Sample Questions For an IEP

We had some issues with our last speech offer.  My daughter has severe speech issues, called apraxia of speech , which requires  a lot of speech therapy.  The recommended amount is from 30-60 minutes per day, five days per week, for someone with her severity of the condition.  All therapy, at least at first should be individual.  Last spring it was recommended that she receive two thirty minute individual sessions, and one thirty minute group session.  Below are some of the questions I wrote down to ask at the IEP meeting in order to make the point that the SLP may not really be recommending what was needed.

How important is speech to education?

How do Speech-Writing-Reading tie together?

How do you determine how much time to spend with a child who has the need for speech therapy?

Is what you're recommending within the standards suggested by your professional guidelines?

What are those guidelines?

Do you have a copy of those recommendations available?

All I have been able to find in the literature (published by ASHA) is that children with apraxia should receive between three and five hours per week of individual speech therapy, but you have recommended only one hour of individual speech therapy, do you have any specific clinical justification for that offer?

You have never worked with Megan or evaluated her, how do you justify making ANY recommendations for her with so little knowledge of her?

In your report you state that "based on the assessment results, the structure and function of the speech mechanism does not appear to be adequate for speech production" yet therapists who have actually spent time with her and done a thorough evaluation have recommended that she be taught to speak, how do you explain that?

In addition, she is able to say many words, you even state this in your report, she is just not able to communicate effectively, so this seems to be contradictory. How do you explain this contradiction?

What types of speech therapy are recommended for apraxia?

ASHA (on their web site) recommends only individual, no group for apraxia, yet you recommend group therapy for Megan.

Is your recommendation based on what is recommended by the standards of your profession or is your recommendation based on what the school district is telling you to offer?

Does offering far less than the standard of care conflict with the ethical guidelines of your profession?

Also, in your report I see you state that you did a direct assessment, what direct assessment was that? 

I could find no report of any kind of actual test or assessment given in your report?

You report that Megan was "slow to engage", I have seen her be slow to engage with some people and engage rather quickly with others. 

Of course slow and quickly are rather subjective statements, do you remember what you considered "slow"?  Was this slow for a typical child?

Slow for a child with Down syndrome?

Slow for a child with autism?

Slow for a child with Down syndrome and autism?

You also report that she kept her body turned and did not readily engage in play.  Have you observed her to be the same with others?

Have you observed her to behave the same with people with whom she is familiar?

In your report you state that "her communication is disrupted by her non-compliant behavior and difficulty expressing her wants and needs in an effective way." p.4

BUT, on p.5 in the conclusions you do not mark the box that says "Student behavior during evaluation" would have been a factor that appears to have affected the results of this evaluation.  So, was her behavior a problem or was it not a problem?

You also write "Megan's progress in the classroom is limited by the inconsistency of her communication aids and by the lack of generalization to the classroom setting".  It sounds like you are saying that the communication aids were not kept up?

Who was supposed to have kept those communication aids in workable order? 

Didn't her IEP include goals for assistive communication?

Shouldn't the person who was working with her from the district been keeping her communication aids in working order?

If not them, then who?

The final paragraph of your report states that "Megan's behavior had been described as increasing in non-compliance since the beginning of this school year.  Most of her school day is spent dealing with her refusal to complete her school work.  This is seen as a decline from last year."

Who was responsible for helping Megan to manage her behavior?

Are we to assume that the disabled child who has a condition (autism) that results in the very behaviors which interfere with her ability to gain from her education environment was allowed to continue to have increased negative behaviors?

What was the district doing that you know of to manage those behaviors at school?

Who was ultimately responsible for changing the behavioral situation at school?

Why weren't those behaviors being addressed adequately so that Megan could learn in the educational environment?

I have in my possession two different reports for this particular speech and language evaluation.  One that I recieved two days before the other.  The first report dated 3/3/2010 recommends continuing her then current speech and language therapy at five hours per week of individual therapy and no group therapy.  The second report, dated 3/5/2010 is the one that was discussed at the IEP meetings on 3/7/10 and 3/15/10.  It recommended no specific amount of speech therapy but it did recommend small group speech.  In the IEP meetings the offer for speech therapy was one hour of individual therapy and one half hour of group speech therapy.What changed between 3/3/10 and 3/5/10?  I was told that there was a "pre-IEP meeting on 3/4/10, is that what changed your recommendation?

IDEA states "The parents of a child with a disability are expected to be equal participants along with school personnel, in developing, reviewing, and revising the child's IEP. This is an active role in which the parents (1) participate in the discussion about the child's need for special education and related services, and (2) join with the other participants in deciding what services the agency will provide to the child."

In order for parents to take an active role in the IEP they must first be invited to the meeting.  We were not invited to a meeting on 3/4/2010.  In order to convene a meeting without the parents in attendance the district must, by law, have made every attempt to include the parents and the district must be able to prove that they were unable to convince the parents that they should attend.

In a due process case in Ohio, the hearing officer explained the importance of the IEP meetings, "The IEP meeting is supposed to serve as a communication vehicle between parents and school personnel, and is supposed to enable both sides, as equal participants, to jointly decide upon what the child's needs are, what will be provided, and what the anticipated outcomes may be."   When meetings are held secretly that is in direct contrast to the law as set in IDEA.  We were not allowed to communicate, be an equal participant, decide with the district what our child's needs were, and what the anticipated outcome would be of one set of therapies versus the other.

In fact, this "pre-IEP" meeting and it's work product denied our daughter FAPE just by the fact that it took place according to IDEA.  Was there a "pre-IEP" meeting before today's meeting?  What was decided at that meeting?  If there was, would you admit it?  Would you feel comfortable testifying to that under oath in court?  Because it could come down to that, and I do have the proof I have told you about, and in fact my attorney is holding that proof at his office.

 For feeding/swallowing (which I was told for years is NOT a school issue) -

Does ASHA offer guidelines as to whether swallowing (feeding) fits into an educational setting?

Can you show me that in writing?

I believe that part of why Megan has such difficulty with muscle tone in her mouth is because she cannot eat.   

So, since the school should have been helping her with eating issues, this would have laid some groundwork for learning to speak.  But since the district straight out lied to us about the school's role in feeding/swallowing therapy the district in fact made it more difficult for my daughter to learn to speak when she was younger and more open to learning both feeding and speaking.

This district seems to think that she should be able to overcome her apraxia in the same time-line of any other child with apraxia but in reality she is receiving the therapy so much later than she should have that it will take significantly longer for her to gain the skills necessary to speak.  Who but the agency responsible for her only receiving those services so late should take the responsibility for that and commit to the long term fix that is now needed?  I was aware of her needs, advocated for those needs, and was told "no" over and over.  I did what I knew then to do in order to force the issue, but was faced with lies and deception from the district.  I thought the district personnel were being honest with me about their plan, when in fact the plan was to avoid giving my daughter necessary speech and language services. Now that I know what was going on I expect the district to do the right thing and make up for their egregious failings with my child.  The district caused this problem to become this big and the district needs to live with how big it now is and make it right.  Expecting her parents to fix the problems created by the district is basically an attempt to steal from the children (and their parents) that you, the district are charged to educate.

I am not necessarily comfortable with being as direct as these questions are, that is why I wrote them down.  It is much easier for me to be direct when I have a script in front of me.  Also, I may or may not ask all of the questions I have prepared.  It really depends on the answers.  In this particular case the SLP who had done the evaluation the year before was no longer there so I used very few of my prepared questions.  However, I was so much more prepared than I would have been otherwise that I was still able to ask difficult questions and I could focus on their answers.

I also prepared questions for the general classroom.  I asked these questions of the Neuro-psychologist who observed her in the classroom setting.

How much of the time that you were in the classroom did Megan spend working with the

 teacher and or the aide?

Did they say anything that made you believe that the day you visited was significantly 

different from other days at school?

Was there anything that made you believe that there was anything unusual about the 

day you observed?  

So, if this is the usual school day for Megan it would be safe to assume that she might 

get about 1/2 hour of actual instruction per six hour day of school?

This would then add up to about 16 days of instruction per year.  Would this in your 

professional opinion, be FAPE?

What is going on in the classroom that is keeping Megan from learning?

Why is it, in your professional opinion, that she is having these behaviors at school, 

when these behaviors have been severely reduced in other locations?  

Such as dance class, ot, home, physical therapy.

How can we increase the amount of learning time for Megan to benefit from her education?

What specifically does she need that she is not getting in the classroom?

Last year the district promised to send her one to one aid for training with the ABA 

company, is there a reason that hasn't been done?  Why wasn't this done?  

Wouldn't it have made sense to do this while she was out and in HHI? 

Again, I did not ask all of these questions, but having them ready prepared me for a very difficult 

meeting.  I recommend having this sort of thing ready, even if you don't use any of it, it will 

prepare you to keep the meeting focused where you want the focus to be.  

How to Save Time, Money, and Your Sanity at IEP Meetings

I have found that when our attorney comes to our IEP meetings there is a lot of time wasted.  We really try to have him come to as few as possible, but there are still times when we feel it is important for him to come.  I can just as easily tape the meeting, send him a copy, and let him listen without having to pay his travel time.  Additionally, if there are only a few minutes that he needs to hear I can cue that up for him or tell him where on the recording he needs to listen thus reducing our attorney fees significantly.  At first we had him come to all of the meetings, this was important so that he could get a feel for what we were dealing with and so he know where to go with our case.  He needed to know the players and their personalities just in case we had to go to Due Process.  Once I was able to catch on to what was important and what should or should not be said we felt safe with informing him of what occurred after the fact.

We also found that when he was coming the district tended to start meetings last and take many breaks.  That didn't happen at our most recent meeting, but when we were going to take a five minute break the district people all left for over 20 minutes.  If they can use up your attorney money in those meetings then you my not have enough left to fight them later on when it comes to going to Due Process.

Another way of wasting our money has been for the district people to read their reports to the whole group.  We do our best to avoid this.  For one thing it's insulting.  My daughter is the one with the learning handicaps, I and supposedly all of the district people in the room should have been capable of reading any reports and having the presenter highlight parts they feel are especially important.  Therefore it is important to ask for copies of their reports prior to any IEP meetings and then read them, write down questions, or problems you have with what you find.  They are supposed to give them to you once they are done and prior to the meeting but this rarely happens unless you request it in writing.  Even then, it often doesn't happen unless you write a reminder a few days before the meeting.  I also ask for copies of proposed goals prior to the meeting, and that way I don't feel under pressure to take in any important information at the meeting.  IEP meetings are pressure situations for us parents, and the less pressure we can feel, the better we will be able to participate in discussions.  I try to write down any questions or concerns I have ahead of the meeting.  I have also learned that some people will try to include written statements in the IEP that were prepared ahead of time and paint our child in an unfavorable light without our knowledge.  Our request for information ahead of time makes this kind of trick less likely to happen, but still we are careful to check the documentation when we sign so that nothing gets added in that we weren’t expecting.

I found this to be especially true at our first IEP meeting.  We had no time left to discuss goals or services so these were skimmed over and we had no input into what was written.  We have learned since then, we would simply call  for the meeting to reconvene on another day so that we could properly finish, but as neophytes we went along with their program of stifling any input we may have had.

I am also learning to do lots of research on every topic to be discussed at the meeting coming up.  Our last meeting was about Speech and Placement.  So, I looked all over to learn as much as I could about what our experts were discussing - the diagnosis, her suggested therapy, what the district SLP had previously suggested, looking for suggested goals online.  Everything I could find.  I went on the ASHA (American Speech and Hearing Association) web site.  I found a web site called Apraxia-Kids (my daughter's diagnosis) and I became as much of an expert as I could on her issues and how it is recommended that therapists work with kids like her.  I also went on the OAH (Office of Administrative Hearings) website to see how they have come down on cases similar to my daughter's.  Come to find that most parents are trying to get their kids into a lower level of care when they have my daughter's issues, and here we are trying to get her into a more restrictive environment.  What this tells me, is that our district is going in the opposite direction of how the judges come down most of the time and so we have a pretty good chance of winning if we go to Due Process.  I may not need all of this information now, but it gives me a sense of power going into the room that I have the judges on my side.  I am more confident and can argue more persuasively on my daughter's behalf.  I also believe that if I know what I'm talking about and have research to back me up, the district is less likely to push things to Due Process since they know I am more likely to win if I know what I am talking about.

The only problem with research is that there is often research that says otherwise too.  You want to try to know what they will have backing up what they say.  You want to check out where the preponderance of the research leads.  If there is only one research project that says X will work and you find 25 that say Y will work, you want to know this.  Then you should not be suggesting X and if they suggest X you can say, yes but there is only one project that supports your suggestions and 25 that back up my recommendation.

I don't know how people who work full time can get all of this done, but if you can't do it maybe you can get a friend or family member to help you.  Once you find one research study you can find more by looking at their footnotes.  And on and on.  Thanks to the internet we can do a lot more of this from home than we used to, we often have to test different search words and different search engines to find what will work best for us.  Finding professional organizations is great too, since they will generally include information about the latest research and about ethical guidelines that can help us in our quest for appropriate services.

"Forewarned is forearmed" is something my mom used to tell me.  Knowing what is coming, and using that knowledge to gain more knowledge is the only way to win the battles we face in getting our kids what they need from their education.

Some Quick APRAXIA of Speech Information

Apraxia is, put simply, the inability of a person to form words correctly.  The words don't come out in an intelligible manner.  The wiring in the brain gets mixed up and what the person means to say and what they actually do say aren't the same, the wiring gets crossed somehow.  It's a lot like CAPD but in the reverse order.  There may be lots of noise but little to nothing of any substance coming from your child's mouth.  I have two children with apraxia - our son has mostly overcome his apraxia, but we got him a diagnosis and treatment early.  Instead of Pizza, he would say "PASTIS".  To him it was the right word and he was very frustrated that we didn't understand him.  There were many others, but that one has always stood out, I guess because his favorite food is pizza!  Our daughter is 12, and she is finally getting appropriate treatment, and we are seeing progress, just three weeks into the right therapy. 

I just learned of a group called CASANA (Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America).  They have a blog here on Blogspot, Apraxia - KIDS - Every Child Deserves a Voice.  They a lot of information about apraxia and research and treatment.  They also have a Facebook page with the same name.  If your child has apraxia I highly recommend looking at these spots to get more information and to be ready to ask for what your child needs  with some research notes to back up your request.

Collaborative (Sounds good but...)

School districts have a special word that means that the child gets NO SERVICES but you aren't told that.  That word sounds great, but in truth is meaningless, it is COLLABORATIVE.  Collaborative speech services as I now understand it means, the SLP talks to the SDC teacher once per week regarding all children in the class for 30 minutes.  We were told this meant that the SLP would be working with our child and with the teacher to assist the teacher to encourage proper speech when the SLP was not there.  But when push came to shove and we could document that our child had not received speech services for four months and we filed a compliance complaint with the state board of education it was a big WIN!  For all the other kids in the school.   Our child was given one hour of compensatory speech to make up for the entire four months of missed sessions since "collaborative" means nothing in a legal sense.  I am thrilled that the other kids got what they deserved but I would have liked for my daughter to have gotten what was promised instead of meaningless chatter with the classroom teacher.

We were deceived so we signed IEP’s that did not give what was promised verbally.  This is covert deception using “district-speak” which deceives parents into believing their kids will get services that the district never had any intention of giving in the first place.  

We have since worked with an Occupational Therapist who insisted on using the term "collaborative" and we agreed to use the term only under very strict guidelines that are spelled out in our IEP notes.  At least 25 minutes of each half-hour must be one-to-one therapy with no more than 5 minutes of each half-hour being collaborative.