Welcome to this week’s Try This Tuesday. For details on how to participate, please check out the welcome post. Good News and Bad News I was pleased last Thursday to receive a draft copy of my son’s IEP, a week ahead of the team meeting as I had requested. Yippee!! Less pleasing was the fact…
Category Archives: Individual Educational Plans
Whatever it Takes
It has taken me and the Hubby a long time to get where we are today when it comes to the advocacy of our teenaged son. It has been a long, hard road, that both of us never thought we would be going down. It’s a road that has made us better parents, and better…
First day of preschool
A couple of weeks ago, Esther-Faith started preschool. At a special needs preschool we selected during the IEP process. As with just about everything here at the HennHouse, we photographed it. (She really just thinks the cameras are part of our hands, anyway.) It would be strange NOT to take pictures. On the way…
Say What?
Have you ever been sitting in an IEP meeting or some other school-related meeting when someone from the school staff says something so utterly ridiculous that you are left speechless? I read an article in a local newspaper yesterday on the subject of advocates assisting parents in the special education process. One of the advocates…
Try This Tuesday #29: Communicating with Teachers and Paraprofessionals
If you’d like to join in but aren’t sure what to write about, try the topic suggestion for this week: Communicating with Teachers and Paraprofessionals – how do you create and maintain a good relationship with your child’s team? What methods seem to work best for you? Our Communication Plan When my son was moving…
Thumbs Up for a Good Team Meeting
Well, we had the team meeting I posted about last week. I was pretty happy with how well it came together, especially when the gym teacher replied to the email and said that she was interested in attending the meeting or in somehow getting some assistance working with Michael. The autism consultant, who is available…
Taking the Lead
I realized just the other day that we have not had a team meeting at my son’s school since mid-October, despite the fact that we had planned to meet every other month. The Learning Support Teacher, who is the lead person on the IEP, is also supposed to review the forms so that emerging issues…
Community-Based Instruction
One of my pet peeves with our special education system is the concept of community-based instruction (CBI). Such community trips are a regular part – actually a weekly part – of the curriculum for my children with special needs. And, I believe that is true for almost all school districts serving children with special needs….
Try This Tuesday #17: Brainstorming
Note: I would like to continue expanding this column to include more of your ideas or challenges. If you would like to have one of your tips featured here or have a specific issue you would like some input on from fellow parents, please email me at trish[at]anotherpieceofthepuzzle[dot]com. As I was looking over the daily…
Try This Tuesday #16: Micro Schedules
I’ve posted before about how a visual schedule helps Michael move through his day more easily than just verbal prompts. Well, he has still been having difficulty off and on with the specials—art, library, and so on—mainly when something is different than the week before or when he is not clear on what he is…