On the Other Side of the IEP Process

I’ve been a school psychologist for 16 years. My primary role is to assess students for special education to determine if they have a disability. I’ve evaluated thousands of kids and been the first person to tell parents their children have a disability many, many times. It’s not an easy career but a fulfilling one!  Through assessment, I determine how children learn, give feedback to parents and teachers, develop educational plans and connect children to services.

At Age 3, children with disabilities are eligible for school-based services and therefore, a few months before Noah turned three, the evaluation process for him began. For the first time, I was the parent on the IEP team and not the educator. It was a very surreal experience being on the other side. As a parent, I wanted to make sure that the IEP team had a very clear picture of Noah’s strengths, skills and knowledge. I wanted them to know that Noah is verbal, is social and academically where he should be. While Noah communicates and plays like a younger child, academically he is on par with his typically developing peers, knowing all the letters of the alphabet, his numbers, colors, demonstrating number sense, etc.. While Noah demonstrates the repetitive behaviors of Autism (e.g. lining up his toys), he does not show any serious problem behaviors as he is a very sweet boy.

Because of COVID, the assessment was primarily based on an observation of Noah over Zoom, parent interviews, interviews with Noah’s services providers and an analysis of videos that I provided to the team of Noah engaging in activities at home. The morning of the Zoom assessment, I was frantically checking my email as I still had not received the Zoom link. I e-mailed the scheduler and the case manager but did not get a response. Feeling frustrated, I took Noah to the backyard so he could get his energy out while I waited to hear from the school district. The second we got outside the case manager called me. It turns out the Zoom link had been going to my Spam folder. I told her I needed a few minutes to get Noah inside and then we would join. Of course, Noah expecting to get some fun time outside with mom, did not want to come inside. At this point, I had a huge mommy meltdown, crying to my husband, that if we couldn’t get Noah inside it was going to ruin his assessment and placement. I’m not proud that those words came out of my mouth as absolutely none of this was Noah’s fault but it just demonstrates how badly I wanted the team to see all of the positive things about Noah. Thankfully, my always logical husband, got Noah inside and calmed us both down.  I got Noah up to his room where we started the zoom assessment. A bit frantic, I apologized to the team for being delayed. Right away, one of them said, “Oh he has trouble with transitions?” I immediately was defensive because in this case I felt like they were making assumptions about Noah just because he has Autism. In many situations, a “typical” two-year-old probably would have whined or cried about coming inside too. Noah is actually a very adaptable boy with an easy-going personality.

The assessment started although it was really just a parent interview. While they asked questions about Noah, Noah hung out in the background, doing his favorite alphabet and number puzzles, lining up the letters and numbers up in order, counting and reciting the ABC’s. At the very end, the speech therapist asked Noah to do a few things on the screen and while he said hi and looked at her, he did not really understand he was supposed to respond or interact with her.  At the conclusion of the interview/assessment, I expressed my concerns with placement options for Noah. I explained that I didn’t want Noah to be excluded from a full preschool inclusion program just because of his language level (he’s a one -word user). The entire zoom screen stared blankly at me and then after some awkward silence, the case manager chimed in that she was writing down all my concerns.  I further explained that I wanted Noah to have access to typical language models and the chance to develop his social skills with access to typical peers. Again, blank stares. I knew right then through their silence that they thought he belonged in a special day class and that was likely going to be the recommendation when we had our IEP meeting in a month. I had a tough decision to make about Noah-would I die on a hill trying to get him a full inclusion placement or would I actually consider a special day class for Noah.

During that month, I did a lot of research, connecting with other parents and special education staff in our school district to gather information about programs. I found out more about the full inclusion preschools as well as the special day class programs for kids with Autism. I also toured private preschools, some of which were open to having a child with Autism. I thought long and hard about what Noah actually needs. As a mom, I wanted Noah to be with his typical peers but was that what he needs or what I need? I started to realize that while Noah may be able to go along with the crowd in a typical preschool, he would not have access to targeted interventions to help his communication. He would not have access to a speech therapist or an occupational therapist in those settings.  After a very, long hard month I decided that a special day class was what’s best for him. Giving him max early intervention support now would hopefully open the door for him in the future to learn alongside his typical peers. I’m glad that I had already come to my own conclusions about placement before the IEP meeting so that we could focus on what was really important for Noah during the meeting.

For the most part, Noah’s initial IEP went smoothly. There were some frustrating parts like hearing their analysis of Noah in the video scenarios I sent them, always finding some weakness to point out.  I tried not to let it bother me and stayed focused on making sure he had well written and appropriate goals. While I agreed with most of the goals, I wanted some additional goals added. Since Noah was “at grade level” with his academic knowledge (letters, numbers, counting, colors, etc..), they wouldn’t write any academic goals for him which really frustrated me. In addition, even though multiple times I had told them I was a school psychologist, they still spoke and explained things to me as if I was a parent who knew nothing about special education. I was expecting and demanding a certain level of professional respect and was annoyed that I was not treated like a peer. In the end, a solid IEP was developed, a placement was offered with a teacher with a great reputation and I felt it was a really good starting point for Noah.