WOW!!!WHat an awesome law!!!!!!I wish we had it!!!!!!bump
Hmmm... I'll have to see what I can find on that. I do know once my son was classified "autistic", speech was bumped to 5x a week. There's got to be something written down somewhere!
http://www.aspergersexpress.com/ny_guidelines_for_autism.htm
Try here ... I just did a quick glance, but there might be something on this site.
Thanks NYMommyof3 - anything you can find would be great. I've been googling and I'm not finding it.I know, from this forum, that it is law in New York that an autism label in school provides for daily speech services. Do any of you New Yorkers know how I can track down that specific law? A link perhaps?
I met a NY SLP once who had a caseload of NINE autistic kids (unheard of almost any other state!) I can't imagine how much those nine must have benefitted from the daily help!Oh absolutely! My son's ST recently called me and asked if she could change things up to 3 group/2 private sessions per week. His IEP currently says 1 group/4 private. The "groups" are no more then 2 kids, but she feels it would be more helpful for him with more kids for social talking.
His speech every day has helped tremendously since it started. He made huge progress from 2x a week to every day. If you can get it, GET IT!
dbcmom you can still get speech 5 days per week if you can prove your son needs it. We don't live in NY but my son gets 45min per day 5 days per week.From my NY Advocate message board:
Here's the part 200 regs re autism: check the Regents web site to see if they changed any of this at their Sept '07 meeting, although I doubt it. Kids classified as having autism get speech services "daily," and even in NYSED's contorted world of spedverbiage, daily means 5X/week for schools which have programs 5X/week. Here's a link to most of the part 200 regs for your future reference: http://www.vesid. nysed.gov/ specialed/ publications/ lawsandregs/ part200.htm# 200.13 - Dee Alpert
200.13 Educational programs for students with autism.
(a) The functioning levels of students with autism, based upon the criteria set forth in section 200.6 (g)(2) of this Part, shall govern their individual or small group instruction.
(1) The continuum of special education programs and services as described in section 200.6 of this Part shall be available to students with autism as needed.
(2) The chronological age range of instructional groups serving students with autism shall not exceed 36 months for students under age 16 and shall not be limited for students 16 years of age or older.
(3) The class size for such students shall be determined in accordance with section 200.6 (f) and (g) of this Part, provided that the class size of special classrooms composed entirely of students with autism shall be in accordance with section 200.6 (g)(4)(ii)(a) of this Part.
(4) Instructional services shall be provided to meet the individual language needs of a student with autism for a minimum of 30 minutes daily in groups not to exceed two, or 60 minutes daily in groups not to exceed six.
(5) To the maximum extent appropriate, instructional provisions shall be instituted for eventual inclusion of students with autism into resource room programs for students with combined disabilities or placement in a regular classroom.
(6) In those instances where a student has been placed in programs containing students with other disabilities, or in a regular class placement, a special education teacher with a background in teaching students with autism shall provide transitional support services in order to assure that the student's special education needs are being met.
(b) The length of the school day for students with autism shall be that set forth in section 175.5 of this Chapter.
(c) All school districts are required to furnish appropriate educational programs for students with autism from the date they become eligible for a free appropriate public education until they obtain a high school diploma, or until the end of the school year in which they attain their 21st birthday, whichever occurs first.
(d) Provision shall be made for parent counseling and training as defined in section 200.1 (kk) of this Part for the purpose of enabling parents to perform appropriate follow-up intervention activities at home.
You are very welcome! I'm very glad to be able to help. When you don't know the laws, and the "people in charge" know that you do not know the laws, they will take advantage of that fact.
Thanks NYMommyof3!!!!
http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/lawsandreg s/part200.htm#200.13
Here's the actual link to NYS's law (it was posted by NY Mommy, but the link shows it in context within the regulations, Part 200.13)
http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/specialed/publications/lawsandreg s/part200.htm#200.13
"(4) Instructional services shall be provided to meet the individual language needs of a student with autism for a minimum of 30 minutes daily in groups not to exceed two, or 60 minutes daily in groups not to exceed six. "
YOu'll notice that it says "instructional services." It does NOT say "speech therapy." Some SD's are now trying to claim that time spent in a "language-based" class counts. This has not gone to court yet, but I wanted to mention that even in NY, the SD's are trying to get around too much costly therapy.
I brought up the NY-autism dx 5 days of speech with my child's IEP team . They gave it to him. He needs as much help in that area as he can get. He has a great ST this year who has a niece with autism who she helped in that area.
I live in Illinois. Our special ed advocacy group recently met with our state rep and sentator. I told them about the law in New York calling for speech services daily with an autism dx. The senator said "Are you sure? Is that on the books?" I said, "Yes, I'm absolutely sure." He said "Excellent, can you track that down?" So, that's why I'm looking for the law.
Thanks again for your help!
EVERY NEW YORK PARENT:
It's IMPERATIVE that all parents in all states become VERY familiar with their state sped laws. Laws are written for EVERYONE to read, not just lawyers. Fortuneately, NY Sped law is pretty darned good. IDEA 2004 is the Federal Law, which gives the MINIMUM standards. NY has higher standards. One thing that NY provides is what NYMommy posted. NO other states has special laws that apply JUST to kids with autism (your child does not have to have an Autism classification, but must HAVE a form of autism. Some kids with autism are under the Multiply Disabled classification because they truly HAVE multiple disabilities. Like Autism and blindness or deafness or physical impairment, etc. 200.13 applies to those kids, too).
I am having trouble copying the link (my computer is being pesky this morning), but what you need to bookmark is the Regulations of the Commissioner, Part 200 and 201. To find that, go to www.nysed.gov and search Part 200 and 201. Save this to your desktop and refer to it often. The more you look things up, the more knowlegable you will be. This applies to ALL states, but I don't have the link for other states.
We are in NY now, and at our transfer meeting, my son's Florida IEP was changed to from 3 group sessions per week to 3 30 min. private/1 30 min. consult w/teacher per week. Does that mean he's being shortchanged? I was so thankful to have the one on one that I didn't even ask about HOW MUCH.
Yes Matty - you are entitled to another session. Se all day all the kids get language help. It was group done which was fine for Daniel cause his class last year was only 8 kids. The problem though was NT kids need something different than talking kids do. We will see what this NP says we see next Mon day says. Daniel issue is understanding language at his reading level. Meaning he can read at 5th grade but do to the capd he can only understand at a lower level.Actually, if your read the regs it does not say daily speech therapy. It says daily language instruction*. In some cases, the entire class gets specific language instruction from an SLP or someone else with strong language training and that can count. However, if it's the whole class, that "session" can't be for more than 6 kids at once and it has to be at least an hour long. So, if your child is in a 12-1-1, the therapist can't work with more than half the class at a time. And since these groups have to contain kids with similar needs in order to be appropriate, it's the rare situation in which the "therapy" can simply be class time. Just wanted to give people a heads up about this "loophole." The other thing is that just because our kids CAN get so much speech it doesn't mean that, on an individual basis, they all NEED this much speech or can even benefit. Sometimes, for kids whose actual speech is OK but who need lots of pragmatics, it's better to consider a group social skills session with a psychologist or social worker as part of what constitutes their language instruction. All of this has to be individualized to the child.
*(4) Instructional services shall be provided to meet the individual language needs of a student with autism for a minimum of 30 minutes daily in groups not to exceed two, or 60 minutes daily in groups not to exceed six.