IEP

[Emerald1486]

Hello all. I've been lurking here a bit since my son was diagnosed with a severe speech delay. He has been in speech therapy for about 6 months.
He is going to start a preschool for children with disabilities next week. The day before his dad (XH) and I are meeting with the school to put together his IEP.
Can you tell me what to expect with an IEP? What goes in an IEP?

[dixienormous]

Go in with a list of what you want. Do not get trampled. Don't go in with your feather ruffled already, but go in with documentation, anecdotes, anything that can support your requests.

Every IEP meeting is different. Ours for PF was actually pleasant. We have an excellent SPESE Chair who is very much an advocate for the kids as well as the parents. He gave us above and beyond what we asked for.

Be prepared to give a history, discuss past treatments, future treatments that you want, anything that you might want in the future (i.e., PF has severe speech issues and one of the things I want to see in the near future is the use of Augmentive Alternative Communication apps on her iPad).

Did that help at all?

[Emerald1486]

Yes.
We've met with this group several times already and they are wonderful. They have been very helpful through the process so far. He had to be evaluated and then tested to see if he qualified.
When they said that we needed to figure out what goals we wanted for DS, the best I could come up with was "I want to be able to understand him when he talks." but I'm afraid that is too vague. Right now he will drop sounds from words (cuhcay instead of cupcake, or how instead of house, caboo instead of caboose)

[dixienormous]

Come up with small steps and big steps to get to the ultimate goal.

PF has a lot of global delays. One of her OT goals is to be able to take off her shoes and socks. Ultimately, I want her to be able to seamlessly use her hands normally. Speech has a goal of using more spontaneous signing to communicate, specifically toys/activities and yes/no.

Take your overall goals and break them down slowly. If he's dropping sounds, focus on the most commonly dropped.

[Emerald1486]

So, a good goal would be "Saying a complete sentence such as 'I see the school bus' instead of 'I see schoo buh'"?

[dixienormous]

Emerald1486 EXACTLY. Or "enunciate L sounds." Give the bigger goal but break it down into achieveables. And request every 4 month check in meetings (or whatever frequency you'd like). You can always adjust your IEP.

[Emerald1486]

Jan 5, 2015 12:46:46 GMT -5 dixienormous said:

Emerald1486 EXACTLY. Or "enunciate L sounds." Give the bigger goal but break it down into achieveables. And request every 4 month check in meetings (or whatever frequency you'd like). You can always adjust your IEP.

Thank you dixienormous . This has been a big help, and makes me a bit less anxious. 

[origami]

At our IEP meetings we also discussed the frequency of speech therapy sessions, in addition to speech goals. I wanted both of my speech delayed kids to have individual speech therapy, and one kid I wanted to have more sessions than the other. At the time I was unprepared and clueless and I got run over. Every "extra" I asked for was denied. (My kids only got group therapy once a week for 25 min and it was a joke.) So I would say if there is something you want that you know is out of the norm for your district, such as individual therapy in a district that claims they only do group therapy, try to get some backup from a 3rd party, like a doctor, and fight for it.

Also, since you mentioned this above, they can write a goal of something like "Understand [child's name] 70% of the time" (or 80, 90, whatever).

[auntie]

My favorite book about IEPs is "From Emotions to Advocacy".

IEP goals are the most important part of the document as they drive the services provided- how much, by whom, where, etc. Goals need to be measurable, with information included about who is collecting data, how often and under what circumstances.

Typically there are longer term goals with shorter term benchmarks along the way. You'll also want to look for things like communication (how much and in what form) and transportation.

Good luck.

[Captain Serious]

Has the word apraxia been used to describe your son's speech disorder? If so, it is recommended that he receives 3 or more sessions of speech therapy a week, and that you do similar exercises at home (so the therapist should be sending stuff home so you can work on the same things).

If they haven't used the word apraxia, then you should try to find out what is causing his problem. Is one of ennunciation, poor muscle strength, something else? Knowing the answer to this will help you develop goals with the speech therapist. In areas like this, it's often a good idea to follow the therapists lead on the specific goals, but make sure you touch base with him/her on a regular basis to understand how they are working with your son and how you can help him at home.

(Signed, Mom of a child with apraxia who is finally understandable over the phone to people who don't speak with him on a daily basis after 3 years of therapy!)

[Emerald1486]

They have not said apraxia. I'm not sure what is the cause yet. He can say some properly when prompted. For instance he knows he has to say snaCK if he wants a fruit snack. And if we ask "is it a buh or a book? " he will say book.

His current speech therapist does send practice worksheets home. Her biggest issue has been getting him to focus. He is very active and distracted easily.

Thank you all for the advice so far!

[Captain Serious]

Being able to make sounds when specifically asked to do so (which is sometimes referred to as being stimulable), yet not making them properly when speaking freely can be a sign of apraxia. So can losing intelligibility with more utterances (longer words or phrases). This is because apraxia is a motor planning issue. The child knows what he wants to say, but has difficulty getting his mouth to move in the right way to get all the sounds out and in the correct order.

School speech therapists are often reluctant to "diagnose" apraxia, but will usually know how to address it. If you can afford it, I highly recommend taking him to a private, licensed speech pathologist for a full evaluation, and mention that you were wanting to know what may be causing his difficulties (muscle weakness (which it doesn't sound like, if he is stimulable), apraxia, simple delay, something else). Knowing what's causing his issues will go a long way to knowing how best to treat it through therapy. If it does turn out to be apraxia, the answer is lots and lots of repetition.

[twinsinmd]

If you haven't already gotten the assessment information, I'd want to have that information before I sat down to write the IEP. We do our evaluation meetings, and then sit down again for the actually written IEP. The evaluation information should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses directly compared to typically developing children. Based on the weaknesses, that will help drive the IEP goals and objectives. We are required to have the proposed IEP goals and objectives 10 days before the meeting, so it would give you time to go over all the information and see if maybe the team has done a great job and everything is as expected, or if not, enough time to find someone to go over it with you and determine what should be in it.

If you have any questions, I'm a SLP and my 3 year old has been in speech for language between 18 months and 3 years, and now for a moderate articulation disorder, so I know what it's like to be on both sides of "the table".

[Emerald1486]

We do have the assessment paperwork from when they evaluated him. I don't have it with me but I will update later when I can get it.

[Emerald1486]

We had the meeting today. DS starts preschool tomorrow.
The goals the team had pretty much mirrored what XH and I wanted. Things such as working on his consonants and saying them correctly 4 out of 5 times, multi-syllable words, be able to describe actions, etc. They did go into more detail on what they want his goal to be so I am less anxious about it.
He will be having speech therapy once a week in the classroom. As of right now we are continuing his speech therapy at Children's Hospital as well, every other week. I may bring up the apraxia to her and see what her opinion on it is. Thank you for letting me know about that.