Pre- IEP meeting

Yes it is normal. It is called and evaluation team report meeting, or in some states a Multifactored evaluation meeting.

It is imperitive that you as a parent understand your childs test results so that you can be a part of the IEP team. You also have a right to a copy of the multifactored evaluation and a “resonable” amount of time to understand it, prior to the iEP meeting- (most states define “resonable” as 10 days in advance)

I have never heard of the multifactored or evaluation team report meeting haveing ONLY the parent and the Psychologist present. I dont know the fed law on it eigther, I know in my state it requires the full presence of the IEP team so that if they have any questions about the tests the psychologist can help them understand it, they also need to be their to explain their portions of it (teachers have several pages in the report that they fill out).

Ohio ,

The meeting for next Tuesday is the meeting with full participants for IEPT to determine eligibility for special education and if appropriate to develop an individualized education program. This meeting was set up in person in January. The psychologist called last Tuesday to say he had started to find visual perception problems and would finish up testing later in the week. (Son came home Friday to say he had finished). Neither at our original meeting to give our concerns and consent for testing, nor during the telephone call, did the psychologist state he would want to meet with us for the results prior to the full IEPT mtg.

So I assume that the psychologist is only going over his portion of the tests. 8 yr old son also had OT testing by therapist. This meeting is to only understand the evaluation scores done by the psychologist. He wouldn’t commit to any findings, stating that he hadn’t tallied everything up yet and wouldn’t have it ready until Thursday, but that he did want to meet in person on either on Thursday or Friday to go over it.

Maybe because they didn’t finish testing until 7 school days prior (not including the time needed to tally and write repoprt), he decided to invite us in person to go over the results. I just have never known it to happen to anyone else. The others whom I personally know involved in the special education systems seem to have to push, pull and prod in order to get the information. (Different school systems from mine.)

Dana the meeting to determine if your child has disabilities or continues to have disabilities, and the IEP meeting, should be two seperate meetings. Even I coundnt comprehend a MFE well enough to turn around and write an IEP in one sitting.

I would seriously doubt anyone who claimed to be so well versed in all areas tested to be able to so.

I reccommend that you go to the meeting to determine if your child has a disability, explain that you need time to go over the report more throughly and get a copy of the report, (do NOT sign the report untill you understand and agree with it 100% ) and then tell the team that you will need to schedule a second meeting after you have had a chance to read the report and get questions answered.

I f you have any questions after you leave the meeting, each and every person who tested your child has to answer your questions, in addition to this calling a advocacy agency for a second opinion and answers to your questions is in your and your childs best interist.

Ohio, thanks for your input. When the invitation came for the purpose of: “determining eligibility for special educational programming or services, and if appropriate to develop an individualized education program [IEP]”, we had already decided at that point we wouldn’t be signing off on anything without a couple of days to reflect on the info.

We were just curious that it doesn’t show up as 2 separate meetings and then the psychologist days before calls and wants only us and him to go over his results. We are going to the meeting to gather all the information and then utilize the time until next Tuesday to try and completely understand at least his testings to be better informed for that meeting with the full team.

When my son was identified (in 5th grade), the individual who did all the testing (the teacher in charge of the resource room at his school) called us the weekend before our meeting with the whole group to tell us the results of the testing. In particular, she wanted us to understand what tests were give, and what the results meant. This wasn’t required by the process, but I thought it was a nice gesture on her part, especially since we were on the phone for a good 1.5 hours of her weekend time. Having that information ahead of time also allowed us to be able to better contribute during the full meeting where his eligibility was determined (the team consisted of his classroom teacher, the pricipal, the school district psychologist, the resource room teacher and us). The same information was also presented at the full team meeting. It sounds like your school psychologist is doing a similar thing. It definitely helped to have the info ahead of time, as I was then able to do some outside reading as to what the test results meant.

KayR,

I’m glad to hear of someone else with this experience. Sometimes, I think with all of the “war” stories, it’s hard to believe it when you are getting such a positive experience. Since formally writing our request for a full evaluation, the school has been great at keeping us informed. I am hoping and looking for things to go well; however, I am preparing for the ‘potholes’ we may encounter on the road.

Our psych. always does this, per IDEA ‘97. The law requires that parents receive assessment results before the meeting. Since most parents are not trained psychs. and are not familiar with the testing, our psych. feels she needs to do this in person so the parents will have everything explain or shown and be able to clarify questions. A good practice, not specifically required.

Given the size of caseloads, the extent of the teaching day, the number of nonIEP meetings teachers and administrators attend, there is almost no way two separate meetings of the IEP meeting in order to 1) review results and 2) determine eligibility and draft an IEP would be considered the norm in most situations. If the parents refuse to settle at the first meeting and demand a second, then the IEP team has no choice. Most parents at my school are happy to get the results explained in detail with only the psych. BEFORE the IEP meeting. There really is no reason the others have to be at that meeting, for each of us gets the report, too and we have been over many, many reports and are familiar with the tests and the terminology.

Most psychologists do not understand and cannot interpert or answer questins regarding the speech lang. pathologists tests. A psychologist can not answer questions regarding an OT’s evaluation, they cant answer questions about what the teachers write in their sections eigther. The only thing the psychologist can do is answer questions about the achievement test, the IQ test (and the visual motor scan-if one has been done).

Often times a child will have a language disability and the psychologist is so unfamilier with the slp’s portion of the MFE/ETR that the psychologist will turn around and give the child a verbal IQ test.

I know teachers dont like MFE/ETR meetings and IEP meetings, but parents need to talk with all the people before they can be part of an IEP team.
Part of my job is attending these meetings and even after haveing done hundreds of them I still can not assimulate and manipulate all the results “on the spot” well enough to write an IEP that meets ALL the childs needs, how could anyone expect a parent who dosnt have that kind of expierience and background to do so?

That is why the law requires that the parents recieve the evaluation and get their questions answered before the IEP meeting.

Even though you may disagree about the number of meetings needed, 1, 2 or whatever it takes, I say thank you.

In reading all of your responses, I have concluded that we do indeed have a psychologist who cares and wants us to understand his reports before the meeting. I am assuming that the OT evaluation is coming separately. I am happy he wants to share in person, not just mail off copies for us to decipher ourselves.

I thank you again and will surely be back after the meeting to get any insights I can.

Dana

It doesn’t specify in IDEA that the parent recieve evaluation results before the meeting.

It is good practice,because it does state in IDEA that the parent be afforded the opportunity to fully understand the evaluation results,prior to the IEP meeting. This makes you an informed participant,because Teacher’s have a jump ahead of you being that they do understand what the results say,and what implications educationally .

It sounds like Dana,that your school is doing the right thing,and that is GREAT!
Good luck and keep us posted:-)

Unless the parent or teacher has requested, we do NOT routinely include either speech and language or OT in our initial evaluation of a child. If a child has a suspected learning problem, we do the psychoeducational evaluation. I administer educational tests, as does our psych. and she also gives the other tests, IQ, processing, etc. IF we see a difficulty, then we discuss at the IEP meeting and send the referral for speech/language, etc. at that time. Only a small percentage of my resource students every qualify for speech/language, so to make this a routine part of an eval. when there is no indicator this is an issue would be a waste of time and resources. Since our psych. was a special ed. teacher (many were), she is fully qualified to discuss educational assessments and implications.

Further, the only area she really covers with parents is her eval, so parents will have the legally required data before the meeting (the Woodcock Johnson test I give is included in her report and mine).

If the law ever gets to the point of routinely demanding more than one IEP team meeting to make a placement, we will have serious repercussions within the special ed. community, for as I said above, we are all very, very busy within our jobs and have little unused time……….something like that could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Socks, exactly how is that different? We must either give parents a typed report and let them try to figure out the mumbo jumbo on their own or sit down and explain it to them. Either way, parents are to receive assessment results before the IEP, it is the law.

Im sorry that is not legal in Ohio, law requires that any child tested for learning diabilities have a slp evaluation. The slp is the only person qualified to check for listening comprehension.

also we have 2 national advocacy agencies in Ohio, both insist on seperate meetings, as does the smaller advocacy agencies.

The first meeting is NOT an IEP meeting, it is an MFE or ETR meeting. If the child has a disability, then you have an IEP meeting.

It is absurd to think that the average parent can understand, use and manipulate the information in an MFE on the spot. I wouldnt sign a home purchase agreement on the spot, I wouldnt sign a car purchase agreement on the house- all these involve is money, I certainly wouldnt sign a MFE/ETR on the spot that would eighter Identify or exempt my child, from or for, needed help.

This is a link that will help you begin to understand how to interpert and understand the evaluation team report, after you visit here you will see why it is allmost immpossible to do on the spot.

http://www.ldonline.org/bulletin_boards/pld.html

Correct,just saying that it isn’t part of one section of IDEA but basicly a part of another. We are agreeing.

I don’t know about the legalities here in MA, but I do know that the standard practice in our school system is to first have the meeting to determine if there are special needs, and THEN have the IEP meeting. There may be time to bat around a few ideas during the first direction so that people know what services might be appropriate, but the plan is written later.

Karen

There is no mystery to assessing listening comprehension. I have never heard of the Ohio requirement that only an SLP can assess this. For heavens sake, I assess for this, our psych. assesses for this.

Practically speaking this took two meetings!! The psych talked forever and in two hours all we had accomplished was establishing that he was still elgible for an IEP (this was a reevaluation).

Now we already knew this because everyone had given us results or discussed it over the phone. We had hired an advocate……I would have liked it done in one meeting!!!

Beth