have a right to have goals wriiten in that you want him to accomplish during the school year. You know your child better than anyone, so you have more of an idea of how far to push him and what he can and cannot handle. As far as the therapies go, you can print out articles about how much speech is recommended for ASD children or why X amt. of occupational therapy will help your son, etc.., Doctor's reccomendations might help too. I'll check my own files to see what I can share..........
http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopment/ (Development Tracker)
http://nclid.unco.edu/nclid/dhh/ (POP UP IEP Guide)
http://www.newsforparents.org/expert_language_instruction_au tism.html (Language Instruction)
Check out the IEP Goal Bank at http://www.bridges4kids.org/IEP/iep.goal.bank.pdf
I downloaded it and have it saved to my computer - it's a searchable PDF that is great for outlining specific goals/objectives. It was an excellent resource for me when preparing for the ARD to develop my son's initial IEP. I printed it off (its 177 pages) and put it in a 3-ring notebook with section tabs and took it with me for reference - the special ed team coordinator asked me for a copy of it because it was better than what they had.
2 types of therapies. Helps with school which the schools give. The other private is to help with daily life. Have a dr. send the school the list of therapies the child needs. Yes they should have both. Most ins. should pay it with a asd or tbi dx. I was 3 hrs a week when we had private services. There is computer software also for st kids. Linguia systems!ok 0- i am so glad I did not start a new topic on this as the Search function kept timing out
This is a great post and has given me some AWESOME ideas for my son's IEP coming up next month
Search IEP (when site is working better!), there are TONS of ideas...a lot ofThings to include in IEP:
Type/Name of Preschool Program
Speech (min/month)
OT (min/month)
Social Work (min/month)
Adaptive PE (min/month)
Transportation (We put our 3 year old on the bus and it was fine. However in my mind you either do transportation or you don't. I think it's unreasonable to expect the school to do ad hoc transport, as they do arrange the bus routes specially to accomodate our kids.)
Dietary Restrictions
Sensory Diet / Need for Sensory Breaks
Hope this helps!