Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My best suggestion for any IEP meeting is bring a digital recorder*, and put it on the table and say "If you don't mind, we would like to record the meeting for our records."

I have to disagree that this is a universally good idea. I have a great relationship with our IEP teams and they serve my child well. I have been at this for ten years now and I believe that the cooperative relationship we have is a great benefit to my child. I would never risk this by putting a recorder on the table unless I had a reason to mistrust the team.

You're right, I guess I should have qualified it (rather than stating it as good for any IEP). The situation we were in was one where we were having hostile remarks from the staff directed toward us, and uneducated questions like "Why does your son keep repeating the same thing over and over?" … and these are educators who are supposed to be trained in dealing with children with special needs!! It's not that uncommon for an autistic child to repeat a given phrase over and over!

I agree with the previous poster that if you have a good relationship with your IEP team, then this might seem like a hostile move on your part, to introduce the recorder. It will signal that you don't trust them, and/or you may try to use their own words against them at some future time. In our case that was exactly what we needed! So, be mindful of your current situation and apply my suggestions as appropriate to your needs. And realize that those suggestions were coming from a time & place where we felt that we were being stonewalled, and none of our suggestions or recommendations for his placement and needs were getting through. After we implemented the recorder & me (the Father) being involved (along with an Educational Consultant), things began to change for the better.

I am probably jinxing myself (IEP meeting next week!), but more than ever I feel extraordinarily lucky that my DC has a team that makes it anything but contentious. Now I worry that I've been doing something wrong all these years. Am I not asking for enough?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My high schooler had an IEP meeting last week that was very contentious. When parents cry, I think we are often dismissed. When my child cried and asked the team "Why won't you give me what I need to be successful?" it sent a loud message that the team was dismissing her needs and input and it ultimately led to the team to take a step back and change courses.

Wow. How brave of your dc. I would be very proud s/he self-advocated so well.

I think often the school staff focuses on how to fit the child's needs in specific boxes (at least in MCPS) and looses the concept of an Individualized Education Plan. If my child fit into cookie cutter boxes easily, then she wouldn't need an IEP.

We were debating her need for Kurzweil. She has had it on her IEP since 5th grade, she uses it on class assignments and assessments, but the school did not order a CD for the English HSA because the box checked off on her IEP says "Text to Speech for Selected Sections of Text" instead of "Verbatim Reading of Entire Text".

We are proud of her. She has learned skills over the years to speak up when she does not receive an accommodations. She can effectively explain why she needs them and has often needed to because the paper document with boxes, checks, and limited space for explanations is not a full picture of her needs.

Anonymous wrote:My high schooler had an IEP meeting last week that was very contentious. When parents cry, I think we are often dismissed. When my child cried and asked the team "Why won't you give me what I need to be successful?" it sent a loud message that the team was dismissing her needs and input and it ultimately led to the team to take a step back and change courses.

Wow. How brave of your dc. I would be very proud s/he self-advocated so well.

My high schooler had an IEP meeting last week that was very contentious. When parents cry, I think we are often dismissed. When my child cried and asked the team "Why won't you give me what I need to be successful?" it sent a loud message that the team was dismissing her needs and input and it ultimately led to the team to take a step back and change courses.

I've come close to tears many times. I find IEP team members often heartless and clueless. They have zero empathy. One school psychologist told me, "It's not personal." What an idiot, you stupid fucking bitch, I thought. And you are a psychologist? Of course it's PERSONAL when you are talking about another person's child.

I'm on a SN parent board and we had a school psych who then had a learning disabled child. She said when she sat down on the other side of an IEP table as a parent she realized all her mistakes she'd made in her professional role. That she'd lacked empathy, and truly didn't get the impact she was having on parents.

I agree with a few of the PPs. It's harder without your husband and at times the administration can be cold.

I cried at one mtg out of sheer exhaustion from advocating so strongly for DD. I felt so alone and they all looked at me with condescension and pity. Like awww, "You just don't know do you?" At the end though, after the tears, I knew we had gone as far as we could at that school with those offered services. It was time to go. We went to a private, really got her tested, and got her the support she needed.

Really good thread!

OP, I have cried so many times...at meetings with the school director, at meetings with therapists...etc. I am with you, it is so hard emotionally to raise a special needs kid. Please know that you are not alone.

I had my child with SN evaluated by EI at one year and I cried through the whole session where they went into detail regarding every low score. I was the one who called them, but it was like they felt they need to repeatedly slap me in the face with the issues that concerned me as though I was in complete denial. I sobbed on and off that day and the next. Then I got moving scheduling interventions.

After that I've mostly just cried in private. I see the IEP as a business meeting where I need to calmly, but when necessary tenaciously advocate for my client (child). If a disagree with something that is said about my child I ask for more evidence and clarification. I treat the team with dignity and respect and I expect the same in return. That said I want them to see me as a force to be reckoned with if that IEP isn't right for my child. I think of myself as a pitbull. Pitbulls can be the sweetest dogs you could meet, but you don't want to end up in a fight with one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My best suggestion for any IEP meeting is bring a digital recorder*, and put it on the table and say "If you don't mind, we would like to record the meeting for our records."

I have to disagree that this is a universally good idea. I have a great relationship with our IEP teams and they serve my child well. I have been at this for ten years now and I believe that the cooperative relationship we have is a great benefit to my child. I would never risk this by putting a recorder on the table unless I had a reason to mistrust the team.

You're right, I guess I should have qualified it (rather than stating it as good for any IEP). The situation we were in was one where we were having hostile remarks from the staff directed toward us, and uneducated questions like "Why does your son keep repeating the same thing over and over?" … and these are educators who are supposed to be trained in dealing with children with special needs!! It's not that uncommon for an autistic child to repeat a given phrase over and over!

I agree with the previous poster that if you have a good relationship with your IEP team, then this might seem like a hostile move on your part, to introduce the recorder. It will signal that you don't trust them, and/or you may try to use their own words against them at some future time. In our case that was exactly what we needed! So, be mindful of your current situation and apply my suggestions as appropriate to your needs. And realize that those suggestions were coming from a time & place where we felt that we were being stonewalled, and none of our suggestions or recommendations for his placement and needs were getting through. After we implemented the recorder & me (the Father) being involved (along with an Educational Consultant), things began to change for the better.

Anonymous wrote:
My best suggestion for any IEP meeting is bring a digital recorder*, and put it on the table and say "If you don't mind, we would like to record the meeting for our records."

I have to disagree that this is a universally good idea. I have a great relationship with our IEP teams and they serve my child well. I have been at this for ten years now and I believe that the cooperative relationship we have is a great benefit to my child. I would never risk this by putting a recorder on the table unless I had a reason to mistrust the team.

I will second the "Dads cry too" post. (Though I've never done it in the meeting, but certainly before and/or after). It's OK to cry, let it out. Though depending on the people you are working with, I might suggest that it may be better if they don't see you cry. But then there may be some people that may help with (I've never worked with those types of people at our IEP meetings!)

My best suggestion for any IEP meeting is bring a digital recorder*, and put it on the table and say "If you don't mind, we would like to record the meeting for our records."
We did that with one difficult group, and the 2nd meeting (with the recorder) was a night and day difference in attitude and tone from all those in the room!

*you can pick up one for cheap, around $10 at Staples, Office Depot, or BestBuy. I feel like that $10 was worth more than all that we spent on our Educational Consultant!!

It also made a difference for us when I (the Father) began attending IEP meetings along with the Mom. I don't know if they just didn't take my wife seriously because she was a stay-at-home mom, or what. But when I started getting in on the emails (& emailed from my work account with my government signature file at the bottom) it seemed that the tone of communications changed. I think it's total crap that it is this way in this century! Women should be taken seriously, regardless of their working status. But if it gets you the results you want then by all means, use whatever tools are at your disposal!

Never stop fighting for your child and his/her needs! Sometimes you may be the only one fighting the fight, but don't give up hope!

Anonymous wrote:

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

Early intervention: What's not to like?

"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, it is easy to become convinced that you’ve been effective. 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. "

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?

I generally have felt like educational advocates have not been a good use of money for us, but one of the few good things ive felt an advocate did for us during a contentioous iep meeting when there was arguing, the advocate called a five minute break and had us step outside and take a breath

OMG - yesterday was my third IEP mtg and I cried twice and ran out of the room when it was over to cry some more. Oh my! I am glad I am not alone. It was horrible and I can't believe the admistration was so cold.