Reflection again!

Another full of information class! There was a lot of information since the last reflection. One of the most important things we learned was the six principles of IDEA. They are due process, IEP, FAPE, Non-discrimanatory evaluation, zero reject/child find, and LRE.

First lets talk about due process since it is the first. This is the right for a case to be heard. It has many procedural safe guards. The first step in due process is mediation. This is where the parents, teachers, and other administration get together to try to resolve the conflict. They have 30 days for this step. Next they have a hearing and this is fairly informal, but there is a hearing officer and they act as the judge and make the final decision if there was no consensus during mediation. Then if one party decides to appeal the case goes to the district then if there is another appeal it goes to the circuit court and finally the supreme court. There are two options to appeal, state and federal. Whichever one you start in that is the one you stay in the whole time. Due process makes sure that all needs are being met.

IEP stands for individualized education plan. This has to do with the present level of performance and goals for the improvement. IEP is a large part of special education and even general education because it affects so much. A few of the things for IEP are Specially designed instruction (SDI), related services, and placement. These are just a few things the district provides. Not just anyone can have an IEP, but there is eligibility criteria. First there must be a disability, second it must adversely affect the educational performance of the child, and the third question is do they need special education. These three things are decided during the refferal process and if an IEP is not provided then usually there is a 504 plan used instead. A 504 plan is a supplemental plan towards educational process and requires less money than an IEP.

Next we have FAPE, which stands for free appropriate public education. This means exactly what it sounds like. Every child has the right to have a free public education. Appropriate education means whether the most appropriate is in a general education classroom or a special education classroom.

This leads us nicely into the next one which is non-discriminatory evaluation. This means that every child is evaluated, but it must be non-discriminatory. It is fairly self-explanatory.

Then we have zero reject/child find. Every child must be educated in some way and none can be turned away. The school district also has to find a child if they are not being educated.

Finally we have the LRE, which stands for least restrictive environment. That means that the child has to be where their other peers are as much as possible. Because of this there are levels of LRE. First is the regular education classroom. This is the first place because this is where the peers are. Then they have push in services where someone comes into the general education classroom and helps the child during class. If that does not help enough then there is pull out services. This is when the child is in the classroom for all day, but is pulled out for short periods of time. When this does not work well then there is what is called self-contained. Self-contained is 40% of the day outside of the classroom to get extra help. Then there is Special classrooms when they need more than 40% of the day outside the classroom. This might mean that they only go to music, art, and library with the class, but they still have some time with everyone else.  Lastly there is the home or hospital. If the child can't be in a special education classroom then the school district still must provide education through a teacher in the home.

These are all important to the law and keeping the children educated in the right environment. Every day these 6 principles of IDEA are being used.

Last Friday we had the opportunity to be taught by a group about speech and language impairment. They started us out pretty difficult. We put a marshmallow in our mouth and had to read a list to another person. The other person had to write down what we said and then we switched. It was not easy to talk with a marshmallow in your mouth and it wasn't easy to understand someone when they spoke with a marshmallow in their mouth.

There are three areas of speech and language impairment, articulation, voice, and fluency. The marshmallow challenge was mostly articulation, but there is even more to this impairment than just the marshmallow simulation. This disability affects the expression and receptive skills when speaking or listening. 21% of children have a speech impairment. Speech impairments then affect social and emotional states because they may have difficulty communicating. This makes it hard to make friends and it can cause low self esteem.

There are some great things to do to be able to help these kids. Mostly you need to have patience and teach them listening skills by example. There are many things we can do to help kids with this impairment and we just need to be aware of what is happening in their lives.

We had the opportunity to do a mock hearing. This was a great experience because I learned a lot more than I though I would. I got to be the hearing officer. The hearing officer has a difficult job because they end up having to make the decision in the end. We argued a real case and I could see both sides, but I could only choose one. There are many things to go with a hearing and both sides are important to hear.

Finally today my group had the chance to teach about learning disabilities. It is not easy to prepare for an unknown amount of time, but I learned a lot by teaching about it. First we did simulations of learning disabilities. The simulation I was doing went against everything I know about teaching because I was going so fast and trying to make them feel the frustration of a LD child. It ended up working well and we had some good conversations about it afterwards.

I presented some of the characteristics of LD children. There are different areas of Learning disabilities. Some of them are reading deficits, math deficits, written expression deficits, and attention disorders. This then causes problems with achievement, social and emotional, motivation, and perceptual.

Another talked about things we can do to help them. Mostly we need to help them find coping strategies because they will have that problem their whole life. Sometimes we have to slow down and give them heads up for whatever we will be doing.

Last another talked about diagnosing Learning disabilities. This is very difficult because there is not an actual test for it. They have to observe and since 1 in 5 children have a learning disability it may not be diagnosed and it is important to be aware of those learning disabilities.

As you can see this class is teaching me a lot of new information. There is so much to learn and talk about with this class and I hope you enjoy hearing about the new things I get to learn!