Week 3: Special Education Procedures and Services

This week was a little less overwhelming than last week. I think it’s because I’m getting a better idea of what’s expected and the general idea of the class. I’m getting more comfortable with the terminology and the purpose/goals of Special Education services. We talked about the 6 Principles of IDEA, related services, responses to intervention and laws derived from court rulings. I thought it was interesting that some simple interventions like moving the student’s seat, making tests easier, simplifying directions and actually observing the student can make interventions that can prevent special education services. How simple is that?!

Aside from reading the material and attending class I didn’t do much more to learn the material. I’m having a hard time applying what I’m learning to my day-to-day interactions so it’s hard to metabolize the information and make it meaningful. Because of this I don’t feel entirely comfortable to apply this learning. I might remember and apply some of it, but at this point I don’t know what.

One activity that was especially helpful was the matching activity we did in class on Wednesday. We got an envelope with strips of paper with terms and definitions and with our multidisciplinary team (MDT) we had to put them together. This was helpful because it organized the material and showed the gaps in my understanding.

On Friday we had a presentation on Developmental Delay, which is basically a broad name for a variety of disabilities. I found this label would be helpful especially because it’s used up to age 9, when the child’s disability might not be clear enough for a specific label. The only problem is that after age 9 in order to still receive services, the child needs to receive a specific label. This can cause contention with the parents and educators because the label often had an attached stigma and parents fear that the label with negate everything else the child is. It was helpful to hear this from my peers because they’re learning it at the same time I am, so their explanations seem more in-line with how my brain is also processing the information.

Questions: How do we separate labels (for service eligibility), from the stigma of those labels?