E51: Autism Spectrum Disorder [Eligibility Category Bonus Series]
Why would you need to know the eligibility checklist? It's because there are some PRIME opportuntities here to make sure your child has the right supports for EVERY area of acedemic struggle! We are going through the CO ASD eligibility checklist for an example, but please join the facebook group to get help to find your state's eligibility criteria!
Resource Referenced in this episode: (CO State ASD Eligibility Criteria Checklist): https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdesped/sd-autism_resources#determination
Beth 0:00
You are listening to the parent IEP lab, the podcast that helps you get an effective Individualized Education Program or IEP for your child without having to constantly fight with the school. I’m Beth Liesenfeld, an occupational therapist who has participated in over 400 IEP meetings. My mission is to help you turn insider knowledge of the schools process and culture into effective parent advocacy for your child. This is the first episode in a series of 13, where we dive into the specific eligibility category. This week, we are going through the checklist of the autism spectrum disability category. Knowing this information, you can arm yourself for what the team is looking for to qualify under this category. And if they are missing any information in the evaluation reports, before they get to the question of eligibility, this is your opportunity to learn the system and to know what they’re looking for and be on top of it. I’m so excited to dive into this category with you today.
Have you ever looked at an evaluation report or an IEP and seen all of those numbers and all of that information and thought, what does this all mean? Don’t worry, I’ve got a great quick solution for you. The decoding IEP data workshop is designed to help you to learn the different types of data and where it should be found in the IEP, how schools use data to build out goals, accommodations and services, and what to do, if you aren’t seeing the data that you want to see from your team. It’s one hour of workshop, one hour of live q&a And a Facebook group to get all of your follow up questions answered. In dimension, it’s only $27. Go to the IEP lab.com/data and sign up for the next workshop. It’s done live, but the recording is available for life. Again, go to the IEP lab.com/data to sign up, and I’ll see you in there. Now let’s get into the episode. We are starting off this eligibility series which is going to be released every Thursday for the next 13 weeks, with probably the hardest eligibility category with the most drama surrounding it. And I think it’s because schools don’t actually understand what this means as far as supporting kids with autism. So we’re starting with the hardest one, but it’s going to be a great one. And I’ve had extra training in this topic specifically. So I feel pretty confident that you’re going to be able to learn something by the end of this. So I wanted to challenge for the first one and we got it. We’re going in alphabetical order, but it’s fine.
Before we get into the episode, let me just say a couple things. One, this isn’t legal advice. This is me going through an eligibility criteria with you that’s provided by the state, adding in some stories of what I’ve seen from my experience being inside the schools, but I am not a lawyer. If you have any questions about eligibility, you should get a consult with a lawyer. And you can listen to the episode of this podcast where we talk to Julie Carter for more information about looking for a good lawyer that meets your needs, and also how to find somebody that can do a low cost or no cost consult for you as well. So make sure that you check that out if you’re considering getting a lawyer.
The second thing is that we are working our way through 13 eligibility categories set out by federal ide a law. But every state has different checklists and guidelines for eligibility inside their own state. I’ve already helped a lot of parents find their individual checklists or information from their state’s website. So if you have questions about your state’s eligibility categories, why don’t you join us in the Facebook group, you can find the link at the IEP lab.com/podcast Click that link to the Facebook group and then asked to join. And we will help you other parents and I’m in there all the time, we can help you locate the specific state information that you need for eligibility so that you can see if it differs from the information I’m going to provide here.
Now Colorado provides these amazing checklists that are the actual eligibility checklist that you fill out during the eligibility meeting. It’s pretty incredible. And a lot of other states do this as well. The checklist might be a little bit different, though. But some states like I was helping somebody the other day with Illinois, well, Illinois, he doesn’t have the actual checklist available on their website. But they did have a definition of who qualifies. So it’s really helpful to see that definition you might be able to dig and find the actual checklist or you might be able to ask of your district, but go ahead and hop into the Facebook group and just let us share the resources that we have somebody might be in there from your same state anyway. And then we can just share that link to you so it’s It hits the easy button if you just go into the Facebook group and join us there as well.
So what we’re doing today is we’re going through the Colorado Department of Education checklists for eligibility under the ASD category or autism spectrum disorder category, you might hear me use identity first language, which is saying autistic kid autistic individual versus kid with autism. And that’s because I really love the neurodivergent movement, which is a civil rights movement, and many, many, many people with autism. See, I just mixed it up there as well. But many autistic individuals are preferring that we say autistic person, instead of person with autism, because they don’t see it as disorder or disease, even though they, they realize that they need more support sometimes and some skills, and they still need some help. And it’s still a disability, but they identify as an autistic individual. So you’ll hear me try to use that version of referring to autistic individuals as much as possible. But when I was going through my grad degree, we were hammered with person first language. So we were told to say person with cerebral palsy, person with autism, that kind of phrasing and so you’ll hear me kind of fight against myself with habits habits die really hard, as far as terminology goes. So I am going to use that. But if you identify the other way, I’m not meaning to offend you, I’m just trying to honor the most people and whoever is going to listen to this can kind of take it with a grain of salt, and you can interpret it in however you would like to be referred to.
So we’re going to jump into this checklist. And if you need a visual, this is linked up in the show notes as well. So if you go to the IEP lab.com/episode Five, one or 51, you will see a link to what I’m looking at right now. And that’s really helpful. I’m usually kind of a visual person, but you will still get the general idea. If you’re driving or doing dishes, I will still try to explain the form to you as best as I can. So you can envision it in your mind.
So this top part is actually the same for every single eligibility category in Colorado. There’s a couple questions at the beginning that you’ll have every single time and this is your opportunity for Parent Advocacy. Okay, so many times parents don’t know these questions are coming. And they don’t realize that they can say no. Okay, so the first one is the most important one. And of course, it’s the first one, so you’re not ready for it. But you are going to be because you’re listening to this podcast. Okay.
The first question is, the evaluation is sufficiently comprehensive, to appropriately identify all of the child’s special education and related service needs, whether or not commonly linked to the disability category. And in parentheses, it says the answer must be yes. In order for the child to be eligible for services. This is asking, let me translate this in layman’s terms. This is asking, when you parent got the evaluation report, which you should get the evaluation report, at least a couple of days before you have the eligibility meeting. And if you don’t, then make the move the eligibility meeting because it’s really important that you have a chance to look over it. And especially those who who have gone through my decoding IEP data workshop already, you’re definitely going to know what you’re looking at, right when you get that evaluation report back.
So when you look at that evaluation report, you want to have an idea of what your biggest concerns are for your child. And what you want to make sure is supported in that IEP. Okay, so we’re not to the IEP, yet, we’re just looking at the evaluation report. But if you don’t have data, in the evaluation report about sensory struggles, then that is not going to end up in the IEP, that is not going to end up being supported in the IEP, you need to look at that evaluation report and make sure that every single challenge that you know your child has, especially in the school setting, even if they don’t have those struggles at home, if you know that they have that struggle in school, you need to make sure that they did a test that they observed that behavior that they observed that challenge of your kid in that evaluation report.
If you listen to more than one of these eligibility podcasts, you’ll see me stress that in every single one, because this is so important. Let’s go forward with that example. So your kid has some sensory difficulties, especially in school, if you get that evaluation report home and it does not have sensory information in it. The answer to this number one question is no. There is not enough information In the evaluation to make a determine of eligibility, you might get some pushback from the districts and say, oh, yeah, we didn’t get that. But I think that we have enough information to qualify them anyway. So let’s move forward. And as long as you are okay with that, that is okay. But I want to let you know that if they didn’t do an autism specific test, in that evaluation report, then you need to stop them and say, don’t we need an autism specific test to determine if they qualify under the autism label? Doesn’t that make sense? And that is when you would say no, right? If it really is a cornerstone of your concerns, if it’s a cornerstone of the eligibility checklist, then you need to bring that up at the first question, okay, when you get the evaluation report at home, then you can even send an email before the meeting and say, Hey, I didn’t see an autism specific thing, or I didn’t see sensory included in this evaluation report. And they might have time to do that. And to get it in the final report, by the time the meeting happens.
So definitely speak out sooner rather than later. And man, this is going to be amazing for your team to just know that you’re on top of it, before you even get into this meeting. It’s gonna be so cool. So that’s gonna be the longest explanation of any of this, I do believe, because it’s the most important part.
Okay, let’s move on to question two. And again, this is written in a double negative, so I will interpret it afterwards. But I want to give you the specific language in the Colorado form.
Number two, the child can receive reasonable educational benefit from general education alone. And in parentheses, the answer must be No, in order for the child to be eligible for services.
So in this one, we are saying, this child has some major barriers to education, they’re not going to be able to access FAPE, which is free and appropriate education, they’re not going to be able to access the general education curriculum without help. Okay, so this answer in order to qualify is going to be No, they can’t just have the general education alone, they need extra services. Okay.
Number three, the child’s performance. And there’s three checkboxes underneath this. So all answers below must be is not in order for the child to be eligible for services. So the child’s performance this is the first one is or is not due to a lack of appropriate instruction and reading, including the essential components of reading instruction. Number two is or is not due to a lack of appropriate instruction in math. And the third one is or is not due to limited English proficiency.
Every single one of these three checkboxes have to be marked is not, in order to qualify for services. If you have a child who is doing school refusal, which is really common under this category, I don’t want to say really come in, it can happen under this category, that they have anxiety about coming to school. This first checkbox, when it says due to a lack of appropriate instruction and reading, including essential components of reading instruction, they might argue, hey, they haven’t been here, they haven’t been able to access education. And we don’t know if it’s because they haven’t even been here. Or if they truly have a disability in English, math, reading, that kind of thing. So this can get kind of tricky. But that’s when you come into the Facebook group. And we talk about it, because I’m not gonna get stuck too much in here, because most of the time, it’s just is not due to this stuff. And then we move ahead.
So you have to have those questions answered, you have to go in order to get to the next section. So here’s the next question. In the next section, it says to be eligible as a child with autism spectrum disorder, there must be evidence of the following criterion. And this is a yes or no checkbox, a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal social communication, and social interaction, generally, evidenced by the age of three other characteristics often associated with autism spectrum disorder are engagement in repetitive activities, and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental changes or changes in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.
So that’s when if you see a hole in the challenges in that evaluation report, this is when you need to speak up to right because in order to qualify under this category, they have to have some of these characteristics in all three of these areas to qualify under this label.
Now, we’ve talked previously does the label matter or not? And in general, it does not as long as they qualify under some category they can access services. The one thing especially for the ASD category is that some schools will still some districts will still have autism specific programs. And so if you’re trying to get them into that program, they might need to qualify underneath this particular eligibility category. And there’s arguments for and against that, and it’s changing. But just to give you a heads up that that’s, that’s a thing. Okay.
So in the next section, it reads an autism spectrum disorder, as described above prevents the child from receiving reasonable educational benefit from general education, as evidenced by all of the following criteria. And there’s three criteria and under this section, the child displays significant difficulties or differences, or both in interacting with or understanding people and events.
And it has some examples listed underneath it as well. The next one is the child displays significant difficulties or differences which extend beyond speech and language to other aspects of social communication, both repetitively and expressively. So, an example of this would be included but are not limited to an absence of verbal language or if verbal language is present. Typical integrated, the use of eye contact and body language is lacking, and significant difficulty sharing, engaging in imaginative play and developing and maintaining friendships.
Now, I want to just note that this is for qualification. And a lot of people in the neurodivergent movement are going to argue against that eye contact piece and actually several pieces inside this one, but just know that this is used for qualification, and doesn’t necessarily mean that these are the goals that they’re going to work to. Okay, so you just kind of have to roll with it.
And the third checkbox inside this category is child Seeks Consistency in environmental events to the point of exhibiting significant rigidity in routines and displays, marketed distress over changes in the routine and or has significantly persistent preoccupation with or attachment to objects or topics.
So this is talking about those repetitive or restrictive interests or movements, things like that. So again, the person in order to qualify for Autism Spectrum Disorder eligibility category, they have to have all three of these. And this is why oh, my gosh, we should probably have a whole nother episode on girls with autism because they, this is where we often get tripped up. Okay. So even autistic individuals who need less support will get tripped up in this section. Because, okay, maybe they have difficulties or differences with speech and language, maybe they have some social difficulties. But they’re not really that rigid, or they seem to be okay, with the structure inside a classroom, because classrooms are pretty structured. So they do generally, okay, it’s not necessarily taking away from them being able to learn in the classroom. And this is where your parent advocacy can come in as well, where you can say, hey, it’s causing them distress. Or if you have a child that holds it together during the day, and gets really stressed out, and they fall apart when they come home. This is evidence that you can bring to this and say, yeah, they might seem okay during the day, but when they come home, they’re falling apart. So this rigidity is causing them stress during the day. And we do need to support that during the day.
So that’s just an example. Again, if you have any questions about how to phrase this, join us in the Facebook group, and I will help you phrase it, I’ll help you understand it from your specific kids situation. Okay, and then this is the last section. I know this is really heavy, you’re sticking with me. I’m so proud of you. This is the last section of this eligibility category, the child must meet each of the three eligibility criteria above so what we just went through to be eligible as a child with autism spectrum disorder.
If the above criteria have been met, the following characteristics should be reviewed by the IEP team for further information about the ASD, these characteristics alone will not qualify a child as having an ASD. So you’re checking all that apply, so they don’t have to have all of these.
The first one is the child exhibits delays or regressions in motor, sensory, social or learning skills. And or this is the second one, the child exhibits precocious or advanced skill development, while other skills may develop at or below typical developmental rates. If you’ve heard the term of to E, which means twice exceptional, or you have heard of children having lagging skills in certain areas, and then really high skills in certain areas, like sometimes they’ll be super high in academic skills, but really low in those social emotional skills. That’s what they’re talking about in this checkbox.
The third one out of five is the child exhibits a typicality and thinking processes. And in generalization, the child exhibits strengths in concrete thinking. While difficulties are demonstrated in abstract thinking, awareness and judgment for separative thinking, meaning they get stuck on something, and impaired ability to process symbolic information is present.
The fourth checkbox, that of five is the child exhibits unusual, inconsistent, repetitive or unconventional responses to sounds, sights, smells, tastes, touch, or movements. And the last one is the child’s capacity to use objects in an age appropriate or functional manner is absent or delayed. The child has difficulty displaying a range of interests or imaginative activities, or both.
And or sorry, there’s one more third sixth, the child exhibits stereotypical motor movements, which include repetitive use of objects and or vocalizations, echolalia, rocking, pacing, or spinning self or objects.
Okay, so again, these six checkboxes, sorry, they’re six instead of five. These are optional. These are like, don’t necessarily determine eligibility, but will give the team an idea of what supports need to be in place. And again, the neurodivergent movement and saying, Who’s to say, what is right or wrong way to play, right? Play is an inside construct. A play is individualized into what we think is fun. So you might have some arguments against some of the terminology. And this goes back to just our discussion all the time that we have about schools being archaic, and laws being archaic, and things not changing as quickly as we would like them to. So this is the phrasing that we have to follow for now. I would love it if we could get into advocacy for laws and getting everything updated. But this is what we got right now. Right? So we kind of have to live with it as is, it doesn’t necessarily have a link to the goals. Right now. This is just the checklist for determining if they qualify for services under the ASD criteria.
So the last checkbox on this list for state of Colorado, is the child has a disability as defined in the state rules for the administration of the exceptional children’s educational act, and is eligible for special education. And so if there are the top portion, when we talked about is there enough information, is it due to a lack of instruction that has to be filled out, we have to have evidence or in that evaluation report that supports all three of these areas with social and interaction with communication and with restricted or repetitive behaviors. And then we have these optional boxes below that either all of them could be checked, or none of them could be checked, and it doesn’t really matter. And then the termination is at the end.
So this has gone through at the eligibility meeting. And everybody should be on the same page when you fill it out. And then at the end, we say, oh, yeah, they met criteria, or they didn’t meet criteria underneath this category. Okay.
You won’t necessarily get a heads up from the team on which categories they’re considering. Because I think I’ve said this in another podcast, but if you’re new to me, then you wouldn’t have heard it. Schools have gotten in trouble legally, before for pre determining. So if you are asking the team before this eligibility meeting, hey, are they going to qualify? Hey, what criteria are you looking at? Hey, you know, can you give me some semblance of an idea of if they’re gonna qualify or not? You might get some hesitancy from the team, or school districts have been sued before. Because they have said, Oh, they’re gonna qualify under ASD category. And they’re not allowed to do that without you as part of the team and sitting there and looking at the data and having a discussion about it.
Okay, so just know, now if you have a pretty good relationship with the IEP team, and if they kind of know you, and if you can approach them in a way that’s like, Hey, I was reading through some eligibility, determination checklists, and there’ll be like we were,but you can say, Hey, I was looking into this. Can you give me an idea of what categories you guys are considering? And they might give you information depending on the person and how comfortable they are with you? Because they definitely won’t do that if you’re somebody who file state complaints right away or tries to catch the team in a mistake that they’ve made and file a claim or report on them.
But if you have a pretty good relationship with them. And you’re like, Hey, I was looking into this and I was studying up on it, can you tell me some different eligibility criterias that you guys might be seeing some evidence for. And they might give you a couple options, they’re really supposed to consider more than one, and you actually might have more than one, ASD might be the primary. And then it might be determined that they have a specific learning disability, let’s say they’re dyslexic. And so they qualify under the specific learning disability category for reading, you can have both underneath there. And that’s actually not a bad thing, so that it better explains your child’s needs.
And really, it doesn’t matter a whole lot until you go to move or until your IEP team, your case manager leaves, and you get a new case manager or you get new staff members on the team. And they pull up that IEP, and the better that the eligibility criteria fits your kid and says, yeah, they struggle with this, this and this, the easier it is for staff members to pick up that IEP or even if you take your IEP to outside OT or PT or speech, they can pick up that IEP and be like, Okay, I have a general idea of what their needs are, it’s going to be individualized. But okay, I kind of know what’s going to be expected, I kind of know what questions to ask to see what they actually need. And it’s really helpful to have this kind of checklist and this outline.
So like I said before, this is Colorado’s checklist for eligibility for Autism Spectrum Disorder, this does not mean that your state is going to follow this same exact checklist, they are going to have the eligibility category, because that’s set out by federal law. But then states have the right to individually personalize what their qualifications are.
Now, some of the complications with this particular category are, again, when you talk about those three arms in that middle section, sometimes the teams miss the struggles. And that’s what I’m saying that’s your right, as a parent, that’s your opportunity to come to the table with your own information and say, hey, yeah, they seem like they have it together. But they’re falling apart at home, or, Hey, they’re reporting this when they get home, they’re not comfortable with you guys enough to tell you. But this is what I’m saying.
And this is when they’ve said that the more detailed records you have about things like this, the better, it just comes off better, they can make it part of the record holds more weight, the more detail that you have with it. So it’s really quite amazing that you have this checklist available in some states so that you can look at it beforehand. And yes, it’s written really hard to understand. And you can hear me struggle when I’m even reading it sometimes. And I have to interpret it afterwards. But that’s where we have the Facebook group connected to this podcast. So you can jump in there. And you can get the support that you need to understand what exactly they’re looking for.
So thank you so much for listening to this podcast. I’m so excited to discover all of the different eligibility categories with you over the next 12 more weeks. If you have a specific question, or if you’re like, when is this category going to come out, hop into the Facebook group, go to the IEP lab.com/podcast. And you will see the little icon that says Join us in the Facebook group, click that little picture icon. And it will take you to the Facebook link so that you can apply to get into that group, I just make sure that you guys are all parents of special needs kids so that we don’t have any riffraff that’s in that group. So you do have to apply to it. And then you can get in and ask your question so that we can help you grab those resources. Understand eligibility criteria. If you’re nervous about meeting coming up, we can talk about how you can prepare for that meeting as well specific to your situation. It’s going to be amazing. I love that group. And I love who’s in that group so far. So join us inside that group as well. Thank you for joining me. We will see you next time. Same time, same place. Thanks so much.
Bye
Unknown Speaker 29:08
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