AutismWeb Forum

I live in South Carolina and am having difficulty getting the school district to approve of a dedicated shadow for my son. In the past year, he has visited the school nurse eighteen times. In one of these incidents, he broke off one of his permanent front teeth. He also has epilepsy and has had a number of seizures. There is one teacher and two assistants and the teacher admits that she cannot handle our son with the assistants she has now. The principal is adamant that the classroom will have no more than the three they've had this year. He wanders the classroom and is not focused on learning anything due to behavior issues. I'd appreciate any help or direction that you could give me short of litigation.

Contact the Autism Specialist for your school district. This is the person that works for the school but advocates for the child. Also contact the director of special education. And, you need to contact your county advocate, these are typically free advocates, if you do not know who your county advocate is ask the school, they are required to let you know. Involve the school psychologist too, I have found that this person has been my BIGGEST advocate and greatest source of information, names, numbers and general help.

I hope something here is new info for you and may help,

good luck.

I found it helpful to get an evaluation from an experienced child psychologist. In her report, she wrote her recommendations for therapies and school placement, etc. I submitted that at the IEP meeting and it was hard for the team to disagree with her findings. Sometimes having the authority and expertise of a professional like that makes your case for an aide that much stronger.

I would contact someone in the school district who can observe that classroom and see what's going on. With three adults in there, your son should not be roaming the classroom and having the difficulties he's having. Maybe the aides and teacher need additional training, or maybe the classroom structure is not working for your son. Have you spent time observing this class?

Also, if you're working with any therapists privately, he or she could do the same thing (observe the class and offer a professional opinion). It just seems like something is wrong in that class.

Every state is a little different, so it would be good for you to talk to someone helpful in your state.

In my state, you can hire advocates, which are typically lawyers specializing in special ed law. Costs money of course, but in my experience schools back down pretty quickly when an advocate is involved. They really don't have money to fight in court. Do not sign the IEP in agreement if you don't agree with it. You can sign it disagreeing with the IEP and write on the IEP what your concerns are. I would write a letter stating what you want and your reasons for wanting it. The focus of special ed really is to provide a "free and appropriate education". The focus of your concerns should be how his issues effect his ability to get this free and appropriate education.

Independent evaluations may also be helpful. Make sure that the person you get is experienced in making educational recommendations.

The principal really shouldn't be the one deciding special ed decisions, in my state anyway. In my state, the intermediate school districts would provide the parapro, not the local. If there is anyone that you can contact who is specialize in Autism (an Autism department, teacher or social worker) that could explain why his autism requires a shadow, that would be helpful.

Hi,

Everyone has really good advice. I definitely would get an Advocate to help. We just recently hired one and have had success in getting the appropriate services we felt were missing from our son's IEP this year.

Also, has your son had an FBA (Functional Behavioral Assessment) to put a positive support plan in place. This assessment is designed to observe and assess the child's behavior to identify reasons/triggers for the actions. Then, a positive support plan is developed by a team to help decrease unwanted behaviors and then see replacement behaviors eventually take place. You can request an autism/ABA specialist be apart of the FBA to help identify how to help your son.

A resource to help educate your self on your rights and some really good suggestions on how to get help for your child without antagonizing the people that will be working with him is the Wrightslaw.com website. They have a lot of free materials but the From Emotions to Advocacy workbook will help you learn how to write letters, what your rights are, the best language for evaluators to use when writing letters of recommendation to the school district, how to organize your paperwork so you can take it into the IEP's with you and find things right away and how to leave a paper trail in case it winds up in court plus a bunch of other stuff too much to list.

Even if you get an advocate educating yourself is never a waste. The guy who set it up Mr Wright is a Special Education lawyer and his wife is a counselor and they created this site for parents.

brilliant resource is the yahoo group IEP - wow.

here is link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IEP_guide/

so much stuff, useable stuff and you can post your queries.

has helped me immeasurably.