Reply to Ever cry at an IEP meeting?

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "Ever cry at an IEP meeting?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

My child was getting plenty of therapy throughout his "windows." Still his brain was wired differently, and his window was on a totally different time frame than the typical child.

The whole window of opportunity is problematic because parents drain their bank accounts and throw away their kid's childhoods on therapies that may or may not make a difference. I know parents who bankrupted themselves -- and their child's outcome is similar to mine, who had much fewer therapies.

The "success" of early intervention is also propped up because they are servicing many kids who would have caught up normally:

http://deevybee.blogspot.com/2011/09/early-intervention-whats-not-to-like.html

[b]Early intervention: What's not to like? [/b]

"If a child has language problems, when would be the best age to intervene? ...

There is, however, a problem with early intervention that is easily overlooked, but which is well-documented in the case of children’s language problems. This is the phenomenon of the "late bloomer". Quite simply, the earlier you identify children’s language difficulties, the higher the proportion of cases will prove to be "false positives" who spontaneously move into the normal range without any intervention.

If you provide an intervention for a condition that spontaneously improves,[b] it is easy to become convinced that you’ve been effective.[/b] Parents were very positive about the intervention program. There was remarkably good attendance, and when asked to rate specific features of the program and its effects, around three quarters of the parents gave positive responses. This may explain why both parents and professionals find it hard to believe such interventions have no impact: they do see improvement. Only if you do a properly controlled trial will the lack of effect become apparent, not because treated children don’t improve, but rather because the control group gets better as well. "[/quote]

The study quoted is a British study - different system of educational and medical care than the US.

However, I would agree with the theory that about 75% kids reach benchmarks by third grade all on their own but about 25% kids will not and thus require special education services for interventions.  The problem for the 25% is that valuable time is lost by waiting and as they age, the brain synapsis are more difficult to make.  So do you argue for saving money to the point that the 25% are expendable and it doesn't matter that they might not be as successful than if interventions were started earlier?

As a parent, I have witnessed the downfall of waiting for my oldest before starting private services (4th grade).  The system was ridiculous and was passing a child through school that could not read due to her disability.  Passing grades meant nothing and when we discovered that she needed basic reading intervention and instruction, all we got from the school is that it was no longer in the curriculum.  We paid for the private testing that identified multiple disabilities and it took the school system 9 months to go through the process of putting an IEP in place.  The services were terrible and my child only made progress because I paid for private tutoring and support to implement the educational testing recommendations.

When my youngest started down the same path and was missing benchmark after benchmark, I did not wait.  I had him tested in 1st grade and began private intervention.  The net result is that he does not have an IEP but as he progressed through school, he did not have as many gaps to fill in as my oldest.  He does require accommodations which we are in the process of writing a 504 for but I would rather pay for the private support that has been successful than wait for the system to stumble through the process and still not meet his needs.

Every parent makes choices and some parents can afford to pay for private services while other cannot.  That is real world reality.  The system should work better and not view kids with special needs as expendable and justify waiting because some kids will catch up on their own.  The focus for public education in the United States should be to provide a Free Appropriate Public Education for ALL kids - not just hope that 75% will get by.  Did early intervention cause the kids that caught up any harm? No.  But for the kids that do not catch up on their own, there is a definite harm in waiting.  What parent wants to play Russian roulette and sit on their heels while they see their kid struggling?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics