[blindkid] help needed with IEP goals

Mon Nov 24 11:34:27 UTC 2008

Doreen,
I would like to give you some food for thought. You daughter sounds like she has "vision" very similar to that of my daughter. I am now in a predicament that might help you to avoid. My daughter can also "see" enough to read and write, so that was how the school taught her. I thought that they were the "professionals" and made all of her goals "vision relatated". Now that she is in the 11th grade, she is having a really hard time. While our children can "see" you must ask yourself whether she has enough vision to keep up with the other children using what is pretty unreliable. There is something called "bi-medium" where children learn both print and braille. Print can be used for work in subjects such as math and science. Children with low vision will never read print at the same reading speed as her sighter peers. When the reading amount and level picks up, you will see your child fall behind - not because she can't, but because she will be a slower
 reader and will have trouble keeping up with the pace of the class. Braille readers can read at the same speed (if not faster) than sighted kids. Think about all the reading that will be required of her in college....
I would strongly recommend that you stand your ground and demand that your daughter be given a cane with O&M instruction. The cane will be the key to your daughter's independence. 
There are a couple of books that I would like to recommend to read also. First is a book about O&M written by Joe Cutter titled "Independent Movement and Travel in Blind Children - The Promotional Model"
http://secure.nfb.org/ecommerce/asp/product.asp?product=747&cat=47&ph=&keywords=&recor=&SearchFor=&PT_ID=
Also, another book for the classroom is written by Carol Castellano titled "Making it Work: Educating the Blind/VI Student in the Regular Classroom". Our district just bought some copies after reading mine. (Now let's see if the heed to Carol's words of wisdom!).
http://secure.nfb.org/ecommerce/asp/product.asp?product=703&ph=search&keywords=carol,castellano&recor=1&SearchFor=any&PT_ID=all

I hope that this brings some ideas that you might not have thought about.
Regards,
Kim Cunningham

Sun, 11/23/08, Doreen Franklin <theconelady at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Doreen Franklin <theconelady at yahoo.com>
Subject: [blindkid] help needed with IEP goals
To: "NFB/Blindkid" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>, "NFB/List" <nfbf-l at nfbnet.org>
Date: Sunday, November 23, 2008, 1:03 PM

We have been on this list and the info we have been reading has been invaluable
to us. Thanks! 

We are now looking for some help in rewriting our daughter's IEP goals.
She is 4 and we have just pulled her out of the Head Start program for pre-k3 yr
old kids (she has a b-day past their cut off date). Head Start was not working
for several reasons, including some effects from her adoption and they have been
affecting her attitude, sleep and eating. One of the problems we had was that
she was not being "taught" pre-writing - how to hold a pencil and her
paper, specifically for her eye conditions (born with congenital cataracts,
removed in Guatemala, false lens put in in both eyes, also has nystagmus, light
sensitivity, strabismus and is myopic/near sighted). I will now be home
schooling her. Her TVI did not give the teacher any instructions for grip and
paper, and the teacher herself told me to "let it happen" and that
her grip would evolve.

"Developing pre-writing skills needed for writing" is her first
short-term goal on the IEP. Her next 2 goals are for her to be able to
IDENTIFY AND WRITE the alphabet AND her full name in capital letters with 80%
accuracy thru activities. Her 4th goal is to complete tasks with 2 redirections
in a 30 MINUTES span. None of the goals were much more specific than the above
statements. 

Her next 2 goals are O&M; "using her vision, she will be able to walk
up & down a ramp and steps with minimal assistance" ....but with an
O&M observation, she is "doing this" so that this is NOT NEEDED as
per the eval. She does not have O&M except on a "consult" only
basis (meaning, that if her teacher or TVI see a problem, then he will be called
in. (With us pulling her out, I am unsure how this will work.) In the
meantime, we are seeing her hit/bump/trip into things for at least the last 2
months. I had been keeping a log prior to our last meeting; I have just
restarted that log. She has not "seriously" hurt herself (and that is
what the TVI/O&M continues to say), but I hold her hand when outside as
she is only 4 yrs old. At home, she  usually bumps her shoulder into furniture
or the door jams. She has hit her head a few times when walking into the
wall or getting off her stool in the bathroom, she has banged her
forehead. She has fallen
 over a rocker leg and hit the couch. She does not have depth perception as
several times on flat surfaces with contrast (2 different colored tiles/cement),
she picks up her foot as though there is a step there. She is also "right
on top of you" when talking to you. These are just a few examples of why we
think we need O&M. 

Our question though is .... what would be some
"appropriate" VISION-RELATED goals for her? The goals above are not
vision related and we are supposed to discuss the goals. My husband and I would
like to come to the table with some appropriate vision goals instead of
"learning to write her alphabet and name" with goals for a child in
kindergarten (I have checked the pre-K state curriculum and the
kindergarten curriculum). She is using the Handwriting without Tears curriculum
at school and I already had it in my home to use with her. We will continue to
work with the letters using clay and their wooden sticks to form  letters. We
are looking at a goal for her to be able to identify her letters using that
curriculum. 

I am looking at "visual memory" games so that she will be able
to use her vision more efficiently as she gets older. That is one goal along
with using the clay & sticks from Handwriting without Tears to form her
letters. I would also like to expand on the pre-writing so that it specifically
states she will be holding her pencil and paper correctly for her visual
problems. I am asking for bold lined paper so that she is able to see the paper
correctly instead of just the gray-lined paper she had gotten from Head Start;
she had a hard time seeing the bottom line.

Unfortunately, the TVI and TVI/O&M people do not know how to work with a
pre-k child as evidence several times in what they asked/told her (show me your
house instead of show me the kitchen). 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks .... 
Doreen and David, Florida 

_______________________________________________
blindkid mailing list
blindkid at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for blindkid:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/kim%40gulfimagesphoto.com