What is the goal of an IEP?

Could you provide more information about your child? Is he/she in 12th grade? What have been the problems….

HI

My daughter is in 7th and doing well with her IEP. She has handwritting trouble and reading comp trouble not to mention she is completely disorganized. But doing much better. Her teacher told me that she will have a standard diploma or advanced just depending on what courses she takes. So I really keep and eye on her too but she doesn’t require as much assistance as our son.

Our son is in 2nd with and IEP that is not going so well. He is really at about a 1st grade 2nd month level. He has so much trouble with reading. He is just now able to tell you the letters but still can’t remember all of the sounds. But he is getting better with those.

The reason I was asking about the diploma was, I feel like they just want him to show up for 12 years and then he is done that it really doesn’t matter how much he learns. I was allready told that he is not expected to catch up becasue he is LD. Also that he would probably receive a certificate of attendance or the IEP diploma.

Is the goal of special ed to just get you by in life? or should it be that it is to teach you ways of coping and learning the same info just in a differnt way.

Thanks
Michele

Hi Michele,

I live in Virginia, too. I have a son in 5th grade who has an IEP. I also believe that the school is/was not supporting my son’s needs properly, and felt that their expectations for him are lower than those for other students.

To counteract this attitude by the schools, I read up on the IDEA (start with www.wrightslaw.com for information on special ed laws) and my son’s specific disabilities/disorders. I “talked” to people on the internet who are very generous with their time and information. I learned as much as I could about what my son needs.

I battled with the school system and got some of what my son needs on his IEP, and have provided a LOT of it myself. At least in my school district, if I had waited for the school to do it, my son would have never had an IEP with appropriate goals and objectives, that really helped him. And he would be falling through the cracks without an appropriate education, even with an IEP.

Don’t ever give up. After being told repeatedly that my son would never learn to read phonetically by his teachers, several administrators, the principal, the resource teacher, private tutors … I found the right reading method for him. I took him to a clinic for a week over the summer, and his word attack skills improved almost 4 grade levels. He is now reading almost two levels above his current grade.

So, LD kids CAN and DO catch up, with the right effort made in the right direction. Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. :-)

Lil

But Michele, they key to Lil’s son’s success is that she does not depend entirely on the school for her son’s needs to be met. I think she tutored him herself using Reading Reflex (Phono-Graphix) and then took him to FL to the clinic that created that program for intensive tutoring. Your son needs this type of instruction if he is to keep up with his grade level academically. If you cannot tutor him yourself, find someone who is qualified in a research based reading method. It really needs to be one-on-one to be effective. Please con’t count on the school to do it.

Janis

There are some kids who based either on their cognitive ability or the severity of their learning disability who will never be able to function at a 12th grade level academically.

Special ed and I.E.P.s cover kids with a range of disabilities. For example, it is unrealistic to expect that child with a low IQ (under 70) will be able to ever achieve 12th grade proficiency in all subject areas no matter how good the teaching or how appropriate the goals are. Legally, these children can remain in school until they are 21 and then “graduate” regardless of proficiency level. Often, people (including school board members) think of these children when they are answering questions about IEPs and graduation.

For kids of normal or high intelligence with a LD, it is less clear what their ultimate potential regarding academics is. If I.E.P. goals are appropriate and teaching methods used that meet the needs of the child, many LD children can certainly achieve 12th grade proficiency and beyond in academics. However, there are severely dyslexic kids who may never read at the 12th grade level but are able to reach 12th grade proficiency in other subjects (math, science, etc.). Likewise, a child with a severe math based learning disability may never be at 12th grade proficiency in math but is able to achieve grade level competency in other areas.

On the other hand, there are child who are dyslexic and struggling in the early grades, who if taught with the right methods, can reach or exceed grade level ability in reading. One of the problems is that often schools will assume a child struggling in the early grades will fall into the category of never being able to reach grade level so they stop trying to make that happen. If becomes a self-fulfiling prophecy.

In my state (CT), there are now requirements that special ed students as well as the regular students take the standardized exams that evaluate schools . This may cut down on the number of special ed students not really being taught because schools have to find a way to help these children pass those exams.

I believe it is up to the parent to get as much information as possible about what their child is able to achieve and find the best way for them to reach their potential. For example, I would never give up on a child being able to read at grade level unless they have tested out with low cognitive ability, severe language disorders, and/or attempted a variety of intensive remedial approaches that are available.

Unless they have more information than you provided in your post, the school is giving up on your son much too early. Right now, I wouldn’t worry about graduation or 12th grade proficiency. Focus on the development of your sons reading skills. Ensure that the goals are appopriate on his IEP, fight for the use of alternative approaches if the methods the school is using don’t work, and look for outside remediation if necessary.

Pat,

BTW, if you son is able to graduate at 18 with a reading level at 9th or 10th grade, he will do fine in life. Most newspapers are written at a 6th grade reading level and very few jobs require a higher proficiency than what is considered an 8th grade reading level.

My son is now in 6th grade with an IEP I asked last year at the meeting about what kind of diploma he would receive. He will get a general diploma it sounds like.

Sadly, IEP or not the schools pass kids along whether they have learned or not. They began doing it years ago using the excuse that it would be bad for the kids self esteem to fail.

The fact is IEP or not not all kids learn at the same rate and all kids are better at some subjects than others. They continue to expect more and more of the kids but settle for less than teaching basics they really need.

Thanks Janis, for setting the record straight.

Yes, I did tutor my son with Reading Reflex myself, and we used their method for decoding words for the entire school year (my son was VERY unwilling, but we plowed through anyway). I think he had all the pieces in place so that the intensive reading clinic could be as successful as it was.

It took a lot of research to determine the appropriate program for my son, and I asked a LOT of questions, and got a lot of good help from people like you. (thanks again)

Pat,

IQ scores are changeable, depending on therapy and remediation the kids receive. I have read stories from parents where their children’s IQ scores increased 20 to 30 points after some appropriate therapy, and/or after being given an IQ test that was testing their ability, not their disabililty.

By that I mean I have heard the WISC-III is very linguistically loaded and may not be appropriate for a child with an auditory processing disorder. Conversely, the C-TONI or Kaufman may not be appropriate for a child with visual problems.

I have also heard that children with ADHD improve their IQ scores after medication. I’m not trying to start any trouble here, :-) nor am I suggesting that medication is appropriate for all children with ADHD. I am simply saying that IQ scores often improve once the child’s focusing ability has been improved through medication or any other methods appropriate for that child.

I have no first hand experience with this, and am relaying stories I have read. My son has only taken one IQ test (pre-meds and all therapy/remediation). I will be interested to see what his scores are now, and if they change. His triennial review is next fall, so I’ll have first hand experience then. I’ll be surprised if I don’t see a sizeable jump, based on the positive and striking changes I have seen in my son.

And (as much as I hated to hear the school say it to me) sometimes I believe that children just need some time to mature. My son seemed to hit his stride this summer. He will be 11 years old next month.

Second grade is way too early to decide if a child will never catch up or receive a certificate or IEP diploma.

Lil