solo -traing

Tue, Jan 10, 2023 11:48AM
15:25
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
child, iep, parent, support, student, training, special education, learning, teacher, school, services, speech, classroom, personnel, helping, sally, ben, specific, participate, academically

00:03
Consider this scenario, a child with autism attends school in a mainstream classroom. Althoughshe is progressing academically, her teacher isn't sure how to handle situations that make her upset. Says such as when she doesn't understand an assignment or during unexpectedchanges to the classroom routine. She also has difficulty organizing her work and interactingwith peers when students are working together in the classroom or during non academicactivities like lunchtime, anxiety, and meltdowns are common. And although calls home clearlyshow that the teacher is trying to help, she doesn't seem to know enough about autism tounderstand how it affects her student's ability to cope with daily stressors, and how she canhelp the child effectively. So what can be done to help this student and all of our students thatis what we're discussing today, supports in training for school personnel and for parents. Hello, special education strategist. I am your host, Wendy Taylor. I'm a mom of three and have sat on both sides of the IEP table. As a parent in a professional, the world of special education canseem overwhelming and scary, even for me as a parent and I have that extensive specialeducation training. But I've got you and my solo episodes of the special education strategist.I'm here to break down the IEP process, reduce the stress and empower you and your student.At the IEP table I have learned to improve outcomes. Be informed, be prepared and become a partner with that IEP team. You know your child best and you know if they are struggling or ifthey are thriving, if they are happy or losing hope, i
f they understand or completely lost. The question is what now if you're unsure what steps to take to help your child succeed and need astarting point, head over to learning essentials edu.com and take my free quiz. After answeringsome simple questions about your child, it will guide you towards the first step and helpingyour child be the best they can be. Now back to discussing support and training. Supports are a powerful tool. Even better if we have proper training to help us navigate. By IP is mainlyfocused on the needs of the student and the services and supports they receive includingsupport for school personnel can be a powerful tool for improving educational and behavioral outcomes. Although the IEP must include it place that to describe these supports, they're oftenminimally addressed and vaguely worded at best. This required component of the IEPrepresents an opportunity for both parents and professionals to advocate for the child, for theparent and even for that professional working together as a team to better improve our outcomes. So if we take a look at the law ide a our Federal law says supports for schoolpersonnel could also include special training for a child's teacher training is targeted directly onassisting the teacher to meet a unique and specific need of the child. And this wording is important. It doesn't simply mean I'm going to participate in an in service that is generallyavailable to all the educators in my district. It means that I'm going to participate as aneducator in a training that meets the specific unique needs of a child. So federal regulation
emphasizes the importance as well, not only for professionals, but for parents, and they use theterm counseling and training. So the Department of Education states that there should be noquestion that parent counseling and training include helping parents acquire skills that will helpthem support the implementation of their child's IEP or IFSP. Let's consider first the needs of school personnel for a moment. So for example, Ben's English teacher, Mrs. Brown needs support, specifically training by stride that again, for example, Ben's teacher, Mrs. Smith needs support, specifically training by the resource teacher or the school psychologist in ADHD andhow ADHD affects Ben and how Ben can learn more effectively. Supports for school personnelcan focus on opportunities for staff to learn about the student's disability, how it can affect thestudent in school setting. And when we talk about the school setting As a parent, I really wantyou to think about academically, physically, behaviorally, socially, emotionally, the whole child,the whole experience of the child, from the time they enter the school building to they leavethe school building. We also want to think about training that is evidence based, and how toaccess and receive training and specialized curricula. So the IEP must describe the supports forschool personnel that will be provided on behalf of the student, so that the student canadvance towards obtaining the annual goals that are outlined to be involved in and progress inthe general curriculum, and to participate in extracurricular activities and other non academicactivities. So we've talked about this and other solo episodes. But it's not all about the academics. It's also about activities that are part of the school, even after school activities thatare non academic, and extracurricular to ensure that our students have equal access and canparticipate fully with their same age peers. Supports for school personnel are those that wouldhelp them to more effectively work with the student, they could include special training for astudent's teacher supports for still school personnel that are needed to, again to meet thatunique and specific need of that student. So let me give you some examples. And from ation on specific disability, and implications for instruction, meaning, or training and use of specificpositive behavioral interventions, training in the use of American Sign Language, assistancewith curriculum modifications, maybe specific trainings on a assistive technology device that astudent will be using, perhaps a behavioral consultation with school psychologist, a socialworker or other behavioral consultants. Also, if there's transitional support suit servicesneeded, let's think about the parent training as well. Think about how much more satisfyingand effective as a parent that homework session would be, if you could implement the successsuccessful strategies the school finds. So initial and ongoing training for parents should be written into the IEP, they must find.

07:42
For example, you may find that you will be helping your child so again, Ben from earlier,translate word problems into more concrete step by step math problems. And that, that way of doing that really helps your child be successful. So training you as the parent how to do that sothat you can mirror what has been successful in the classroom is critical, it is key. And that is really how we create that partnership with the school and as an IEP team to support a specificchild. So if we look at the official comments from 1999, it states that the definition of parentcounseling and training should be changed to recognize the more active role acknowledged forparents under IDE, a amendments of 1997 as participants in the education of their child. We know parents are very important participants in this education process for their child.
08:53
And so by from a professional lens, helping parents gain the skills that will enable them to help their children meet the goals and objectives that are outlined in the IEP will be a positivechange. For parents. It will also be a positive change for the student, it's going to assist infurthering the education of their child and will aid in the schools as it will create opportunities tobuild reinforcing relationships between each child's education program and out of schoollearning. So let's take a couple more examples here of how these IEP services can beimplemented. Sally is a third grader who has developmental delay with severe language impairment. She's receiving one on one pullout services from a speech and language therapistfor 30 Minutes two times per week.

09:55
Things seem to be going well, at times she can become oppositional so what Can we do so wewrite to request an IEP meeting with the teacher, and the speech and language pathologist.And we open this discussion on how we can better support our students, Sally here, and we aregoing to request Parent Training and collaboration between Sally's teacher and the speechlanguage pathologist. And that is not to replace that direct speech service. But we're looking at collaboration and training in addition, so maybe what could happen is that
10:43
you can ask to receive 30 minutes per month and parent training from the speech languagetherapist. And that gives you an opportunity to root view the speech exercises that she's yourchild, Sally is working on, and speech therapy and in this way, you're able to practice andreinforce the receptive and expressive language exercises in the home to continue tostrengthen those skills, and then reduce the opportunities that the child is becoming frustratedwith their language skills. Another example is if your child is eligible under oh hi or other healthconditions, say for a brain injury, and they receive support through their school, the parentscould receive mental health counseling or family therapy to help understand that child'sdisability they could also acquire to help them understand the child's disability and to acquirethe communication and behavioral management skills that may be necessary to help thatstudent achieve their IEP goals. One more example is say you have an eighth grader has an IEPthat supporting reading and processing an example for parent training could include 10minutes per month, from a special educator or speech pathologist or the reading interventionspecialist to help the parents learn the techniques that are being used so that the parents canhelp monitor their progress outside of the classroom, and carry over the techniques outside ofschool. So the IEP should clearly designate who is responsible for the training, the IEP mustassign responsibility for the preparation of the supplementary aids and services. And if the regular education teacher can't do this alone, they need support, perhaps from the specialeducation department. And the task must be allocated. So all personnel will know who isresponsible, the school will be accountable, and will have the materials in the sports the childneeds to be successful. And I encourage you to do that as a parent to really ask thosequestions of who is responsible for delivering a service who is responsible for delivering thetraining so that everybody at the IEP table is clear. Some people don't know to ask that whether you're a parent or a professional. So I think it's really critical that we include that in ourquestions during that IEP process while we're developing the child's IEP, so everybody is awareof who is providing the services where it's taking place when it's taking place, and theaccountability piece the data piece, so everybody's on the same page. By making sufficient useof support for school personnel and parent training, IEP teams can use the tools provided by ID EA to help children succeed. Teachers, special education personnel, service providers andparents will work closely together to understand the child's gaps in gains, how they impact thechild educationally, academically, behaviorally, socially, emotionally, etc. and recognize theeffects of the educational performance, so we can all collaborate so we can all collaborate tomeet the child's individualized educational needs. I hope this helps make it a great day. Again, I am your host Wendy Taylor. I'm obsessed with helping families and professionals, bridgelearning gaps, access special education services, and build kick butt IPs. Thank you again for strategizing with us and spending your precious time listening. If you've loved what you'veheard, share this episode with a friend and give us a like and a follow at learning essentials.Head on over to learning essentials edu.com to take your free quiz. If you need more specialeducation support Visit learning essentials where we provide an individualized and systematicapproach to supporting students with various learning needs and differences through academiccoaching educational therapy, brain camp or executive function support model and IEPcoaching.