Episode 39- Early Intervention to School Based IEP Evaluation Process - 5322 9.19 AM
Why are these two systems so drastically different? And where do you fit it as the parent? This is actually the BIGGEST opportunity for parent advocacy, and I give you three questions to make sure you ask before the evaluation ends to launch your parent advocacy career to the next level and get the support your child needs in the school!
Related Podcast Episodes Mentioned:
Episode 33: How to Help Your Child with a Communication Device
Episode 8: What to Expect at the Eligibility Meeting
Episode #12: The Difference Between Outpatient and School Based Therapy
Episode 39- Early Intervention to School Based IEP Evaluation Process!
THREE QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE EVALUATION: So those are your three questions. Will, when will I get a copy of the evaluation report prior to the meeting? What categories might you be considering for qualification? And if they qualify, will you do the IEP meeting right after the evaluation meeting?
Beth [00:00:00] Welcome to the Elevate Your Advocacy podcast. I’m so excited today because we are talking about what to expect when your child is transitioning from early intervention services to school based services and what that evaluation actually looks like.
Beth [00:00:17] Now, if you have an older child, you still might want to stick around because if you have an evaluation or reevaluation or any type of transition coming up, you might be interested to hear the three questions that I recommend asking the team after an evaluation is complete at the end of this episode.
Beth [00:00:35] So stick with me. Today we’re talking about the EI to school based transition process. Stick with me.
Beth (intro) [00:00:43] Welcome to the Elevate Your Advocacy podcast, the show that helps parents with a child with an IEP transform into the knowledgeable and effective parent they need to become to get their child the support they need in schools. Today we are talking about the early intervention to school based services transition. And as an occupational therapist, I have served parents in the early intervention system and served on the Child Find team, which evaluates children coming from the early intervention space into the school space. And I’ve served four different classrooms in the preschool area where these services are provided. I’m so excited to give you some hints and tricks and especially the questions at the end to ask your team before leaving that evaluation. So, you know what’s coming up now. Let’s get into the show.
Beth [00:01:35] I’m really excited to dove into the start of this topic of transitioning from early intervention or EI, as it’s sometimes called, into a school based service setting. And to be honest, I’ve had this on the podcast schedule for a really long time. But I think that the topic is so big that I’ve struggled with exactly what to include. And it’s true because I have worked on all sides of this transition, and I’ve been with families as they transition. And in thinking about what I wanted to share, I kind of had to chunk up what I was talking about. So I do have some other podcasts that are coming that explain different aspects of how this transition works.
Beth [00:02:20] Today we are really hyper focused on just that evaluation piece, like what actually happens at the beginning of this. And then I have three questions at the end that I really want you to ask before you leave that evaluation. And that’s really going to help you with expectations for what is happening next. I think the biggest thing that I hear from parents in this transition is that you have no idea what to expect because overnight the expectations change, right? Your child doesn’t drastically change when they’re two years and 11 months old to when they’re three. But the way that the legal system of supports is set up, the expectations in the programs are very, very different. And it can be really hard to know what’s coming, and it can be really hard to transition to a whole new team all at once that has very different expectations.
Beth [00:03:13] So we are going to start with a little bit of a definition of what each side what each program is there for, because I think that’s really important in setting up really your role in each of these programs and understanding why they’re asking the questions they’re asking and why it feels different. I think this will really help.
Beth [00:03:37] So let’s start with early intervention services. So that program that is run through the state is really meant to support you as the parent. You are the focus of the intervention, even though your child is there. It is supposed to be to address the concerns and the skills that you need to build as a parent to help facilitate skill building in your child.
Beth [00:03:58] So when I did Early Intervention, this was before I was in schools. It was really helpful to be in the home environment and it was really parent led. What are they working on right now? What kind of struggles are you having? How can I help? You know, I would step in and try some things. I would model things for the parent and then I would step back and see if the parent could continue those skills and see if they had more success than I would. Sometimes they would because they have more rapport with your child. Right.
Beth [00:04:30] So really, if you had a concern, an early intervention and yes, times have changed a little bit since then, I know there’s a lot of shortages for therapists and teachers and early intervention, and this has also changed in doing it virtually a little bit over COVID. I do believe most areas are back to going into homes for early intervention and I really hope so because I really think that’s more effective than doing it remotely. But when you’re in the system, whatever concerns that you had would be addressed.
Beth [00:05:01] So let me give you an example from Colorado. I was serving this amazing family and going inside their home and they were having some sensory difficulties with their child. She was like two, two and a half. And so over the course of maybe three or four months, we work together on these specific things that they were encountering within their home environment. And they were amazing. They were easy to work with. They told me what they were struggling with. We could work through it together. They implemented strategies when I wasn’t there and when I came back, they were like, ready for the next question and in the next step.
Beth [00:05:35] So over the course of and like I said, I think it was like three, maybe four months, they came to a point where they didn’t need me anymore. I would show up and would be like, Yeah, I think everything’s actually okay. And I’m like, Okay, this is the time that we discharge if you don’t have any concerns.
Beth [00:05:52] But they still had one concern, which was her going upstairs, just looked a little funky. It didn’t look smooth. She was having some trouble with it. They lived on the second story and she needed to be able to do straight do stairs. So I contacted the case manager and I said, Hey, you know, this is above, you know, my skill set. I think they should really be able to access the PT if they can. And all that happened on my last visit was the case manager came in, got input from the parents, changed the IFSP, which is the equivalent of the IEP in early intervention. And they put the call out for the PT and. He started within the next couple of weeks, and she addressed that concern that they had.
Beth [00:06:38] And it was such an uneasy transition at that time, at least in that situation. And that is because that program is there to support any concerns that the parents and the child have. Now, in school systems, it’s a different qualification process, and they actually have to qualify for each individual thing.
Beth [00:07:00] So I see it over and over again where parents are trying to ask for more O.T. but that’s actually not the way that that works in the school setting. It’s it’s different. There has to be a qualification process. And instead of asking for a service, you should be asking for a problem to be addressed. And it’s up to the whole team to decide who is the best person to actually address that problem. And you might not want an O.T. at the end of the day after the team talks about you might be like, Oh, that O.T. isn’t going to be in the building every day. That changes things. I want somebody to be there every day to support them. That’s going to be a different situation, right?
Beth [00:07:41] So the purposes are different in also that the schools are there to really prepare your child for learning. Preschool is still a very fun environment. They have so much fun in there and I love serving preschools. Can you tell? But they do want to make sure that they’re identifying barriers to participation and learning in that pre academic classroom.
Beth [00:08:05] So instead of developing your own routines at home and how you can so quickly like change your routine around or you can change the time or you can alter this or that in the routine, you can add stuff or take things out In the classroom, it’s more structured than that because you have more kids that need to follow the same structure.
Beth [00:08:25] So now you’re saying, okay, do they fit okay in this or are there going to be additional needs and supports to be able to meet those expectations? So it is very different. It feels like you as the parent don’t have as much control because to be honest, you can’t. You don’t. I mean, it’s no longer in your home environment. We’re talking about the school setting now.
Beth [00:08:47] Like I said, I worked early intervention before I worked in schools, so I didn’t really have a good idea of how this evaluation or transition process worked. And then it was only after I worked in schools and worked on the child pain team for several years that I was like, okay, I get it. I get what they’re coming from, what that evaluation looks like, and what preschool and then the kindergarten transition after that looked like as a whole. And I’ve seen kids go through the whole thing.
Beth [00:09:17] So I look at a lot of the therapists that serve early intervention and a lot of them do not have any experience with the schools. So you might feel like your team is kind of drawing back or saying that they they don’t know if you’re asking them questions in this podcast is supposed to kind of give you some direction about what that looks like because sometimes your team can be really, really close to you. You know, you’ve spent time with them. Oftentimes, people who work in early intervention are very helpful, very caring people, but they might start to pull back and not have answers to you if you start asking about this transition.
Beth [00:09:54] Now, some of them might have, you know, been in early intervention a long time, been with families as they transition from one to the other. They might be a great resource for you, but some of them just might not know. And they don’t want to promise you something if they’re not sure if it’s going to happen or not, especially if you have a child that might not qualify for an IEP. They’re going to be hesitant about telling you one way or the other, especially if you know you haven’t been working with them for very long, or they’re just very careful about what they’re doing because they don’t want to promise you that they’ll qualify and then they’re not qualifying. So you might feel like they’re backing off a little bit and you might feel like you’re unsupported as you go through this transition. So I’m here for you. I’m trying to give you a little bit of a heads up and some questions to ask to prepare for that. So hopefully that helps in understanding the systems a little bit more.
Beth [00:10:51] So just to summarize, early intervention is really there to support you as a parent and your child in developing all of the skills that they can in their home environment. And the school services are really meant to assess if they’re able to access that pre academic learning and if they will have some barriers that need addressing and really supports to help them access their pre academic curriculum. So there’s there’s a different intention for those and you might feel that in the types of questions that they ask you.
Beth [00:11:22] So let’s dive into what actually happens at the evaluation. If you are in the early intervention system, these systems are connected through the coordinators of each program. So your paperwork will be forwarded to the person who is going to do the evaluation for school based qualification.
Beth [00:11:43] And so you might hear from a coordinator of a program that will say, Hey, your child’s birthday is coming up. We need to get them into an evaluation. And so they will be the one that schedules that with you. There might be, you know, a secretary that helps with some paperwork because you will fill out like an ASQ assessment that is a an outline of like where they are with their skills. You might have some of their intake paperwork. You, hopefully, we always did and I really hope for you too. There was always a packet of information that you filled out with your own concerns, and this is what I’m talking about.
Beth [00:12:21] This is the opportunity for you to advocate. A lot of the report is parent based and you have a lot of control over what information gets in there by the attention to detail that you take in that paperwork that you fill out. Okay. So when it says, do you have concerns on this? Do you have concerns on this? You can write out your concerns and really take your time with detailing out what your concerns are on that paperwork. And most of the team will review that paperwork before you even get in to the appointment so that they know what assessments they’re going to do. They know what questions they’re going to ask you. They know what they’re wondering about. So the more detailed you can be and more accurate you can be on those assessments before you even get into the evaluation, the better.
Beth [00:13:10] A lot of times it’ll be hard for the team if that ASQ or some other assessment comes back in the normal range. And then you’re like, Oh, well, why are there concerns? Why are they coming in? And there’s a lot of parents that don’t realize what is average skills, what’s not. And we tend and I see this with my son as well, I find myself helping him a lot more than he needs. And especially when Grandma comes down and plays with him, I’m like, he can do that independently. He can do that without you helping. So we tend to help our kids a lot more than they probably need. So I really try to be objective when you’re filling out that that information on do they actually need help with that? Are you actually helping them set up that activity for them to be able to access it? Are you doing more than you think that you’re doing? Because a lot of us as parents do. We just naturally do because we care about our kid. Right. And we also are avoiding, you know, having some some friction with activities as well. Right. We want to set them up for success. We want them to enjoy it and to be busy for a little bit so we can get our stuff done, whatever we’re trying to do. So really be accurate on that paperwork. That’s your opportunity to really, you know, be honest about the support that your child might need in a different environment.
Beth [00:14:37] So the second thing that happens, the first thing is kind of pre meeting paperwork, scheduling that evaluation. The second thing is the actual evaluation. So typically you will bring your child into a classroom that is empty and kind of set up for evaluations. Or some districts will have screenings where you kind of go from station to station and you’ll bring your paperwork with you as you go, and they’ll test all different kinds of things at different stations. And then you might be referred for an evaluation after that time as well. And it kind of depends on what the screening looks like. But anyway, so you’ll bring your child in for an evaluation and it will look very much like a classroom with a ton of toys in it, because at this age we really want to look at them in a playful way. We want to look at their skills. We want to look at what they’re motivated by, what they like so that we get to know them a little bit better.
Beth [00:15:29] And just a reminder, we’re going to look at them for about 45 minutes or an hour. All of that information is basically going to come from you. We’re going to have some observation skills. We’re going to have some assessments that we do in that time. But it is such a short window. And for especially autistic children, just if they’re having a good day, then we won’t see a lot. If they’re having a bad day, that actually gives a good idea of what supports they might need on a bad day. So don’t feel bad. If they’re having a bad day. That’s actually pretty helpful for the team to really identify. Okay, they might need this support and this support because we’re really seeing some hesitancy and some troubles and some difficulty around these types of tasks and that’s okay. They are used to seeing that. We actually like seeing that so that we can see, okay, this is a bad day for them, how can we support them better? And it really gives a good indication of what services they might need.
Beth [00:16:25] So if you have a medically complex child, if you have a child with autism. Or some other, you know, if you have concerns in multiple areas or if they were getting multiple therapies through early intervention, this this evaluation can feel really intimidating because there might be a lot of people there at once. I think the most people we had was like the parents and the child and probably about seven or eight people. And I’m telling you this to really prepare yourself that and this was a child who had a hearing impairment, some vision concerns. So we had the teacher of visually impaired there. We had the audiologist, we had the deaf and hard of hearing teacher there. We had OT, we had P.T., we had speech therapy, we had all kinds of things. And so we all kind of swarmed the parents.
Beth [00:17:22] So you can ask that coordinator beforehand who all is going to be there, how many people am I going to be interacting with? And they are all super nice people, but they will all probably have some questions for you most of the time, like the P.T. and I as the OT could tag team and we can ask a lot of the same questions so that you don’t have to say the things, same things twice, but you will kind of be inundated with a lot of questions. So just want to give you a heads up on that. You can always ask the coordinator how many people are going to be there, if that makes you a little bit nervous. Okay.
Beth [00:17:57] The third thing that happens is kind of within this evaluation, they’ll probably play with your child and do some observations while somebody is talking to you or while you’re filling out more assessments. They actually have some assessments that can be done on the computer. So they may email you some assessments that they need. They might have some on paper, like my sensory assessments were always done on paper. So I’d give you a quick a clipboard so that you could do it and do it right then and get it done. And I might have some follow up questions about that as well. So during that, you know, setting, you’ll have a little bit of time, you know, kind of away from your child to express some concerns if you don’t want them to overhear you as well, or you can ask to step to the side. Anything like that is a good idea and things to think about.
Beth [00:18:45] Now with COVID, this changed a little bit, but I know our district was really trying to get some kids and observation within a preschool classroom because a lot of times and this is the most difficult thing about this transition is that they are transitioning settings. So it’s really hard to anticipate what it’s going to look like when they’re in a preschool classroom, if they haven’t been to daycare yet, if they haven’t been to like libraries or out in public in structured situations. So we saw this a lot during COVID that it’s like while you guys probably aren’t going out much, are you? And the answer was like, no, we’re staying at home. You know, we’re going for walks. We’re doing things with family sometimes, but not even that much. So it was really hard for the team to discover like, is this a disability? Is this a delay or is this just something that’s happened through COVID?
Beth [00:19:41] Now, at the time of this recording, things are opening back up. Things are almost back to, quote unquote normal, although things have changed, of course. But as far as, you know, being in May 2022, things are starting to go back to normal in that we can go to storytime at the library, we can go to public places. And so this should help your child just be in a different setting. But regardless, it’s really nice for that team to be able to see your child in a preschool setting, and they might do it right then. They might have the preschool classroom next door and they might, you know, join a circle time or enjoying a playtime. And they’ll just see, you know, are they sharing toys? Are they able to, like, be aware safety wise of what’s going on in the classroom? Are they going to need somebody to help them navigate through the classroom? Are they wheelchair user? Are they you know, how can they communicate their needs when they’re away from you a little bit? Do they have a device? Can they use it? You know, all of those things that just takes them eyes on so they’re not being critical. They’re just seeing, will this child need support to do this, this and this. And it’s just easier to see if they are actually in that classroom. So that might be part of the evaluation as well.
Beth [00:20:51] So that’s it after a 45 minutes or an hour, usually your child is really tired by that time because they’ve been playing their heart out and they might need a little bit of a break. That is what the evaluation looks like now. And like I said, you might have more assessments to fill out, especially the school psychologist. If you have them on board, they will probably have a lengthy questionnaire for you that you have to go home into, but it’s all really good information.
Beth [00:21:17] So before you leave that evaluation, here are my recommendation questions for asking that coordinator so that you make sure that you’re on the offensive and you’re stepping into your parent role. Okay. Because they don’t have like when you went through your early intervention assessments, typically they will give you some kind of hint, at least a percentage of delay by the time you leave. So you leave with something you might not totally understand what it means. You might have met with somebody afterwards and they explained it to you, but in this situation they don’t even have all the data yet. So they really don’t give you any indication of if they’re going to qualify or not, which sounds really secretive and it sounds really bad, but that’s just the way that the system works because they have to have the numbers in hand and they have to look at the whole picture and everybody else’s assessment. Like, I would have to look at the speech therapy assessment once they got done to see if they were going to qualify and what holes I needed to fill in the O.T.. You know, I would talk with the psych and say, Are you putting them on? Is the teacher putting them on? Because as a related service, I was last right? I, I filled any holes that anybody else didn’t address with their services. And I had to make sure that somebody else qualified because I as the OT couldn’t qualify on my own.
Beth [00:22:36] So it’s always like a back and forth thing in looking at the whole data before we come to that evaluation meeting so that we can be clearer with the whole picture. So here’s the three question. So if you’re multitasking coming, come back to me. We’re almost done with the episode and these are the most important questions to ask before you leave that evaluation.
Beth [00:22:57] Number one is when will I get a copy of the evaluation report? Prior to the meeting. A lot of parents do not ask this because they’re new to the system. They don’t know what’s coming next. They don’t know that they can ask for it. But I want you to make sure that you get a copy of the evaluation report before the meeting to go over the evaluation results. You might not understand everything in that evaluation report. That’s okay. You will have some indication of what they’re talking about. And then you can come with questions to that meeting to say, Hey, I didn’t understand this part. Can you go over that? And so you make sure that you understand it by the end of that evaluation meeting.
Beth [00:23:39] The other thing is that you really want to make sure that they didn’t miss anything. So those concerns that you had in the beginning when you were filling out paperwork, make sure that all of those concerns that you had are addressed in that evaluation report. Now, you might have had some concerns surrounding feeding, let’s say, and feeding really isn’t commonly addressed in the school based therapy realm because it’s not necessarily a barrier to accessing education. You can make the argument for it. Some people will cover that and do it, but most of the time they’re not going to do feeding therapy in this setting. You can always do outpatient therapy for anything that the school doesn’t cover. Okay. Insurance applies. We’ll talk about that later. We actually had a past episode on the difference between school based and outpatient therapy. I would encourage you to listen to that as well. It’s really helpful.
Beth [00:24:35] So question one again was when will I get a copy of the evaluation report prior to the meeting? Okay.
Beth [00:24:43] Number two is what categories might you be considering for qualification for my child? So again, we’ve talked about this in past episodes. I can link it in the show notes when you go to parentfriendlyot.com/podcast And there’s 13 different categories that children can qualify under through idea, they might know what categories they’re considering. So if you have an outside diagnosis of autism, they’re going to say, Yeah, we’re going to look at autism. But they typically have to look at at least two different categories to make sure that, you know, they’re covering all their bases, right? Oh, we might have evidence for speech and language impairment. We might have some information for OHI. If you have a medically complex kiddo, they might fall under OHI.
Beth [00:25:32] You can find these checklists on your state’s website. And if you have any any question about where to find any of these resources, especially for state resources, I want you to join the Elevate Your Advocacy Insiders Facebook group, because that’s the stuff that we talk about in that Facebook group. Okay. The link for that is in the show notes as well. I want you to really, if you have any questions about this transition, if you want help locating resources for your state, that’s where to go to ask me those questions. And then it’s available for everybody else in the group as well.
Beth [00:26:06] So again, question number two is what categories might you be considering for qualification? This gives you a heads up. It’s a checklist that you can look up beforehand and you can say, Oh, okay, it looks like they might qualify for this or This sounds like my kid or this doesn’t sound like my kid at all. And so you have some sort of knowledge going into that meeting of what the checklist is going to look like. Okay. A lot of times they’re hard to read, but all I’m saying is that it’s nice to have a head up and to be familiar with what they’re going to read.
Beth [00:26:36] The third and final question is, if they qualify, will you do the IEP meeting right after the evaluation meeting? This gives you a heads up because if you want a separate meeting, you can ask for a separate meeting. You can come back and do the IEP later. Or if you think that they’re going to have a draft IEP ready, then you can ask for that too. They’re really not supposed to predetermine eligibility and have that IEP draft ready. But if you ask for it, they might give it to you or they might have one ready for you. And it’s just really nice to see what’s on there. So you can make sure, again, that all of your concerns are addressed. That can be addressed, that you have questions ready, because it’s really hard to just look at a document that’s very foreign and come up with questions like you’re still getting oriented at that point, you’re not going to have good questions.
Beth [00:27:30] So if you have a heads up, if they’re going to continue with the IEP right after, if they qualify or if they do it in a separate meeting, that’s great too. So you just have a heads up about what the process looks like because every team does it differently and every district does it differently as well.
Beth [00:27:46] So those are your three questions. Will, when will I get a copy of the evaluation report prior to the meeting? What categories might you be considering for qualification? And if they qualify, will you do the IEP meeting right after the evaluation meeting?
Beth [00:28:00] I hope that really helps. Like I said, if you have any questions about this early intervention to school based therapy transition, if you need help locating resources. Join the free Facebook group. The link is at the show notes itswww.parentfriendlyOT.com/podcast And this episode is number 39. If you are listening to this at the time of the recording, that latest episode is going to be at the top of the podcast page on my website. But if you’re listening to it later, look for episode 39. Open that up and there’s going to be a link for the Facebook page.
Beth [00:28:40] There’s also going to be the list of questions right at the top, and then a transcript of this episode as well. As always, thank you so much for spending time with me. I hope that you join the Facebook group so I can help you out if you’re going to go through this transition, especially over the summer. That’s really coming up.
Beth [00:28:58] And also, if you found this episode helpful, I would love it if you would share it with somebody that might benefit from this information as well. Thank you for spending time with me. I will see you same time, same place next week and of course, in the Facebook group. In the meantime, have a great week.