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dekra

IEP

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Hi everyone,

 

We have Finn's first review meeting since starting school in a fortnight and I am happy (mostly) with how he is settling in and his support. He continues to attend his special speech therapy group 4 afternoons a week.

 

Given that there is no official IEP (Individualised Educational Programme) in place and his needs appear to be bring met without it do think it is worth me pursuing it getting one at the moment?

 

Also does anyone have any suggestions what I should be asking about regarding ongoing support etc when I am at the review meeting?

Edited by dekra

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Does he have a Statement?

If so the provision in the Statement should be detailed on his daily timetable so that you know exactly how the provision is being delivered on a daily basis.

Yes I think it is worth having an IEP. The whole point is that targets are set. If you have no targets, how do you know they are met? And if you have no baseline from which you measure progress, how can you tell if progress has been made?

 

So I would ask the question.

 

Ongoing support should be detailed in the daily timetable. If you can't tell what is being delivered, then ask them to quantify and specify it in the daily timetable. For example, the 4 afternoons a week should be on the timetable. Is that of 1:1 or group therapy and is it delivered by a speech therapist or a TA, and more importantly, is that what the Statement says he should be getting.

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No Sally, no statement we are in Scotland we don't have Statements here. We are lucky that we don't need dx's or a statement for things to be put in place here, as long as you have an efficient MDT which seems to be the case so far.

 

His 4 afternoons a week are delivered in a small group by a specialist SALT and a SN teacher, they also have a TA 2 of the 4 days. (2 days there are 6 children, 2 days have 4 children). The group sessions are not only for building language skills although that is their primary function they are also there to aid social skills and do a lot of turn taking and sharing practice.

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Then the best way to know that support is provided is for it to be on the daily timetable.

 

Then for there to be IEPs so that specific targets are set, so that you can measure progress.

 

You could also ask the speech therapist for a copy of their individual programme for your child, as that should set some targets too. Then you can ask for an update from the SALT so that they can tell you if targets are being met.

 

What was very important with my son [and probably most children on the spectrum], is that skills can often be learnt in 1:1 settings. But the skill is then to support the child so that they generalise those skills into other settings. So a target met in a 1:1 session could then become a target for the class room and playground, or a target in group sessions.

 

And another way to measure progress is for the Speech Therapist to carry out standardised assessments such as ACE or CELF. These assessments give standard scores, percentiles or age related measurements. So, as an example, if he achieved a standard score of 2 on the CELF assessment sub-section on formulated sentences, you would know that he had severe difficulties as the average score is 8-13, and a standard score of 3 is classed as severe. My son achieved a score of 2. And what was important about this sub-section is that "formulated sentences" relates to the skills needed to manipulate information and record learning in the classroom. If you cannot do that you will really struggle regardless of what your other standard scores are [and some of his other standard scores were above average].

 

So the beauty of standardised assessments is that you get a very clear picture of strengths and weaknesses and how those will impact on learning.

 

Unfortunately there is a direct link between speech and language skills and acquiring literacy and numeracy skills. I suppose it makes sense really, because if you have problems speaking, you are bound to have problems with reading and writing and numeracy. BUT that does not automatically mean low cognitive ability. Again, using standardised assessments, my son came out as average cognitive ability, with specific learning difficulties with Working and Short Term Memory as well as severe Dyslexia and Dyscalculia.

 

Hope that helps.

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