Ep. #10 Early Childhood Services & Special Education: Part 2

Welcome to "Part 2" of Stevphen's and Collette's discussion around early childhood services through public school services. This most often involves forming and carrying out an Individual Educational Plan (IEP). Most parents experience positive and caring interactions with skilled team members who work with the family to find the best and most appropriate fit for their child.
You already know your child best. Being knowledgeable about the IEP process and your role within it is the piece that transforms the whole process. It changes you from being a witness into a full-fledged team member who participates, contributes, asks questions, and receives guidance from the various expertises of your fellow team members.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:30 Early Childhood Services: Pre-Packaged Programs
01:02 Brief definition of an IEP
01:23 Schools organize around program; what does this mean for parents
02:40 Advise for parents navigating the system
06:12 Labels: Considerations and what a parent should ask.
12:25 Potential pitfalls of an IEP meetings
16:10 Can a parent stop a meeting?
17:14 When should a parent sign the IEP?
17:55 Agenda for placement versus diagnosis
19:30 What the school is and is not obligated to provide
20:32 What if a parent feels the label is inaccurate? Focus on “placement” and “goals”
21:35 Be careful about assumptions. What can be done?
24:33 When your child is eligible for more than one category
Late-Talking: A Symptom or a Stage is a best-selling book by Stephen Camarata, Ph.D., about late-talking in all its variations. The 2nd edition of the book is about to be released. In this video series, Collette Wieland and Stephen Camarata explore each chapter of this book and discuss the questions on the minds of many parents of late-talking children.
About Dr. Camarata: Stephen Camarata, Ph.D. CCC-SLP is a late talker himself and is an internationally recognized expert on child development broadly with a focus on how children learn to talk. His clinical and scientific expertise includes speech and language intervention in children with autism, down syndrome, hearing loss, and developmental language disorder (DLD). Dr. Camarata is a professor of Hearing & Speech, Psychiatry, and Otolaryngology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a Professor of Psychology and Human Development and Special Education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. He has written two books related to development, “Late Talking Children: A Symptom or a Stage” MIT Press 2014 and “The Intuitive Parent” Penguin 2017, and has a regular blog on Psychology Today
MORE RESOURCES:
The entire Individuals With Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA) Sub-Part E(That’s the part with your rights and safeguards) can be found here*: sites.ed.gov/i...
* This link is from the Department of Education and the entire E subsection is presented here in legal-ese. The booklet of your right that will (should be) presented to you is written with families in mind and are quite good at presenting the information in plain, comprehensible language.
Be aware that each state has private (often nonprofits) agencies dedicated to educating parents in their rights and the entire IEP process. These agencies are parent-friendly and make the information easy to absorb. Check out your local area!
Here is a website that “hits the high points” concerning parents’ rights. For a much simpler presentation that relays the safeguards parents ask about and access most, take a look at this resource.
www.parentcent...

[@Rohaneh24]

I’m a mother to a 4 year old girl who currently is diagnosed with a speech language delay, expressive and receptive, and I have heard the commentary about how she cannot sit still during circle time, how she doesn’t like to move from table time when she’s working on an activity when she actually doesn’t have transition issues in everyday activities…. I was wondering if Dr. camarata can discuss what options can we ask the program they’re in to help when I know my late talking child can’t sit still because she just cannot understand what’s going on during that moment.

[@Late-TalkerJourney]

Hello, Thank you for your continued tuning into the Late Talker Journey episodes. As I reply to your comment, we have just completed two episodes that address this topic; poor language comprehension and children who have a significant challenge in sitting still ( attention deficit). There are considerations when differentiating between the major source of the child's lack of attention (receptive language? attention deficit? a behavioral diagnosis? etc.?). These are determinations that can be made. In any case, movement breaks can prove helpful and enhance attention. Breaking down what is happening behaviorally can inform us in creating a plan that will successively help the child get better and better at the goal, whatever the goal behavior may be. Again, we are eager to build the library in the "How to" playlist!
Sincerely, Mary Camarata