SPED class: Week 3

Helloooooooo people of cyber space and beyond!!

Welcome to another week of my thoughts on special education! Exciting stuff right?! I know.

This past week I learned about IEP's or 'Individualized Education Program'. It's a written statement of the educational program best designed to meet a child's individual needs. We read specifically on IEP's for everyone and the benefits of it. Every child who receives special education services MUST have an IEP. IEP's have multiple team members and contributors who work together to create the best program for the students to achieve maximum benefits and learning from the program. These team members include:

• Parents
• General education teacher
• Administrator
• Special education team 
• School psychologist

 IEP's also include many different aspects to help to meet the needs of the child such as: 

• Related services
• Goals
• Child's strengths
• Child's needs
• Child's present level of performance

I also learned more about special needs education/schooling. I learned that for most of history, public schools were allowed to exclude students with special needs from their classrooms. Some were even sent to centralized institutions depending on the severity of their mental illness. There were quite a few that had little to no access to education outside of the home. Luckily, during the 1960's, federal legislature began to finally protect the educational rights of children. Special needs education also links to the I.D.E.A (Individuals with disabilities education improvement act) as well as F.A.P.E (Free appropriate public education).

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!!