Case 11 Reflection
Synthesis of Case 11 (Sue and George’s IEP/SLP)
Case 11 was a somewhat difficult process for me. I was scheduled to sit into two school based meetings during my practicum, but I ended up not being able to make it to either. So role playing in a meeting felt somewhat contrived. However, after we got rolling, it became evident that meetings are all different, and the conversation that flowed during our Mondays felt like it could be the real deal.
It gave me an insight into the aspects of SBT meetings, such as the participants, the current needs of the student, as well as taking into account the future impact of our learning objectives. When you create an IEP there are so many things that you have to take into consideration. While it has more structure than an SLP, there are so many gray areas. It has to cater to the students’ learning at school, as well as the progress that they make at home, which complicates it even further.
In the end, what it should boil down to is: how can we make this plan the most beneficial for the child? But in reality, there are so many factors that influence the process: consideration of the parents’ wishes and feelings, the desires of the homeroom teacher and the agenda of the administrator and the school board. In the end, we spent so much time trying to please each party, I wonder who was looking out for Sue’s well-being?
The foundation was easy to set; we used the Brigance Inventory of Early Development test to understand Sue’s capabilities. This testing was helpful in setting the tone helped us understand how we should progress with her IEP. We had goals for Sue at home as well as at school, and for obvious reasons they were quite different. At school, there was a lot of focus on how to help Sue interact with her peers in a positive way, and what kind of support Fran (her homeroom teacher) could receive in facilitating Sue’s learning. As for the part of the plan that was applicable at home, it was all about how the parents could continue to support Sue’s learning with the uses of added technology. Despite the fact that they were two separate areas of focus, the strategies targeted to bring a sense of unity and structure to Sue’s day. This means that a lot of things that we used to regulate Sue would also be used at home, so that over time Sue would be able to comprehend better through the repetition of our actions.
Overall, despite the seemingly simplicity of our goals, it took a lot of thought and careful consideration to package it into something that was practical and applicable. There were disagreements, inevitable from the sheer number of voices that were present at the meeting. However, after some compromise, we were able to produce and IEP that suited not only Sue’s needs, but that of her parents and her teacher. This is why IEP’s should be updated frequently, because they reflect the current situation of the students’ level and her home and classroom environment.