One of the most confusing parts about being the parent of a
child with special needs is trying to understand the lingo. Educators use a lot of acronyms and other
words specific to special education when they are talking about your child and
it is very important to make sure that you understand exactly what they mean
when they use these abbreviations and jargon.
If you are not sure, ask. I can’t
guarantee that they won’t make you feel like you should have known what they
were talking about but wouldn't you rather look uninformed than have your child
placed in a program you didn't understand because you didn't ask? You can
always ask me, too, if you aren't sure.
I know what most of it means and if I don’t know, I’ll be willing to
find out for you!
Let’s talk about some of the words you will hear again and
again. The first one is “SPED.” SPED is an abbreviated way that teachers talk
about special education. You may hear a
teacher refer to themselves as a “SPED” teacher or they may say, “I’m SPED.” They might also refer to a student as being SPED. This is just a quick way of saying a teacher
or a child is affiliated with special education services.
Another acronym that was tossed around a lot at Imma’s
meeting is, “AU.” AU is one way of
referring to autism. You may also hear, “The
student has (or is) ASD.” This means “autism
spectrum disorder.” When an educator
uses the terms AU or ASD, they are saying that a child has been identified as
having autism or one of the disabilities previously group with autism, which
include Asperger’s, Rhett’s Syndrome or Rett's Disease, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (or
PDD). The law has recently changed and students are now identified as having an
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or not. There are no longer subcategories. That does not mean that these terms will no
longer be used as it always takes a while for the correct verbiage to filter
all the way through the system. Also,
please keep in mind that the child should always come first when you are
talking about a disability. Teachers
should be saying, “a child who has autism” or “a child identified as having
autism disorder” never “an autistic kid” or “he’s an autistic.” We want to put the child first.
Depending upon what the area of disability is, you may hear
other abbreviations in your meeting.
Sometimes teachers use the abbreviation “MR.” This means “mentally retarded.” This is a phrase that some people toss around
as an insult but it should never be used that way and if you ever suspect an
educator is using this word incorrectly, please say something to him or her or
a supervisor. There is a clearly defined
“Intelligence Quotient” ( or IQ) that determines whether or not a person is
classified as mentally retarded. It is
just as much a disability as any of the other disabilities we are discussing
and should never be used as an insult.
Another abbreviation you may hear depending upon the area of
evaluation is “LD.” LD stands for “learning
disabled” or “learning disability.” This
means that a child has been identified as having great difficulty acquiring
skills in one or more areas due to certain factors, which the diagnostician has been able to quantify. There are a lot of diagnostic
tests that go into reaching the conclusion that a child has a learning
disability and diagnosticians tend to use a whole other lingo to talk about
this so we won’t go into that today but you may need to know what they are
talking about if the committee says, “I believe your child may have an LD.”
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, is
the law that regulates who is identified as qualifying for special education,
how they are identified, what services are to be provided, and how those services
must be provided. You will receive
information about IDEA before the testing process begins and at every committee
meeting. If you do not receive a guide
for IDEA, please ask for one. Once you receive it, please read it. It is not an
interesting read. It is extremely wordy and boring. But you need to read it so that you know
exactly what the other members of the committee are talking about.
You may be asking what committee I am talking about. This varies from state to state, but in
Texas, this committee is called an ARD committee. ARD stand for Admission Review and Dismissal.
This is the committee that determines: 1) if a child qualifies for special
education services 2) what goals and objectives need to be worked on 3) how
those goals and objectives will be taught 4) how to determine if goals and
objectives are met 5) the environment the child will be learning in (or
placement) and 6) if and when a child will be dismissed from special education
services. This is extremely important
because you are a voting member of the ARD committee. Again, the other members may vary by state
but you will always have an administrator (principal or assistant principal), a
general education teacher, a special education teacher, and a diagnostician or
specialist in the area that was tested.
All of the committee members will either agree or disagree with the
recommendations. You have the right to
disagree so if you think you need to use it, do so. Most of the time, the specialists are going
to have all of their ducks in a row and they are going to have already
determined what the qualification is, the goals, measurement of those goals,
and the placement of your child. Ask a
lot of questions while they are talking about the goals and the placement. If
you don’t understand, ask for clarification.
If the committee members cannot answer your questions to your
satisfaction, ask for someone else to come in and explain things to you. This is your child and you need to know what
they are talking about. Don’t let the
lingo throw you off or intimidate you.
One of the most important decision the committee makes
involves adopting goals for the student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP). Basically, this document takes the place or supplements the regular school curriculum.
The committee determines what goals your child needs to work on and in
what order. This should be based on the diagnosticians report and/or your child’s
class work. If you feel like your child
has already mastered these goals, speak up. Sometimes children act or perform
very differently at home than they do at school and if you don’t say anything,
your child could waste a colossal amount of time working on something s/he already
knows how to do. For example, I was once
told it took 120 trials with my daughter to get her to learn what an ice cube
was. I said, “My daughter knows what an
ice cube is. She’s known that for a long
time!” But they weren't seeing it so it “didn’t
count.” They also told me she didn't know what a pond was. We have a pond in
our front yard. She knows what a pond
is. Children act differently and say
different things at school. My child wasted a lot of time that year trying to “learn”
things she already knew because she wasn't showing her teachers what she
knew. Have these discussions with your
child’s teachers because they don’t want to waste time either.
This is a lot of information—and believe me, there’s plenty
more where that came from! But I am only
going to mention one more piece of lingo to you in this article. I want to make sure you know what the phrase “least
restrictive environment” means. In
special education there are several choices of where your child can receive
services. They can receive services in a
general education classroom (regular classroom) through their general education
teacher and a special education teacher who comes in to the classroom and helps
support your child. This is called “inclusion” because your child is included
with the other non-disabled students. It
could also be a special education aid who provides these inclusion
services. The next level of
restrictions is called “resource.” This
is when your child leaves the general education classroom for an agreed on
amount of time and goes to the special education teacher’s classroom to work on
the IEP goals and objectives set by the committee. Your child may have other
students with him or her or s/he may be alone, depending upon the size of your
campus and how many special education teachers there are. The amount of time your child spends in the
resource classroom must be agreed upon by the committee, including you. If you feel like your child is spending too
much time out of the classroom—or not enough!—speak up. The
most restrictive environments are special
classrooms, sometimes referred to as “units” where the child spends all
or most of his or her day with the special education teacher and little to no
time with a general education teacher.
An example of a unit would be a Life Skills classroom, where moderate to
severely disabled students learn the skills they need to be successful in life.
This is sometimes referred to as a Functional Academics Classroom (or
FAC.) There are also units for students
who have Emotional Disturbances (ED) that create behavior that disrupts general
education classrooms and there are Autism Units, sometimes referred to as
Structured-Teach Classrooms where students who have qualified to receive
special education services because they have been identified as having autism can be placed. Structured-Teach is just a type
of learning where the teacher goes through a series of lessons with a student
following a particular order and these lessons are usually on a one-to-one or
very small-group basis. You can learn
more about structured teach classrooms
here. Most structured teach classrooms are set up following Applied Behavior Analysis
(ABA) and if you hear that term used when referring to your child’s education,
please do as much research as you possibly can.
One source of good information is Autism Speaks and you can find the ABA
link
here.
So, when we say that a child needs to be placed in the “least
restrictive environment” what we are saying is your child needs to be in a
classroom where s/he will be able to learn what s/he needs to learn with as few
changes in schedule as possible. If your
child is in special education, by definition,
the general education classroom alone was not sufficient enough for him or her
to be completely successful. You want to
consider inclusion next, followed by resource, and one of the special units as
a last alternative. Never let an educator
try to take these rights away from your child.
If you find an educator who is unwilling to try a less restrictive
environment before placing your child in a more restrictive environment, it’s
probably time to call in an advocate, or possibly even a lawyer.
I’m not saying that some children don’t need to be in a restricted environment, nor am I saying that some diagnosticians can’t immediately
look at test results and draw this conclusion.
However, sometimes, as in my own case, the most restrictive environment
was the only one considered by the other members of the ARD committee and when
I refused to place my child in the most restrictive environment without
trying the alternatives first, well, let’s
just say I ruffled a few feathers. There
is a disagreement process in every state.
Know what it is in yours and don’t be afraid to follow it. Luckily, I was able to move my child to
another school district and she know spends the vast majority of her day in the
general education classroom. She has
inclusion for part of math and part of reading.
She also has 20 minutes of resource a day and she is pulled out for
speech two times a week. That’s it. The
rest of the time she is in the regular classroom like everyone else. The ARD committee at our previous school
district told me she could not possibly be successful in a general education
classroom. Like most things, Imma has proven them wrong in this as well.
Was this helpful?
What other question are out there?
What other abbreviations or acronyms are you hearing? What other resources would be useful? Please let me know and I will happily write
some more about this topic. I have a
list of some other resources available at the end of this post.
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| My beautiful daughter, Imma-Jane |
