More Info About Special Education Eligibility

I have had several conversations with parents lately regarding the stories I posted about Imma and the events that occurred during the decision making progress for her special education eligibility.  I wanted to elaborate a little bit on some of the topics I discussed and provide you with some more resources.
First of all, I want to clarify something I think is confusing to parents and teachers alike. From a school's perspective, there are two different types of disability diagnoses.  The first one is a "medical diagnosis."  This means that a doctor or a psychologist, someone out side of the school who has the authority to do so, has diagnosed a child wit ha disability.  This could be a diagnosis of autism, attention deficit disorder, etc.  This is a medical diagnosis because a qualified source outside of the school has evaluated the child and determined that the criteria for the diagnosis has been met.
The second type of diagnosis is an "educational diagnosis."  This is different.  This is when the school personnel have done evaluations and have determined that not only is there a disability but that the child is in need of special education services in order to be successful at school. So, it is very possible that a medical doctor could diagnose a child as having ADD or autism and a school could do an evaluation and say they do not meet the established criteria to receive special education services.  The school diagnostician and/or psychologist would then need to show the other members of the decision-making committee why the student does not need the services.  For example, they could demonstrate through qualitative diagnostic exams that the student doesn't meet the criteria or they could show that the student is being successful in the classroom and is not in need of any extra services or support.  It is important for parents to understand the differences between these two diagnoses and to understand that it is not necessarily a bad thing if the doctor says your child has a disability but the school says that your child is not in need of services.  Most of the time, the school is going to be correct.  If they can demonstrate to you that your child is receiving ample support in the classroom, highly consider leaving your child in the general education setting.  While there are benefits to special education, most schools have other supports in place for students who are struggling but are not special education students.  It is very likely that your child will be receiving support through a Response to Intervention team, a Reading Specialist (like me!), a Math Specialist, or another staff member who can provide similar support to your child without having to label them as "special education."  While it can certainly be beneficial for certain students to be placed in a special education for inclusion (when the special education teacher visits the child's regular classroom) or resource (when the student leave the regular classroom and goes to the special education classroom for a period of time) if the school says the student does not need these services, please consider the school's evidence before pressing the issue.
Now, that is not to say that there aren't circumstances when some schools may deny services for some reason and parents have every right, and the responsibility, in fact, to press forward and demand services.  Certainly this has happened before.  But I have found, even through all of the issues I've had in our previous district, it is always better to have an amicable relationship with the school and to truly listen to the school's reasoning.  You can always have an advocate or lawyer come with you to meetings with school personnel and you may want to do that if you think the outcome is not going to be best for your child.
Another topic I wanted to clarify are the eligibility areas for special education. Many of my teacher friends have said they couldn't believe that my child was going to be placed in a special autism unit when her only special education eligibility is speech.  Here is a list of the areas a child can qualify for special education services under:

• Autism
• Deafness
• Deaf-blindness
• Hearing impairment
• Mental retardation
• Multiple disabilities
• Orthopedic impairment
• Other health impairment
• Serious emotional disturbance
• Specific learning disability
• Speech or language impairment
• Traumatic brain injury
• Visual impairment, including blindness

  
  

  In order to qualify for special education services, your child has to have an educational diagnosis that qualifies him or her in one or more of these categories.  And you cannot receive services in an area where your child does not qualify. So, if your child is deaf, they cannot receive services for having a specific learning disability, unless s/he qualifies for that as well. In our case, my daughter qualifies for special education for a "speech or language impairment."  The school district where we lived was trying to place her in a classroom that serviced students with autism.  We have not documentation to support the diagnosis of autism. They justified this placement by telling me she had something called "Non-categorized Early Childhood Autism."  That is not a thing!  That is not a category, as you can see above. I thought it must be a qualifier under the autism classification but it's not.  In order to receive services as a child with autism there must be a document that says your child has an educational diagnosis of autism.  We had a document that said our child did not have autism and the examination was completed by a school psychologist. My point?  Don't be a sucker.  Ask questions, lots of them.  Ask for explanations.  Ask where that qualification falls on this list.  Ask to see the law.  More importantly, read the law ahead of your meeting.  I have a link below that I think you will find very useful if you find yourself in a situation similar to mine. If you know anyone who has a child in the process of being diagnosed for special education, please pass this information on to them.  It could be extremely helpful to them.

  Also, please notice ADD and ADHD are not on this list.  They fall under a different  qualification called "504."  This is not the same thing as special education and if you hear an educator say "504" and you're not sure what that means, start asking questions.  You can also find information about 504 eligibility on the website below.

  What other questions do you have?  Please ask in the comments or email me.  I am happy to answer anything I can and if I don't know I will find out!  Also, what other topics would you like more information on?  I know a lot of parents read this blog that are in a similar situation to the one that I was in so please ask me anything you'd like to know about. I'm here to pass on what I've learned

  For more information, please visit:

  Wrightslaw From Emotion to Advocacy