School trouble for non verbal child

[Isha Sign]

My son is non verbal 9 year old kid goes to a public school. He is in self constraint classroom and has an IEP. He can not communicate and share about school. I get a log file from teacher but that just have little info like he did "writing , wh questions etc etc". I understand it is hard to write everyday more than this for each kid. But I struggle to know what exactly he does in school. His academic performance is way to less in school as compared to at home. I fail to understand what bothers him. As per school he gets all accommodations , But I don't really know what is missing. I sent them recordings of how well my son does at home but all they say is they see a very different boy at school. Hence they kept very very low goals for him in IEP. I do not know what to do. There are v few work samples ( 1 page per week) is being sent home. School says they do a lot of online work.I want to see what they teach. They dont allow me to come and observe my kid as they say due to Covid and HIPPA I cant. I am very frustrated as school is more like a black hole for us.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[JSD24]

First HIPPA is a misspelling.  HIPAA is the correct acronym.  Most schools don't bill for healthcare services so HIPAA doesn't apply to schools.  FERPA is the privacy act that schools use.  (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act - intesting how a copy & paste worked here)  This is what Lisa has on classroom observation:  https://adayinourshoes.com/can-parents-observe-classroom-iep/

My question is how does your child communicate?  Have they ever had an AT evaluation?  One of the most important things a person does is communicate to others.  How does your child do this?  If they are not reliably verbal, do they use PECS?  A devise?  A letter board?  Sign language?  Smoke signals?  Method doesn't matter so much as they can reliably convey information to you and others.  This eliminates the need for the teacher or para to tell you what's going on.  Your child can do this themself.

Back to your original question about how do you find out what your child's day was like given his IEP isn't teaching him how to tell you himself.  What about designing a checklist - something that will be easy for the teacher to fill out?  Ask if they follow a schedule where they start the day with A and then do B...and can you have a copy of the schedule?  Can you meet with the teacher and ask them to describe a typical day?  What about meeting with your child and their teacher & showing them how he knows more when he works with you?  What about requesting an IEE at school expense because you don't agree with the present levels the school lists for your child?

I think you also need to remain vigilant.  Kids will not do well if they don't feel safe.  I always worry that anyone who can't talk cannot tell their caregiver that they are being abused or witnessing classmates be abused.  This is one reason I feel that everyone needs to be able to communicate.  If you live in a state that allows people to record w/o their permission, parents have sent recording devices to school to audio record the school day.  I know this is illegal in my state but there are places where this would be OK to do.  You can search 'two party state' to see if yours is a place where you need permission to record or if you're in a 'one party state' where you could record.

This is a short video on Spelling to Communicate.  Many of these individuals were in self-contained classrooms being taught 'life skills' when their potential was hidden by not having a way to communicate due to autism combined with apraxia.  I don't want this to happen to other students.

 

[JSD24]

I did answer your question but my answer is hidden.  When I posted it, it said that a moderator had to approve the post.  I hope that happens soon.

[Angela Tyszka]

I also have a 12 year that is non-speaking so I've definitely had concerns about his daily activities at school. I think there are a couple of ways you can go about this. One, is to just talk to the teacher and tell him/her which areas you are especially interested in. Maybe start with a couple of areas and ask to have those reported to you daily. Perhaps they can come up with a daily sheet that has a checklist with things they do on a regular basis and then they can write comments about specific areas of interest. For example, my son has some special medical needs so in addition to academics, it's important that we know what/how much he eats and about his bathroom habits at school. 

If you meet resistance, then ask for an IEP meeting with the team and have some kind of communication system written into the plan. I've not had to go this route with any of our teachers yet. I find just explaining that you don't want to tell them how to run their classroom but that you really would like to be consistent with the content, rewards/discipline, etc. that happens at school so you can implement it at home usually works. 

[Isha Sign]

On 10/8/2022 at 2:21 PM, JSD24 said:

First HIPPA is a misspelling.  HIPAA is the correct acronym.  Most schools don't bill for healthcare services so HIPAA doesn't apply to schools.  FERPA is the privacy act that schools use.  (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act - intesting how a copy & paste worked here)  This is what Lisa has on classroom observation:  https://adayinourshoes.com/can-parents-observe-classroom-iep/

My question is how does your child communicate?  Have they ever had an AT evaluation?  One of the most important things a person does is communicate to others.  How does your child do this?  If they are not reliably verbal, do they use PECS?  A devise?  A letter board?  Sign language?  Smoke signals?  Method doesn't matter so much as they can reliably convey information to you and others.  This eliminates the need for the teacher or para to tell you what's going on.  Your child can do this themself.

Back to your original question about how do you find out what your child's day was like given his IEP isn't teaching him how to tell you himself.  What about designing a checklist - something that will be easy for the teacher to fill out?  Ask if they follow a schedule where they start the day with A and then do B...and can you have a copy of the schedule?  Can you meet with the teacher and ask them to describe a typical day?  What about meeting with your child and their teacher & showing them how he knows more when he works with you?  What about requesting an IEE at school expense because you don't agree with the present levels the school lists for your child?

I think you also need to remain vigilant.  Kids will not do well if they don't feel safe.  I always worry that anyone who can't talk cannot tell their caregiver that they are being abused or witnessing classmates be abused.  This is one reason I feel that everyone needs to be able to communicate.  If you live in a state that allows people to record w/o their permission, parents have sent recording devices to school to audio record the school day.  I know this is illegal in my state but there are places where this would be OK to do.  You can search 'two party state' to see if yours is a place where you need permission to record or if you're in a 'one party state' where you could record.

This is a short video on Spelling to Communicate.  Many of these individuals were in self-contained classrooms being taught 'life skills' when their potential was hidden by not having a way to communicate due to autism combined with apraxia.  I don't want this to happen to other students.

 

Thank you. I am in North Carolina ,I think recording is not allowed here. The teacher refused to fill the checklist which I prepared for her to fill in on daily basis and fills a basic one which she has for all students.

My son is given AAC device ( LAMP) by the county. He uses that just to tell his needs. He is not there yet to express what he did in the school and how he felt etc.

The teacher refuses to listen to me by saying just that "I see him very different in school". I sent her videos showing how well he does. All she says is "I dont know"

I have copy of the schedule but that has nothing other than circle 1, circle 2 ...... circle 8 . each of 20 mins.

What they do in those circles is not known to me.

I ask her questions but I do not want to over ask. I fear if I will end up annoying her as she does not seem to be in best interest of my child. She sent an assignment home during summer but did not bother to see how well my son did in it and never mentioned of it.

Some times I ask her to send some assignments home if we have breaks of 1 week or so. She sends some random stuff which is too high for my son's level.

I have many issues but I fear complaining.

 

[Jenna]

Was an AAC evaluation ever performed, or does the county provide LAMP to all students? If an AAC evaluation hasn't been done, ask for one. Does he have a goal in his IEP to use LAMP to communicate about his day? 

Does your child have an aide, intervention specialist, therapist or anyone else at school that you know and trust? If so, check with that person on how things are going at school.

You could ask if your county Board of Developmental Disabilities service coordinator if they or someone on their team goes into the schools to conduct observations to facilitate consistency across the home and school environments. Perhaps the school would be receptive to that, and then the person from the Board of DD could meet with you afterward to discuss their observations. 

I came across the following on recording in NC: https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/north-carolina/north-carolina-recording-law

Have you tried meeting with the principal or special education coordinator to discuss your concerns? 

Keep documenting the work you are doing with your child at home, and how well he does at home. 

Perhaps some of the resources listed by the NC Dept. of Public Instruction at https://www.dpi.nc.gov/districts-schools/classroom-resources/exceptional-children/parent-resources would be helpful? Have you reached out to the ECAC (https://www.ecac-parentcenter.org)?