#13 - Intro to Accommodations in the IEP

Episode 13: Intro to Accommodations in the IEP

Accommodations are the most underrated part of the IEP. Sometimes getting no attention-these are the ways we can make school a more personalized experience for our children. Find links to the research articles at www.parentfriendlyot.com/podcast under the show notes for this podcast. Need some help walking through setting your priorities for your next IEP?

Intro to Accommodations in the IEP: a research-based approach

1. Accommodations are so incredibly helpful and in my opinion the most underrated part of the IEP. They are the way we change the WAY learning is done. And in a school system that is traditional ridgid, this is how we can individualize instruction and make it more flexible and tailored towards the student.
   1. We actually do this automatically for our spouses and co:workers, and people do it for us, too.
      1. Morning vs afternoon “person”
      2. We can change our jobs, our routines. When you are a kid-everything is set and not very individualized.
2. Envision a van diagram. Like the three circles that overlap in the middle. This is adapted from the PEO model of Mary Law, Barbara Cooper, Susan Strong, Debra Stewart, Patricia Rigby, Lori Letts, 1996. A full citation can be found in the show notes, as well as a link to an article with all of the amazing visuals for the process (not IEP related-it’s an OT article) from the scholarly article Application of the Person: Environment: Occupation Model: A practical tool by Strong et al, 1999 (an oldie but a very good-ie). {Click the link HERE to read}
   1. The middle is positive, amazing learning. It’s called Occupational Performance in the PEO model.
      1. The three outer circles are:
         1. The Person
         2. The Environment
         3. The Occupation
      2. The occupation
         1. I’m starting with the hardest one to explain, as this is why OTs get such a bad rap: that occupation means jobs in our culture. But an occupation is something that we need to do or want to do. It can be everything from showering and using the bathroom to gardening and running (two of my favorites).
         2. In this case, we are talking about the role and “job” of being a student.
         3. You may say “to learn!” but it’s much more than that.
            1. Following rules
            2. Organizational demands
            3. Time demands
            4. Transitions
            5. Self regulation
            6. Listening
            7. Academic work
            8. Friendships
            9. Work in groups
            10. Use classroom tools (glue sticks, scissors, pencils, etc)
                1. You can see by having a disability, some of these occupational demands are incredibly hard for someone. And the traditional school setup is absolutely not made to be flexible for accommodating changes to this structure. See what I did there? We are getting to the individualized part in a few minutes…
      3. The Person
         1. Strengths and how they learn best (learn best by doing, etc)
         2. Difficulties or challenges within THIS environment
         3. Interests
         4. Sensory motor abilities
         5. Problem solving abilities
         6. Communication skills
            1. Now in the IEP, it’s really important to think of these aspects of the person in and outside the school environment-and that’s where the parent comes in.
               1. You know what they love to do and what their skills are in a different environment. If you think about it, you can likely tell what the differences are between environments that make it different for your child.
            2. For example, when I teach adaptive horseback riding, we often don’t see these behaviors that may come out in a different setting.
               1. The environment is totally different.
                  1. It’s still a routine, there are still rules, but they often make a lot of sense for safety reasons.
                  2. They have a choice to be there-if someone doesn’t like the activity they stop coming.
      4. The Environment
         1. I kinda already went there, but the environment is probably the easiest one to explain.
            1. If I were to explain the school environment, I would call it routine and schedule oriented. I’d call it predictable, but also ridgid. You only have so much time to explore this thing, or learn this thing.
            2. With classrooms back to normal after COVID, classes are big-up to 30 kids. That’s a lot of stimulation in there.
            3. Often there is some outside time, and a lot of times there are a lot of transitions in a day.
            4. Technology is also a huge part of the day, especially in the middle school and high school levels.
      5. So hopefully you have a good picture in your head of this van diagram, with three circles overlapping. One is the Person, one the Environment, and one the Occupation.
         1. So the question is: How do you make the middle, the occupational performance aka: learning in an enjoyable, fulfilling way within the context of school as we know, bigger?
   2. You guessed it! ACCOMODATIONS!
      1. There are 3 main types of accommodations-and really this is just the intro to accommodations. I imagine I’ll have a whole series on them, as there are so many and so many ways to look at them.
         1. How information is delivered.
            1. This can be how math is delivered, or how transitions are communicated, etc.
               1. Some examples: visual cues, allowing audio books, etc
         2. How students demonstrate knowledge
            1. Oral responses, word processor, extra time, showing their work or not,
         3. Environment
            1. Small group instruction when possible, lighting (light covers or no fluorescent lights), flexible seating options (wiggle stool, standing desk options, etc)
            2. Allow student to transition before/after the rest of the class, checklist or must do/should do/can do lists
      2. I feel like we really focus a lot on the environmental piece, which is super important. Because we are talking about multiple aspects of the environment.
         1. The physical environment (ear defenders for loudness, frequent movement breaks, preferential seating, etc)
         2. And the structure of the environment (checklists, teach and remind of using a planner, etc)
3. This is obviously not an exhaustive list. And the main thing to keep in mind is that your child may need more or less or different accommodations depending on the teacher and the grade. They definitely change from year to year, and they need to be revised every year.
   1. POP QUIZ: why would they change????
      1. You got it! The answer is that the environment and the occupational demands change every year.
      2. The curriculum builds and gets harder (it’s commonly said that the jump between 1st and 2nd and 2nd and 3rd are some of the biggest jumps-mainly because they go from learning to read to reading to learn).
      3. Every teacher and classroom environment is different.
      4. AND think about that transition from elementary to middle, middle to high. Now they are changing classrooms and expectations every 60-90 minutes. While I’ve seen it be challenging for some students, I’ve also been so surprised that with these changes I’ve seen some students THRIVE! More on that in a future episode.
4. To recap, Accommodations are a section in the IEP that are super underrated. They are ways to change how students access info and demonstrate their learning, as well as changing the environment to match the student’s strengths and preferences for learning.
   1. We looked at accommodations through a lens of the PEO model (or person/environment/occupation model). This model is an OT model, and works really well when overlaid with the IEP process in general. You can find a link to the source articles at www.parentfriendly.com under the show notes page for this episode.
   2. Stay tuned for more episodes on accommodations-there is a lot to talk about.
   3. If you are needing assistance in deciding IEP priorities, don’t forget I have a free download called the Parent IEP Priority Guide, available at www.parentfriendlyot.com/guide If you need a little more help and guidance through the process, I still have spots open for my December 2 and 9th 2-hour workshops. Find out how to register at www.facebook.com/parentfriendlyot

Reference: Law, M., Cooper, B., Strong, S., et al., 1996, The Person-Environment-Occupation Model: A Transactive Approach to Occupational Performance. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, Volume: 63 issue: 1, page(s): 9-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/000841749606300103