Planning for the Transition from IDEA Protection to Adulthood

Daniel Dage specialed.wordpress.com Note from the editors for readers from outside of the United States: In the US, educational rights for students with disabilities are covered by the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Another piece of legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) also has educational implications. A third piece of legislation, the Family Education Rights and Protection Act (FERPA) transfers privacy rights to students when they reach the age of 18, unless the student grants rights to parents. In the US, the preferred term for substantial limitations in cognitive and adaptive functioning is “intellectual disability”, while “learning disability” is reserved for unexpected difficulty in acquiring specific academic skills. Elsewhere in the English-speaking word, “learning disability” is used in referring to people who have substantial limitations in adaptive and cognitive function. There is widely understood to be a continuum of disability (both in physical and cognitive areas): mild,…

Writing Effective IEP Goals and Objectives: Suggestions for Teachers and Parents

Daniel Dage http://specialed.wordpress.com Note from the author: This article is part of a larger series about Individual Education Plans (IEPs) and the IEP process in which I go over each part of the IEP in-depth and describe the process from both a teacher perspective and a parent perspective. By far, this article seems to be the most read and searched for of the entire series. However, in actual practice I have not attended many IEPs where the goals and objectives were actually the subject of enough scrutiny by the attendees. Most of the time, the biggest issue of contention is during the discussion of placement. What most parents (and an embarrassing number of teachers) don’t realize is that goals and objectives are what are going to drive the students’ placement and services during the coming school year. While a Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP) is the most abused part of the…