[blindkid] After school care

Carlton Anne Cook Walker attorneywalker at gmail.com
Thu Jul 31 14:35:28 UTC 2014


Ashley,

At this point, it appears that the Y needs only to provide reasonable
accommodation. That can, but may not include additional staffing.

This is a great reason to get the school to start pin-pointing the story
provided to your child during the school day. Academic support might not be
as necessary in the after school setting. Other types of support
(orientation and mobility, self-cafe) are areas where you may want to get
the school to focus on helping your daughter build the skills she needs to
be more independent and not need the paraprofessional support. Too often,
paraprofessional support becomes an unneeded crutch that inhibits  child's
development of independent living skills. Your need for the after school
program could help the IEP team see the need for more age-appropriate
independent skill building right away.

Note, I have addressed only the blindness side, and you need that your
daughter has autism as well. Again, a concerted team effort on helping her
to build the skills she needs in this area is vital. In my opinion, for
many students, we do them a disservice by focusing only on academics. The
child is a whole child, and the self-confidence built in developing these
skills will pay off in the academic realm and for years to come. In
general, academic skills, by themselves and supported by a full time
paraprofessional, do not lead to improved self-help and independent living
skills. This is a matter the IEP team may wish to consider when determining
priorities for the IEP.
Engender, IEPs can be revised any time, and it may be worthwhile to review
the current plan to see if it meets your daughter's needs.

Another autism-focused resource (reference by another poster) is a TSS
(therapeutic support staffer). These individuals should be trained in
behavioral support theory, and they typically support students one-on-one.
Given that your daughter has a school-provided paraprofessional, it may be
worth looking into community-based TSS services. In my experience,
overlapping these TSS professionals into some of school time helps the
entire team provide consistency across settings and allows the student to
grow more quickly in the acquisition of skills (blindness, autism,
academic, and others).

The fact is that, in education, we can tend to specialize to much. Your
daughter deserves an individualized education program, and effective
communication among service providers, educators, and families across
school, community, and home settings often leads to Ann Beyer, more
efficient, and certainly more child-centered program.

Carlton



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