E69: Deaf/Blindness [Eligibility Category BONUS Series]
Deaf/Blindness is one of the 13 eligibility categories set out by IDEA (the federal law that outlines special education) In this episode we: -Take a look at eligibility criteria for this category taking Colorado's Checklist as an example -Talk about complexities of this particular category (especially in light of staffing shortages) -AND of course, talk about common missed opportunities within the eligibility process!
The Parent IEP Advocacy Summit is only ONE WEEK away!
You have until midnight of September 21st to get your free ticket (after that it’s VIP tickets only!)
So scoot on over to www.TheIEPLab.com/summit to get your ticket!
In this Bonus Eligibility series, we are diving into ALL 13 categories of disability laid out by IDEA (the federal law that outlines special education)!
In this episode we:
1) Go through an eligibility checklist together to see how someone may qualify under this category
2) Talk about specific cautions, dispel myths about the category, and talk about specific challenges related to this category (like staffing)
3) Give you resources for finding your own state’s guidelines!
Shownotes: www.TheIEPLab.com/episode67
2022 Parent IEP Advocacy Summit Free Ticket
E69: Deaf-Blindness
[00:00:00] If you are new to the parent IEP lab podcast, then welcome this episode is continuing our Thursday bonus episode series that we’ve been doing all summer. On eligibility criteria under the federal law, Ida. Today we are diving into the deaf blindness eligibility category, which is a bit different from the rest. And really, to be honest, the three that we have left after today, developmental delay, traumatic brain injury and multiple disabilities are all slightly more tricky than some of the categories we’ve already covered, like OHI or other health impairment and autism.
Just a reminder that if you just started listening to the podcast, scroll back through your podcast player, to see all of the eligibility categories that dropped on the Thursdays this summer. So that you can see what we’ve already covered and you can stack the eligibility criteria that’s most relevant to your child but if you are interested in the deaf blindness category then stick with me because we’re going to dive right in
You are listening to the [00:01:00] parent IEP lab, the podcast that helps you get an effective IEP plan for your child so that you can get them supported and learning in school. I’m Beth LEAs and Feld. Occupational therapist who started to notice trends in parents who got effective IEP for their My mission is to help you turn the insider knowledge of the system and school culture into effective parent advocacy every child’s strengths and needs are a little bit 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
Before we get started into today’s eligibility category. I just want to remind you that today is the day. I have been talking about the parent IEP advocacy summit for a long time for you guys. And I personally have been working on it since March of 2022. So it’s been six months of getting really great speakers together and we just added another speaker. So we have [00:02:00] 19 speakers.
That are all here to help you on your IEP journey this year. If you are still interested in joining us, it is not too late. Go to www.theieplab.com/summit. To grab your VIP ticket. This includes all of the session videos available for a year plus audio version. So you can listen to them like a podcast and transcripts that you can download and make notes and highlight and do whatever you need to do to learn best.
It is only $37. While the summit is happening and then the price goes up after we’re done. So make sure that if you are interested in all of this wealth of information, From all of these 19 speakers and the live training at the end that I’m doing on determining if your IEP is an effective IEP for your child or not.
Then go ahead and go to the IEP lab.com/summit and get your free ticket. And the link is also in the show notes we will see you there
Okay. I’m [00:03:00] excited to get into this category of Deaf and blindness with you guys today because it’s one that is not super common. But of course, if you are a parent that has a child who is Deaf and blind, you are definitely going to be the expert in your child because we have talked about the death or.
The hard of hearing, including deafness. Episode a couple of times ago. And then we’ve also talked about the blindness eligibility category. And in both of those episodes, you probably want to go back and listen to them. If you haven’t already. But I talk about how medical these eligibility categories are. And even though schools do not diagnose in these cases with these categories, they have to have some medical information from outside of the school staff in order to qualify under these categories.
You are probably going to be [00:04:00] really connected with your child’s medical team already. And so just know that that communication of having those reports organized and, and being able to articulate what their needs are and kind of communicating between the doctors in the school team is going to be so incredibly important for you.
And you probably know this already, right? You probably because you are here already know this, but just to say and emphasize that. Your advocacy role, you are really, truly going to be the expert in your child because this isn’t something that people encounter every single day, unless you are actually at a school for the deaf and blind. Um, usually there’s a couple in each state. And so you might be looking at that eligibility category.
Maybe the testing is being done in your homeschool, in your home district. And then they are going to refer for placement, or they’re going to try to place your child in a more appropriate setting. But a lot of times this testing and this determination of eligibility might be [00:05:00] done by that homeschool.
So it really does depend on your specific situation, what area you are, if you’re in a rural district or a more, um, more higher densely populated area. But of course like you are going to have some medical knowledge coming in that the team absolutely cannot make an effective IEP without you sharing that information. So.
Just as a caveat there, um, that a, like there’s two other episodes that go through eligibility categories that have these check boxes that relate to this category, which is kind of, you know, in the intro I was talking about how this one is a little bit different. That’s how it’s different. And then also just that it’s so medically heavy.
This Um, really, as we go through the checklist, you will see that this determination of eligibility under this category can not be done without some really specialist information. So before we dive into the checklist, I just have two things, especially if you haven’t listened to, uh, these eligibility [00:06:00] series podcasts before. And the first one is that I am using Colorado state checklist as an example. So I know that you probably aren’t in Colorado. I have a lot of listeners in Colorado, but I have a lot of listeners in California, Texas, and New York, and also all throughout the Midwest.
So I realized that you might not be. In Colorado, but there’s a couple of reasons why I’m using this checklist. One is I’m in Colorado. So I know the language and I know how to interpret it for you because I have heard so many people go through it. And explain the double negative questions and what it means. And so it’s familiar to me. So it’s easier for me to teach you
The other thing is that some states have checklists like Colorado And then some of them just have a definition and that’s it. So again, if you are wondering what your state has available and what your checklist looks like, then happened to the Facebook group with us. So you can find that link to join the Facebook group [00:07:00] by going to the IEP lab.com/podcast. And that link is right at the top of the page there.
So. Again, if you need help locating either the definition or the checklist, or just saying. Hey, I’m from Ohio. Like what do we have? And where is the page? Because sometimes it’s really hard. You have to dig and you really have to know what these things are named to really find what you’re looking for. And it can be pretty frustrating to be honest. So I’ve helped a bunch of people find their eligibility checklists in Illinois and New York.
So please jump into that Facebook group, make a new post, say, Hey, I’m looking for, eligibility information of this category in my state, and we will do our best to help you.
Now I should say that. I am talking about the eligibility categories that are set forth by Ida, which is the federal law. So every single state will have this category, but determination of eligibility underneath that category is up to the states.
So some states will [00:08:00] have different checklists when you compare them state to state. Okay. Does that make sense? So every single state will have this deaf blindness category. But states have the right to determine what exactly is on their eligibility checklist that make people qualify under this category. That makes sense.
The other thing that I want to make sure that I cover is that I am not a lawyer. I’m an occupational therapist. And I learned by examples. So when I started this extra bonus series,
I was like, I really need to have an example. Right. But I am not a lawyer. I am not teaching you the law. I am interpreting this as an educational tool so that I can help you guys understand what the team is looking for when they go through that evaluation process. And when they look at eligibility, what kind of data do they have to have
in that evaluation report. And how do you as a parent make sure that, um, the right information is in that [00:09:00] report so that they can choose the right eligibility category and then make a more effective IEP for your child. So it all relates together. And it’s all very much an example process, and it’s a case by case process. That’s why we’re coming to the lab, right? Because everybody’s IEP is going to be very different. It should be different because your kids are different.
So, if you have any question about, Hey, they didn’t do this right. When they went through the eligibility process last time, or, Hey, they failed to do this part or they didn’t ask me these questions. That is a legal question. So I would encourage you if you’re interested in learning more about legal information, go back.
And man, it’s been a while now since we had Julie Carter on the podcast, but she did talk about what is a special education lawyer, where. Where can you find free or low bono resources for a lawyer? How do you get a consult? How do you ask that question of if they do a free consult or not? [00:10:00] So go ahead and listen to that, that podcast with Julie Carter, because it’s really nice to get some context over.
Okay. Is this a lawyer question or is this not a lawyer question? Um, and go from there because again, I’m not a lawyer, I’m doing this for educational purposes. Okay. So we are going to jump into be actual Colorado checklist for deaf And even the definition is a little bit hard to understand, but as we go through the checklist and you will understand what they’re looking for through that definition, right. They break down that definition. When they’re looking at the check boxes.
Later in the checklist. So. Let’s start with the definition that is at the top. It says a child with deaf blindness has, can come in at hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational needs that the child can not be accommodated in special education programs solely for children with deafness or children with blindness. Okay. So they’re already saying [00:11:00] in this definition that it’s probably going to be an outside placement. It’s probably not going to be a regular general education classroom that they’re going to be served in.
If they’re qualifying underneath this category, which I feel like is very interesting. This is the only one that I’ve seen really imply placement when it comes to the eligibility checklist. So the next section is the same section that is at the top of every Colorado checklist. And if you’ve listened to a couple of these episodes, I’m sorry. You are going to hear this again, because question number one is the biggest missed opportunity for parents in advocacy.
In my opinion. Okay. So let’s go ahead and read it. So it says the team has addressed each of the following statements and has determined and there’s three things below The first one is yes or no. 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 [00:12:00] disability category. And in parentheses it says, answer must be yes. In order for the child to be eligible for services. This one, I think because it’s written in a backwards And it’s also the first question on this checklist. So a lot of parents are caught off guard, like, wait, what’d you say? What does that even mean? And even if you have a good school psychologist, which is most of the time who is explaining this checklist to us as we go through it in the meeting,
Um, they can explain this really well, but a lot of them don’t necessarily take the time to make sure that you truly understand what it means. What it means is that we want to make sure that absolutely all of your concerns, all of the team’s concerns are addressed in that evaluation report. If you think of the information.
For developing the IEP is a funnel. The evaluation is the very top and that’s going to be the widest part of that funnel because we want to catch all of the information relevant to your child in that funnel. [00:13:00] Okay. So this is where we start. This is the easiest place to start. Your advocacy is at the top of the funnel and that’s in this particular process. Now I’ve said it in other podcasts. I’m going to say it again.
The best way to take advantage of this question is to when you know that your child is going through the eligibility process. You make your own checklist at home, that is a list of challenges that your child has in the educational environment or what you anticipate them to have trouble with in that educational environment. And what happens is when you get the paperwork home that even asked for your permission to test them, they’re going to list out the areas that you’re going to test. Now, I want you to take out your checklist and I want you to look at their paper of what they’re planning on testing for. And I want you to make sure that everything that you have in your checklist is also on.
The. The permission to test, right? So you’re saying, okay, they have communication needs. And so [00:14:00] you’re going to make sure that they’re testing for that communication area. Does that make sense? So the cool thing about this, as you can also use that same checklist when you get the evaluation report home and not all teams do this, you’d might have to request that you see the evaluation report before the eligibility meeting.
Usually it’s three to four days before the meeting that you can get it. And so as soon as you have that permission to test home, you can respond and say, yes, I give consent and this looks good. Right? All of my challenges are addressed. Hopefully. And then you can, at that point, you can also say, Hey, I need a copy of the evaluation report. Before we sit down to the eligibility meeting, maybe three or four days beforehand, so that you have a chance to least
Familiarize yourself with that report, right? Then when you get that report home, you’re going to pull out your checklist again, keep it handy somewhere. And you’re going to make sure that everything that was on your concern list is addressed in that evaluation report. Now one of my [00:15:00] favorite examples of this is that it doesn’t necessarily have to relate directly to the eligibility category. So if you know, going in that your child is probably going to qualify under the staff, find this category, but they also have anxiety and anxiety is my most favorite example, just because it flies under the radar.
So often. But we know our kids and we know when they’re a little bit anxious and when that’s impeding their ability to participate in what they need to do, right. So if flies under the radar so often, but if you feel like your child has anxiety or maybe specifically anxiety going to school and that wasn’t addressed in the report,
Then it really needs to be added to that report because services might change slightly or your goals might change slightly, or you might have a self-determination goal that gets added in because of that anxiety So you want to make sure that all areas are covered now, the very common response to that [00:16:00] request from a parent and Hey, you guys didn’t cover this concern is that, oh, it’s okay. We can go ahead and move forward because it’s not going to affect eligibility. And right here, at least in Colorado’s checklist, they are saying whether or not commonly linked to the disability category.
So they are saying that it does not matter if anxiety is part of this or not remembering. Anxiety is just an example. But every single concern has to be addressed in that evaluation report before you can move forward. So answer must be yes, in order for the child to be eligible for services and move down the checklist. So if you say no.
Hey, you guys missed this big piece. I’m going to say no to this question, then they have to go back and collect that information before you can actually sit down and determine eligibility. Now it’s really good for you to catch this as soon as you possibly can. And communicate that before sitting down at the meeting and then saying, Hey, you guys missed this.
Because everything just delays your [00:17:00] child from getting those services, if you have to go backwards. So that’s why it’s so helpful. At least I think it’s helpful to be ahead of the system so that you know, what step is coming next and you know, your parent rights. So then you can catch it as soon as you realize that they’re missing something, contact them, be on top of it.
Right? So that it doesn’t hold up services from your child in the long run. It’s still going to be better for you to speak up. But the sooner that you realize. And something is off and you advocate for that, obviously the better, right? Okay. Moving on question two says yes or no, the child can receive reasonable educational benefit from general educational loan. And in parentheses it says the answer must be no in order for the child to be eligible for services.
So this is saying that we have to make sure that they really do need specialized instruction, that they can’t just be, you know, put in the general education, classroom and benefit because then we’re not justifying that. They actually need an IEP. The third question in this [00:18:00] section is the child’s performance. And in parentheses it says all answers below must be, is not in order for the child to be eligible for services.
The first one is, is, or is not due to a lack of appropriate instruction in reading. Uh, including the essential components of reading instruction. Is there is not due to a lack of appropriate instruction in math. And the third one is, is, or is not due to limited English proficiency. So that is the first big chunk of the eligibility checklist.
The next section has three checkboxes. Again, three questions. It says to be eligible as a child with deaf blindness, there must be evidence of one of the following criteria. Yes. We’re no, the child shall have a deficiency in hearing sensitivity. As demonstrated by an elevated threshold of auditory sensitivity to pure tones or speech as specified in section 2.082 a and V, and a deficiency in visual acuity and or visual field and, or a visual functioning as specified in section [00:19:00] 2.08 in parenthesis 11 a and B. So all of those letters and numbers are actually referring to the Colorado state law that defines these categories.
So this. This is absolutely going to be different if you’re not in Colorado, but just know that this is all laid out by law. And so these eligibility checklists will refer to that Okay. So the second one is yes or no, the child has a documented hearing and or visual impairment that if considered individually per section and it lists the sections may not meet the requirements for hearing impairment, including deafness or visual impairment, including blindness, but the combination of such losses adversely affect the child’s educational performance.
This is, if you go back, if you’ve already listened to those two other Thursday, bonuses that there they were published the last two weeks. You will have an extra checkbox on that, that not on any other eligibility checklist criteria. And those are saying, Hey, they might not [00:20:00] meet this category.
But they could qualify under this label, which we’re talking about today. If they have both of things that are affecting them, and this is the checkbox that says that. The third one says the child has a documented medical diagnosis of a progressive medical condition that will result in
can come in in hearing and visual losses. So the concomitant, I actually had to look up how to say that. Is appearing together, right? Hearing and visual losses together. This is saying. And this is also a really big outlier because most of these eligibility checklists are Your kid pretty much has to be behind for them to qualify, which is a terrible, terrible fall in the system. Don’t get me started that’s for another episode.
But what this is saying is that they might have a condition that’s diagnosed that they need to learn some skills now in anticipation that they will lose their visual and hearing [00:21:00] skills later. So this is things like if if they’re losing their vision, if they’re going to lose their vision because of this progressive disorder, then they probably would benefit from learning braille now so that they don’t fall behind later, this requires specialized instruction because of course, braille is not part of the general education curriculum.
And so they are saying that, yes, they can qualify underneath this category, even if they don’t need these specialized services right now because of a vision loss or. Uh, hearing loss, but they might need it in the future. And this is really unique to this category. And I love that this is in there, right? We’re taking care of our kids with that checkbox, in my opinion.
Okay, the next section just has one question in it. It says the deaf blindness as described above prevents the child from receiving reasonable educational benefit from general education as evidenced by the filing criteria. Yes or no, even with the help of amplification and or use of lenses or corrective devices.
The child [00:22:00] is prevented from receiving reasonable educational benefit from general education. This is again that specialized instruction piece. So I have had parents when we’re talking about categories, say, oh yeah, I think my child is going to qualify underneath hearing impairment because they have a hearing aid.
That that’s maybe do they need that specialized instruction to teach them how to advocate for themselves to teach them how to manage the device? Are they using any assistive technology related to that hearing aid that they need to learn how to use right. Or advocate for either one. The same is true for visual impairment.
It’s not, they’re basically saying it’s not enough that they have this visual condition. They’re asking the school to say, yes, they need above and beyond just lenses or corrective devices. They need some specialized instruction to receive an educational benefit from the general education. And so this is that specialist instruction piece.
Okay. The last little bit, it says, [00:23:00] please note that eligibility checklist for hearing impairment, including deafness and visual impairment, including blindness must be completed. In addition to deaf blindness eligibility checklist for the child with deaf blindness. This is just saying that you guys are going to go through all three checklists again, if you’re in Colorado or if your state does this as well, you’re going to go through all three of those checklists in order to be under this deaf-blindness category.
And the last one is yes or no. 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 that’s just saying yes or no, they qualify under this category or not. And then there’s a signature line. And then at the bottom it says a copy of the evaluation reports and the eligibility statement has been provided to the parents. And that has to be checked.
To be complete. Right? So that is the complete eligibility checklist for Colorado, again, as an example, right? If you have any questions about what your state’s eligibility criteria Just a [00:24:00] quick reminder to happen to that Facebook group. The link is in the show notes, but it’s also at BIP lab.com/podcast, so that you can click that link and then apply to get in as well. please answer all of the membership questions. I’ve had some people not do that. And I just want to make sure that you guys are coming from the podcast or that you are a parent with a child with an IEP so that I can, um, make sure that we don’t have any. Uh, people who are trying to spam people in that group, I’m trying to protect the people that are in there. So please answer those membership questions and I will see you in the group. So again, if you have any questions about any of the eligibility categories, please hop into the Facebook group and ask your questions there as
I am pretty good at checking that. And then we also have some amazing parents already in the group that would love to help you and connect you as well. So just a final reminder that again, the summit is starting today. So we released the first batch of day one videos this morning. And [00:25:00] it’s just going to be so amazing. The first day is on IEP basics. We’re just, we’re going to have so much fun in front of the, in that Facebook group. And also having the opportunity to have live Q and A’s with the speakers and having some sponsor spotlight. So you guys get connected with products and services
Are really pretty amazing all it’s all just to help you get an effective iep for your child and learn more about the process so don’t forget to click the link in the show notes for that as well if you’re interested that again is that be IUP lab.com/summit, and i hope to see you there and so excited for it as well so thank you again for listening to this podcast and i will see you same time same place next week thank you so much