“Special Education Procedures and Services” Chapter Two...

“Special Education Procedures and Services”

Special education teachers are the professionals with whom you are most likely to have ongoing contact in teaching students with disabilities. Special education teachers also responsible for the students IEP: Individualized Education Program.

Specialists and Related Service Providers

School Psychologists: Offer at least two different types of expertise related to educating students with disabilities. School psychologists often have a major responsibility for determining a students intellectual, academic, social, emotional and behavioral functioning.

Speech/ Language Therapists: Many students with disabilities have communication needs. Some have mild problems in pronouncing words or speaking clearly.

Social Workers: Expertise is similar to that of counselors in terms of being able to help teachers and students address social and emotional issues.

Physical/Occupational Therapists: Assesses students interventions related to gross motor skills. OT Are with fine motor skills

Nurses: Students medical needs and educational medical needs. They develop student medical histories as needed, and they may screen students for vision and hearing problems.

Administrators: The school principal, assistant principal, and sometimes a department education chairperson or team leader are the administrators most likely to participate actively in the education of students with disabilities.

Paraprofessionals: Individuals who assist teachers and other in the provision of services to students with disabilities.

Parents, students, and Advocates

Self-Determination: Students with disabilities also should be active participants in decision making about their own education. Increasingly, educators are involving students so they can directly state their needs and goals and learn to advocate for themselves, a concept referred to as Self- Determination.

*** Whenever appropriate, students with disabilities also should be active participate in decision making about their own education.

*** You will play a key role in deciding whether a student in your class should be evaluated for the presence of disability.

Analyze Unmet Needs:

“As you teach, you sometimes will discover that you have a nagging concern about a student. This concern might begin early in the school year, or it might take several months to emerge.”

Communicate Your Observations and Try Your Own Intervention

Contact Parents

Contact Colleagues

Try Simple Interventions

• Moving the students seat.
• Incorporate teaching strategies that help the student.
• Making test easier for students.
• Give assignment one at a time.
• Working on one problem and letting the students go work on their own.

“Document the Unmet Need”

Intervention Assistance Team: Includes general education teachers, special services personnel, and an administrator

Response to Intervention: Procedure for analyzing students learning problems. Called Response to Intervention: (RtI)

Multidisciplinary Team: (MDT) Consisting of parents, educators, and others as appropriate-assumes responsibility for making educational decisions regarding the student.

Individualized education program (IEP): The document that outlines all the special education services the student is to receive. Specific guidelines must be followed in developing an IEP.

*** “The IEP must include a clear statement of justification for placing a student anywhere but in general education classroom for all or part of the school day.

Transition Plan: Students with disabilities who are college bound might have a transition plan that includes improvement of study skills, exploration of different universities and their services for students with disabilities, and completion of high school course work immediately after graduation

Due Process: Another strategy for monitoring students receiving special education services. The set of procedures outlined in the law for resolving disagreements between school district personnel and parents regarding students with disabilities.

Mediation: Resolving conflicts with schools. A neutral professional skilled in conflict resolution meets with both parties to help them resolve their differences informally. 

“General Education teachers play an integral role in the education of students with disabilities. They are involved in the early identification of students who appear to have special needs, contribute during the assessment and identification process, and implement IEP goals and possibly objectives, as outlined by the multidisciplinary.