E68: Social Skills + IEPs with Rebecca Beaudet
Have you ever wondered what social skills you should be teaching your child or what social skills goals you should ask for in your child's IEP? Today, we are diving into all things social skills for neurodivergent learners and IEP goals.
Have you ever found yourself wondering how to teach your child social skills or how school teaches social skills? If so, this episode is for you! Special guest, Rebecca Beaudet of The Com Collab, is joining us today to share all about social skills in the IEP.
In today’s episode, Rebecca is giving us great insight into what social skills are and how they should be approached in the IEP. We are talking about what social skills are, what the Neurodiversity Movement is, when it’s appropriate and inappropriate to have social skills in an IEP, what good social skills goals are, and what teaching social skills in schools looks like. Rebecca also shares some great resources for teaching social skills to all students!
The summit is THIS WEEK! Be sure to grab your FREE ticket to The Parent IEP Advocacy Summit before September 22, 2022. You’ll have access to 17 on-demand videos, Q&A sessions, an exclusive Facebook group, and raffle prizes!
Be sure to check out The Parent IEP Lab Insiders Facebook Group where you can connect with other parents who will help you along the IEP journey. And, as always, if you found this episode helpful and informative, please SUBSCRIBE & SHARE to help other parents be the best advocates they can for their child!
In this episode, we cover:
- What social skills are and what teaching social skills means
- The significance of the Neurodiversity Movement and its role in teaching social skills
- When it is appropriate to have social skills goals in the IEP and why we need to keep the learner front and center in these goals
- Situations where social skills should not be in IEP goals and how common tools are not beneficial in teaching social skills
- What good social skills goals look like and why we should be moving towards more affirming goals instead of compliance goals
- How it looks when social skills are being taught using the strength-based social model
Connect with Beth:
- Grab your FREE ticket for The Parent IEP Advocacy Summit
Connect with Rebecca
Social Skills Resources:
Related Podcast Episodes:
- #51 – Autism Spectrum Disorder [Eligibility Category Bonus Series]
- #28 – Case Manager Insights from an Autism program Teacher — with Gabriella Gonzalez
Beth 0:01
Here’s a frequently asked question for you, how do I teach my child social skills? And how does the school teach social skills? And how do I measure that in a goal in an IEP? And in light of the neurodiversity movement? Where are we with respecting what individuals want to learn as far as social skills go, but they still need to function in the school environment, which requires a certain level of cooperation socially? How do we navigate this? This is a topic that I am not personally super experienced in. So I’m so grateful that my colleague Rebecca Baudette, from the comm collab is here to discuss how to incorporate social skills into the fabric of your child’s life while at school, while still respecting their autonomy. You are listening to the parent IEP lab, the podcast that helps you get an effective IEP plan for your child so you can get them supported and learning in school. I’m Beth Liesenfeld, occupational therapist who started to notice trends in parents who got effective IEP s for their kids. My mission is to help you turn insider knowledge of the system and school culture into effective parent advocacy. every child’s strengths and needs are a little different. So every IEP should be different too. But sometimes it helps to have a little insider knowledge, to know what to change and tweak so that you have the right formula for success for your unique child. Welcome to the lab. There are almost 1000 parents signed up to join us in the free parent IEP Advocacy Summit that starts on September 22 2022. If you want to join them and start off the school year, right, with 18 experts helping you get a handle on the IEP process and parent opportunities for advocacy. Yes, including parents who have gone through this process themselves, then head over to www dot v IEP lab.com/summit to snag your free ticket by September 22. After September 22, you can still access all of the amazing sessions by purchasing a VIP ticket. With that VIP ticket, you have access to the sessions for over a year, downloadable transcripts, audio versions of the sessions and extra handouts from speakers and discount from sponsors. That link again was WWW dot the IEP lab.com/summit. And that link is also in the show notes. Let’s get into today’s episode with Becca from the calm collab. Welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited to have you on and I should say, just to let everybody know that you’re on the parent IEP Advocacy Summit that’s coming out too. So registration is open for that. And we’ll talk about that a little bit at the end. But welcome back to the podcast. Do you want to start by just introducing yourself and what you do? And we’ll go from there?
Becca 2:53
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much, Beth, for having me on the podcast as well as being part of the IEP Summit. I’m so excited for when that launches. And parents and caregivers have access to that. My name is Rebecca Beaudet. My pronouns are she they, I’m a certified teacher and behavior analyst. I’m currently working as an educational and behavioral consultant, I founded the calm club, LLC, calm clap is short for compassion collaborative. And I started that company in March of this year, really to support families and providers and neurodivergent children in my home state of New Hampshire, but also surrounding states through virtual services. My passions are really around communication and sensory support for neurodivergent learners. And I recently have specialized training in Gestalt language processing, sensory systems, the certs model and some additional coursework in special ed law to support parents during the IEP process.
Beth 3:52
Amazing. So it’s kind of funny, because we’re doing our summit recording, because they’re all recorded, so they’re on demand. And I kind of threw a question at you that we didn’t plan and that was about Social Skills for neurodivergent learners. And when we stopped the recording, you were like, Oh, I could talk about that for forever. And I was like, that’s the podcast. Yeah, let’s, let’s do it. So today we’re talking about social skills. Because for autistic children for ADHD years, and pretty much any disability, let’s be honest, when we talk about social skills, that means so many different things to so many different people. And there’s a lot changing as far as like, what we should do and what we shouldn’t do as far as social skills go. So can we kind of talk about what social skills even mean? Like what are we talking about when we say my kid needs to learn social skills? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 4:43
sure. It’s a great question. Unfortunately, when social skills are addressed in IEP is we often see goals based on a deficits, model pathologizing of autism or ADHD or another neuro type. I think that this really stems From the medical model of disability, and some of the current criteria for autism spectrum disorder, this model we see focuses on goals such as like eye contact, conversational turn taking, discussing nonpreferred topics, whole body listening, have holistic, decreasing task refusal, participating in non preferred activities functional play the size of the problem. Today, I want to really challenge listeners to think about social skills from a strain space social model of disability. So this means that we’ll look at how society and the environment creates barriers for disabled learners. And social skills will instead start to include things such as CO regulation and self regulation, communication styles and preferences, and individual’s unique needs self advocacy, self acceptance and self love.
Beth 5:55
Fantastic. That is, is truly amazing. And I think we were just on a coaching call with some students yesterday. And, you know, we really talked about those vision statements of like, what what are we doing in school? Like, where are we going, and I think that’s coming out in the social skills thing, too, is like me, and we get to choose what we do once we graduate high school, like we get to choose our environment, we can work from home, we can interact with people who we want to interact with, but there is still that kind of like, well, you might have to go to the bank, and, you know, interact with people that you don’t know, right. I do think, you know, we’ve talked about the neurodiversity movement a lot. But for people who are just new to this podcast and coming in and maybe have not heard that term, can we talk about what the neurodiversity movement is doing? Because that’s really the the agent of change, right? And the social skills like what we used to do and what we’re supposed to do now, can you tell us a little bit about that neurodiversity movement?
Unknown Speaker 6:52
Yeah, absolutely. The shift that I think we are seeing about teaching social skills is largely related to this whole paradigm shift throughout the neurodiversity movement. neurodiversity, in the most simplest terms means that all brands are different. And the neurodiversity movement really honors these differences, and focuses on removing barriers within society and individual environments to increase accessibility and authentic inclusion for all. And through this movement, we’re really learning more about the potential harms of the more traditional social skills, goals and instruction. And some of those harms include things like masking and autistic burnout. Masking is when a learner puts on a metaphorical mask, and tries to present in a more neurotypical way, and this is due to societal or social pressures. And autistic burnout happens when masking occurs for prolonged periods of time, or repeated times. And this can lead to things such as unmet sensory needs, which can lead to meltdown anxiety, depression, feelings of isolation, loss of interest in things that they used to love, decrease sustained attention, loss of previously mastered skills, and even in extreme cases, ideas of suicide. So the movements really challenging us to think thing, think about things really differently from an individual needs standpoint, and finding that balance between honoring who someone is but also giving ways to navigate in a world that’s set up often for neurotypical people.
Beth 8:38
Mm hmm. Yeah, for sure. And when we talk about neurodiversity, it’s, it’s mainly autistic adults that are coming out in this movement. Right. But that that term, neuro diverse, like you said, it’s like everybody has a different brain. Yeah. But I’ve heard like some diagnosis highlighted in this. So like, autism, ADHD, anxiety, right? Yeah. Any like major, like diagnoses that kind of get highlighted in this movement? Sure. Missing.
Unknown Speaker 9:06
Yeah, I think the the neurodivergent umbrella encompasses so many medical diagnoses and just different neuro type. So you highlighted several already, but we could also include in there people who have PTSD, OCD, like bipolar disorder, really, any anything that’s coming out of the DSM five, any, like mental health differences are many neurological differences, developmental disabilities, those could all fall under that category.
Beth 9:40
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Okay, so, you know, somebody hasn’t heard of the neurodiversity movement. I feel like we’ve been clear there. So when is it appropriate given this new paradigm shift to even have social skills into an IEP plan?
Unknown Speaker 9:55
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think that goes back to my reference to finding a balance if we want to support someone in their unique interest in needs, but also, there are times when it’s beneficial for anyone to be able to shift their communication style, right? So social skills should really be taught with that learner in mind, in the front and center always, and be thinking about how can we allow this person to have a more authentic but also a more autonomous life. So that’s when we’re going to look at the CO regulation and self regulation, communication styles and preferences, individual needs, self advocacy, acceptance and love, like we talked about previously, social skills should really be taught to every single learner regardless if they have an IEP or not. And we need to be having conversations about those differences and how we all can navigate them to be more supportive of one another. And I’ll hit on this a little bit more later in our discussion.
Beth 11:00
So can we talk about and if you have an example, that’s even better, but what are some situations where social skills really shouldn’t be the focus of an IEP goal or really an IEP plan?
Unknown Speaker 11:12
Sure, yeah, I think in the traditional sense of social skills, where we talked about that kind of medical deficits based model, I think those almost never have an appropriate time or place to be taught, with the rare exception that the learner is asking to learn one of those skills. So for example, maybe you have a high schooler who’s going through transition services, and they’re asking for help practicing more of a neurotypical conversational turn taking style, because they want to apply for a specific job. And they know that that is the conversation method that’s going to be used in a job interview. So that learner is specifically saying, I want to learn that style, as opposed to a neurotypical educator saying, You need to talk like a neurotypical person. So this is a goal in your IEP. Like, I think that’s the distinct difference there. And I have a couple examples of my own learning journey here, I can recall a time where I was teaching the size of the problem. So like, is this a small problem? Or a big problem? Does your reaction match that problem? And I was teaching this to an autistic client. And looking back, I can really see the inappropriateness of this, because how can I determine the size of a problem for someone else, everyone is going to have different tolerances, different temperaments, different experiences. In that situation, I wish I instead had focused on communication, how their body was feeling, and what sensory support they might have needed to get through their perception of the size of the problem. Doesn’t really matter if I thought it was big or small, if that person is experiencing distress. Really, the goal is like what tools can you use when you’re dysregulated to move past that? And I think about when I’m feeling upset, or dysregulated The last thing I want is someone invalidating my experience and saying, Well, that’s not a big deal. Becca, like, why don’t you just calm down?
Beth 13:15
Yeah, yeah, that’s really annoying that escalates everybody.
Unknown Speaker 13:20
Can it’s it’s something that I hadn’t thought of before. And I don’t, you know, I don’t blame any parent or provider for for having you size of a problem or something similar to that we use the tools that we know at the time. And then you know, we have to reflect and say like, is that really working is that validating that person’s unique experiences and needs. Another example, I definitely have taught whole body listening and teaching someone how to listen. And there’s a harm there because we’re teaching children to ignore their own sensory needs. And sometimes that can be as extreme as like blocking or redirecting stimming behaviors such as like rocking, hand flapping or tapping. We’re teaching that child that someone else’s needs is more important than their needs. And that can be really dangerous. And it also can disrupt that natural progression, progression of self advocacy and can create a confusion about your own body experiences. And you start to not notice your own body cues because you started ignoring them. And I know you know as an OT bath you you know how important it is to to understand your own senses and how important that is for regulation.
Beth 14:41
Yep, absolutely. And just whole body listening is that eyes are watching ears or listening. Mouth is quiet. There’s one more hands are in lap.
Unknown Speaker 14:51
What’s the last job like quiet hair and body Quiet?
Beth 14:55
Quiet, something like that. Yeah. So basically, they’re trying to get them to sit, Chris Cross applesauce and be quiet and attend to the teacher. You know, they all look the same. That’s what the whole body listening is. Yeah, for sure.
Unknown Speaker 15:06
Yeah. And I just, I think that that whole body listening was, you know, based on, like, what it looks like for a neurotypical person to be listening and attending. And unfortunately, I think comes a lot from a compliance based model as well, like in a lot of our educational systems, like we have a goal of learners like looking a certain way, acting a certain way, complying a certain way so that they can be quote, unquote, productive members of society. And it’s like, what does that even really mean? I think we have to dismantle that a little bit and think about, think about the expectations we’re putting on kids like any kid, regardless of neuro type, is it developmentally appropriate to sit, you know, cross legged hands and lap not saying a word not moving, like many people, neurotypical neurodivergent, have to move to learn like, so? No, no, it’s just an interesting thing to start to dissect and reflect upon. And as I said, there’s no judgment here on anyone that’s in various parts of their learning journey, because I was doing a lot of these practices as little as like six months ago. So it’s really about listening to neurodivergent communities and not taking it personal. And just validating their experience and and seeing like, Are there small changes you can make over time to be a more supportive ally, whether that’s as a parent, a provider, or a community member?
Beth 16:42
Yeah, I remember, we were in the middle of doing an equine based study for autistic individuals. And the study was based on we had to use this specific social skills program. And so I was learning, I got entered into the study for a couple of weeks. And then I really learned a lot about this neurodiversity movement. And I was like, oh, no, we’re using this program. That’s like all wrong, quote, unquote. All wrong. Yeah. But I had to use that program. And so it was so interesting to go through it and be like, I can adapt this I can and your size of the problem example, I remember the activity that I did with that was like, Well, what’s your level one problem? What’s your level two problem, and we talked about coping skills related to that. So you can still use some of those language from those programs. And it be really good, but this goes back to parents can come in and observe parents can ask questions about, okay, you’re using that, but how we’re using that and kind of communicating your priorities of saying, you know, this is our priority, which we talk about in my my big course of making two to three priorities and saying, you know, okay, you can use that program as long as you use it in this way. And then you can follow that up with some observations. And you can do it in a non contentious way too. But I think there’s some really good things in those programs. But it has to be used appropriately.
Unknown Speaker 18:03
Hey, I agree so much with that, Beth, I, I talk to families a lot about various curriculums, various therapies, and I have never had a stance where I’m, you know, staunchly for or against any curriculum or therapy, because I think that there’s good things about each curriculum and therapy. And I think that there’s harmful things about each curriculum and therapy. And so really our role as, as advocates, supporting families is helping them find those priorities or you know, their beliefs and goals, and seeing what aligns best for them. And it’s going to be different for every single person. And making those small tweaks and asking those critical questions. And I think there is a way to do it, as you said, you know, in a non contentious way, I like to use a lot of I wonder statements like, I wonder what it would look like, when we try this or this or that’s really interesting. I’m feeling curious about that. Can you tell me what it looks like? I mean, when you help pose it that way, it really sets the tone for collaboration instead of like hostile negotiations.
Beth 19:14
Yes, yes. Oh, my gosh, I love those so much. Thank you. I love them. Okay. So can we give a good example of like a good social skills? Cool.
Unknown Speaker 19:24
Yeah, I’m gonna try my best. I really love this question. And I’m really grateful for my own mentors that I’ve had in in this journey, as well as the actually autistic providers who are putting information out there about affirming goals because they think it’s something that, you know, we’re going to have to change over time. We can’t change every single thing in a day, a week, even a year, but we can move towards more affirming goals, and I really had so many that I wanted to share, but I’m gonna pick one favor. fret. That was a combination that I put together of lots of different providers input. And I’ll give you some links to share in the description of places people can go to learn more about affirming goals. So this one is, you know, by August of 2023, given access to multimodal communication and modeling, the learner will identify their own communication style and preference and self advocate indicate their preferred ways to socialize in the classroom and playground observed by a teacher in four to five opportunities measured twice per month. And I’m gonna dissect that a little, because I know it’s very wordy. What does that look, it’s very, very wordy. So that first part by August 2023, I’m just talking about that IUP cycle. So if it started in August of this year, and went to August of next year, we’re working on that goal for the IEP cycle. The next part given access to multimodal communication and modeling. I really like having the supports written right into the goal. So this is telling us what is that child’s learning partner going to do to support them? Because we’re not expecting independence, we’re expecting autonomy. I think there’s this kind of obsession in our culture of like independence, independence, independence, and I think about myself as a grown 32 year old adult, like, I’m not independent in almost anything I rely on, you know, my husband, my friends, my family, my colleagues, really, it’s about can we use tools? And can we ask others for help when we need it. So I like to put right in there the support so that the child can access because, like anyone, we all need support. So in this particular goal, the supports are access to their communication methods. So that might be an AAC device, it could be, you know, a picture board, it could be an eye gaze device, they might use gestures, and sign, they might use vocal speech, it could be a combination of all those things, but they have to have access to those when working on the school is is what this phrase is saying, and then modeling. So their learning partner is going to be modeling the language and the strategies for them, they’re not going to be expected to do it on their own, especially when they’re experiencing dysregulation. And then the the actual part of the goal we want the learner to do is identify communication style and preference. So this is where we’re going to do some intentional teaching about all the different ways that people can communicate and giving them the language to eventually advocate for that. So that might be that I prefer talking about preferred topics, when I first get to know someone, or I turn my head because looking at someone makes it difficult for me to talk and listen at the same time, whatever it is that that learner needs to communicate and respond to communication best, we’re gonna give them the language to say that so that they can advocate for themselves in a social situation, in the classroom, on the playground, and that really helped build that inclusion and accessibility. It’s giving them the language to say like, Hey, I communicate differently, and that’s okay. And now other kids are like, Oh, no, that’s just how you know, my friend, Sally communicates, like we all communicate differently, right. And then that last part is talking about how we are measuring it. So one of the teachers or staff is going to, you know, observe twice a month, they’re going to observe five opportunities. And if at least four out of the five times the child is advocating for their communication style, they’re going to get credit for that and master the goal. Hopefully that makes sense. It is a really wordy goal. I think that’s the hardest part, in shifting for the affirming goal is there’s a lot to include in there. Because we’re including the supports, we’re including very specific ways we measure it, and we’re including, you know, that affirming skill that we’re teaching. So there’s a lot of pieces, but I think there’s a lot of great examples out there now as guidance.
Beth 24:13
Yeah. And it’s easy to you know, so cool that you did that because your your approach to goals really matches Stacey of making sense of autism. She is also in the summit and has a bunch of free handouts to help parents kind of identify their learning style of their kid and it’s so amazing, but she talks about that qualifier at the beginning to where a lot of times and I hear this a lot from parents that accommodations aren’t being provided. And so this is a way of taking those accommodations, putting them into the goal so that you know, it’s very frequently that I case manager has the goal written out on like a data sheet or something that they do. And so if you have the accommodation as part of the goal that they copy and paste onto their data sheet, it’s like it’s like Oh, like we need to provide this accommodation for the school. Yeah, and then take the data. And it’s just a great reminder to, to put it all together for everybody and just remind them, hey, they need their AC AC device for this, like, this is an accommodation that needs to be provided or whatever it is for the school to be measured and met. And I love that you guys are so so in line. And she’s doing a bunch of research on this, too. So that’s so
Unknown Speaker 25:24
exciting. I can’t wait to listen to Stacy’s presentation. Now, I think what you said about it going on the data sheet is really important to dive into a little bit deeper, because I know that the the full IEP at least in New Hampshire has to be provided to every member on the IEP team. That does not, that does not countrywide. Yeah, that’s great. I wouldn’t imagine so. And I think even when it’s provided to every member, I know districts are kind of navigating that differently. Because you don’t want a bunch of copies of an IEP floating around for confidentiality reasons, because different people might accidentally see it. So they’re, you know, kept in binders or in file cabinets. And yes, technically everyone has access to go read it, if they’re on that child’s team. But in every lesson in every moment, are you going to the filing cabinet and double checking. So having those accommodations right in the goal so that it’s now on the data sheet? That’s also, you know, a helpful tool for all of all of the staff, it’s like a cheat sheet for them, so that they can feel empowered to to implement strategies and, and tools as well.
Beth 26:43
Absolutely, yes. So I feel like you address that, but I just want to be super clear. You know, I’ve seen, like the old kind of social skills, goals worked on as you know, they have time in their day where they play a board game with somebody else, and they’re practicing taking turns. And that provider is teaching them the script of it’s your turn now. And like, right, there’s all this like structure around it. So in this kind of new model. And you talked about this a little bit again, but what does it look like when schools are actually teaching social skills?
Unknown Speaker 27:18
Yeah, I liked this question, too, I found it to be the hardest question on here. And I think what it would look like when a school’s teaching social skills under this more neurodiversity affirming lens, that when an observer comes in, they really wouldn’t be able to tell, like who has an IEP with social goals and who doesn’t. So that I think would be my biggest indicator is that everyone in that room is using their preferred communication method, they all have their own unique sensory supports. And everyone is learning about the unique differences of everyone in their community. So really, an outside observer would come in and just be like, Hi, oh, I don’t really know who’s in here, like getting social skills instruction, because technically everyone is right. I think when when it becomes more and more confusing to an outsider of who has an IEP and who’s getting instruction, that’s when we’re doing it, right. Because everyone is just getting their needs met. And so you can’t even tell because everyone is authentic, and everyone is participating in a way that works for them.
Beth 28:32
Yeah, and I loved I think it was during the summit recording to where you kind of highlighted that, hey, somebody can come in and talk to the whole classroom and just give a and not singling anybody out out for being different, but just saying, some people are going to communicate differently, like let’s work on maybe sharing. I don’t know why I take that.
Unknown Speaker 28:52
Yeah, I can I can touch on that more. You’re right. We talked about it during during the summit. When you’re teaching these communication and sensory differences. You don’t even have to use labels, especially depending on the age you’re not necessarily saying, you know, blanket statements about autistic people or blanket statements from neurotypical people because even within those those nerve types, like we’re also different. But instead of talking in broader senses, like you were saying graphics, some people communicate like this. So some people use their AAC device. Some people use mouth words, some people use their body to make gestures and kind of modeling that to the kids what that might look like. And then asking, asking the learners like, which one sounds like you. And there are some great curriculums coming out where there are characters that kind of have those different traits and then you can use the characters and you’re not singling out like a specific kid in your class or school. You’re talking about a character and then you can ask the kids like which character communicates like you communicate or what sensory needs do you think you have? Do you Thank you have sensory needs more like this character or like this character, and start using the characters to have conversations. And I think that’s a really friendly way to do it because kids really enjoy like silly videos and stories and puppet shows. And you’re not singling out real people, but kids are really intelligent, and they can make those connections without us saying, like, that’s just like Sally, or that’s just like, Johnny, like, the kids are gonna understand that and they’re gonna know which character they’re more aligned with. Again, I’ll give you some some things to link of curriculums that I’ve been loving, that are being created by autistic and neurodivergent. Adults, I think those are the shifts that we should be looking at is using curriculums actually informed and created by the populations we wish to support.
Beth 30:50
Yeah, I love that. Okay, you’re brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on. I always learned so much for you. So if parents are interested in looking into your resources, connecting with you possibly working with you, where do they go to do that?
Unknown Speaker 31:03
Thank you so much, again, Beth, for having me on the podcast. And for being so kind in your compliments. If parents or providers would like to work with me, or contact me, there are four ways they can do that. I do have a website www.com club.com. And that outlines all of my services under two categories. I have a for families and for providers section, so you can look at the different services available. I’m also on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. And I know you’ll link all of those, you’re so good about that. I love supporting parents at the IEP table and advocating for more affirming goals and services. So I’d love to chat to any parents who want some tips in regards to goals. And neurodiversity.
Beth 31:52
Fantastic. Thank you again, so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for coming to the summit. It’s just going to be amazing, amazing time. So thank you again for your time.
Unknown Speaker 32:01
Yeah, thank you bath.
Beth 32:04
I hope you really enjoyed that conversation with Becca about social skills, because I feel like we’re in this tipping point where we’re in transition, and we’re trying to do the right thing. But we’re also navigating children’s abilities to really build skills and really be able to communicate with their peers and their teachers in a way that feels good to them. And so that they know what’s up, right that they know those skills, and they can access them whenever they want to right. Did we mention that Becca is also a speaker in the parent IEP Advocacy Summit? I think we did. But just another reminder that you only have a couple more days to snag your free ticket. Now, if you’re listening to this and you want the VIP ticket. This is also your opportunity in the next two days to buy your VIP ticket at the early bird pricing. That is expiring at midnight Mountain Time on September 21. Because everything is going to kick off on the morning of September 22. Thursday, I am so excited to get you guys into the Facebook group get to meet you see what states you’re in. Because this podcasting thing really is kind of one sided sometimes and it feels like I don’t know, you guys as well as you probably feel like you know me, if you still need your ticket, go to www dot VIP lab.com/summit where you can get your free ticket. And also, once you sign up for the free ticket, it’ll direct you to the VIP page. So you can make the decision of if you want to upgrade right now or not. I’m just letting you know that I think it’s really worth it. But that is totally and absolutely up to you as well. So again, with the VIP ticket, you get all of the session videos that have subtitles on them for a year, you also get audio versions so that you can listen to them kind of like a podcast. And you get downloadable transcripts so that you can highlight things you can look back at things. You can reread things if you want to. And you also get additional handouts from speakers select speakers, and some of them are even giving away like a free consult if you’re in California with the people from inclusive education project. And also a free online assessment from LD expert. So there’s some really good stuff in there. Plus, there’s discounts from sponsors as well. So it’s really amazing. It’s $27 until midnight on September 21. And then again, that’s Mountain Time. And then after that it jumps up to $37 after that as well to upgrade to the VIP pass but again, it’s free. You still have a couple days to get your free pass. So go to www dot VIP lab.com/summit And I cannot wait to meet you and to see what summits are your favorite that are gonna get you feeling confident and prepared to advocate in this school year. Thanks so much for listening and I will see you same time I’m saying place next week. Thanks so much