At the beginning of the school year, I am always focused on special education evaluations. Parents start the year with concerns and questions about their children. In early childhood special education, we look at one identification: YOUNG CHILD WITH A DEVELOPMENTAL DELAY. All areas of development are reviewed: Physical Development (fine and gross motor), Communication, Cognition, Adaptive Behavior, and Social Emotional Development. If a child exhibits a significant delay in one or more of these areas through a special education school evaluation, they will qualify for services.
Our children in ECSE have a wide range of delays and medical diagnoses. They may receive services in vision, orientation and mobility, classroom services, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and/or speech and language therapy. The ECSE program meets the needs of each child with individual plans and goals in an (IEP) Individualized Education Plan. Progress with therapies and instruction are updated and reviewed often as a team, including the parents. If you have a concern about your child's development, please contact me via phone, email, or this website. I can't wait to get started this year. We are looking forward to seeing everyone.
Back to School Night was a tremendous success! Monday, August 23 is our 1st day back...... Everyone at High Grove is ready to welcome our children with love. You are joining an amazing family. WELCOME TO HIGH GROVE! Announcing
Cover to Cover Summer Reading Program Coming to Your School in May! The Grandview Education Foundation is providing every student at your school with free books for summer reading fun! Cover to Cover invites students from your school to choose interesting books to take home, read this summer, and keep forever! Studies show that students who do not read during the summer can fall behind on their reading skills by several months. These losses add up over the elementary school years. By the time a student enters middle school, he or she may be up to 2 years behind in reading skills! The books your students choose for their home library can keep them excited about reading over the summer and help maintain and even improve their reading skills. Students will choose new books in May to take home for summer reading and keep. Students can choose books that are fun to read AND right for their reading level. In their bag of books, look for a sheet of ideas for families to encourage summer reading fun. Make reading an exciting part of your summer FUN! Anunciando Programa de lectura de verano de portada a portada ¡Llegando a tu escuela en mayo! La Fundación de Educación Grandview está entregando a cada estudiante libros gratis en su escuela, para la lectura de verano divertido! ¡Cover to Cover invita a los estudiantes de tu escuela a elegir libros interesantes para llevar a casa, leer este verano y guardar para siempre! Los estudios muestran que los estudiantes que no leen durante el verano pueden atrasarse en sus habilidades de lectura por varios meses. Estas pérdidas se suman a lo largo de los años de escuela primaria. Para cuando el estudiante ingresa a la escuela intermedia, ¡puede estar hasta 2 años atrasado en las habilidades de lectura! Los libros que los estudiantes eligen para la biblioteca de su hogar pueden mantenerlos entusiasmados con la lectura durante el verano y ayudar a mantener e incluso mejorar sus habilidades de lectura. Los estudiantes elegirán libros nuevos en mayo para llevar a casa, para poder leer y guardar durante el verano. Los estudiantes pueden elegir libros que sean divertidos de leer y adecuados para su nivel de lectura. En su bolsa de libros, encontrara una hoja de ideas para que las familias fomenten la diversión de la lectura durante el verano. ¡Haz de la lectura una parte emocionante de tu DIVERSIÓN de verano! Two of the areas that are reviewed in a special education evaluation are vision and hearing. Why is this important?
Vision affects all areas of development. Several strategies we develop as we grow contain an aspect of vision. We navigate our environment by what we see. Depth perception is very important to the development of our motor skills. As children begin to use language to communicate, they label items in their environment that they see visually. Our cognitive development and pre-academic knowledge foundation improves though visual stimuli: matching pictures, identifying letters and numbers, shapes and colors. Independence is important as our children grow. Dressing, undressing, using cups and utensils all develop within the visual environment and our children learn to relate socially to their environment and to others through what they see. In an evaluation, your child will have a vision screening before an assessment is given to make sure that developmental concerns are not due to visual issues. Hearing also affects a child's development. Expressive, verbal language is based the ability to hear sounds. When a child does not hear sounds effectively due to ear infections or hearing deficits, their language is affected. This is why dialects can be different within different areas or regions throughout the nation. A person's accent is developed with their language through what is heard. Safety within the environment can also depend on a person's ability to hear. We often call for our child when they are not in our sight. Their ability to hear, keeps children from running into harms way, or finding them when out of sight. In an evaluation, a hearing screening is completed to determine a child's ability to hear soft and loud sounds. If you are looking into an evaluation for special education eligibility and your child has had a medical examination in hearing or vision, bring a copy of the results for review. If you are unable to bring a copy, you can sign a medical release of information with the ECSE Coordinator so that the records can be requested. What is the process for a special education evaluation?:
Notification of Concerns:
2: When a special education evaluation is warranted, the Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) coordinator discusses the process for an educational referral and confirms permission to begin a referral from the parent. Developmental information is gathered with the parent and all documents related to concerns (evaluations, screenings, observations, 1st Steps documentation) is collected. The multidisciplinary team reads the information shared by the parent and collected from other facilities, confers, and determines if there is enough information to determine eligibility; or if further assessment is needed. Any testing appointments will be scheduled and the eligibility meeting will be scheduled. The team will also have a hearing and vision screening completed in the health room with the child. 3: Within approximately 50 days from the Review of Existing Data meeting, the Eligibility meeting will be held. At this meeting, the results of testing are discussed and eligibility is determined by the team, including the parent. 4: If your child is eligible, an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) is held. At this meeting, the team, including the parent, discusses the needs of the individual child. Goals are developed and the services needed to meet the goals are determined. The team also determines the child’s placement. (How special education services will be administered. What the school day will look like.) At High Grove Early Child Hood Center, our children in Early Childhood Special Education have a wide range of delays and medical diagnoses. They may receive services in vision, orientation and mobility, classroom services, occupational therapy, physical therapy, hearing services, and/or speech and language therapy. The ECSE program meets the needs of each child with individual plans and goals in an individualized education plan. Missouri State Eligibility Requirements: Young Child with a Developmental Delay: All areas of development are reviewed under this identification: Physical Development (fine and gross motor), Communication (articulation and language), Cognition, Adaptive Behavior, and Social Emotional Development. In compliance with Missouri’s State Guidelines, for a child between the ages of 3 to 5 years old to qualify as a Young Child with a Developmental Delay, he or she must be experiencing significant delays in one or more of these areas. Eligibility is determined through a formal evaluation using standardized testing. Sound System Disorder: When a child exhibits a speech delay:
All services and evaluations for special education eligibility are at no cost to parents’ within the resident school district. There are several agencies that you can contact if you have concerns:
Parents As Teachers, Grandview School District: 816-316-5500 High Grove Early Childhood Special Education Program (ages 3-5): 816-316-5500 1st Steps (birth to age three): Missouri First Steps is an early intervention system that provides services to families with children, birth to age three, with disabilities or developmental delays. To contact 1st Steps for further information call toll-free at 1-866-583-2392. Contact your child’s doctor with concerns. They may refer you for a medical evaluation at Children’s Mercy Hospital or KU Hospital. If you have any concerns with your child’s development, you can also contact me with any questions. My home page also has several links reviewing child development, and the special education process for Missouri. Welcome to the 2020/2021 school year. We had a strange end of school last year, but we all pulled together, a did a great job!
This year we are beginning our school year in distance learning. We are really missing our kiddos and are ready to see all their faces on the screen. Our teachers and therapists are working hard to get ready for the first day of school on 9/8/2020. Relationship and Communication are Key this year! It's important that we work together to do what's best for all our children: in-person and from a distance. Check out Conscious Discipline's New Parent At Home Linked Form: At Home Brain Breaks and Active Calming--on my Conscious Discipline and COVID 19 pages. "Brain breaks are short mental breaks taken throughout a lesson or academic activity. They help children remain calm, focused and engaged, and they’ve been shown to reduce stress. With schools closed in response to COVID-19, the guide shows you how to implement effective brain breaks at home.The images in the guide “At Home Brain Breaks and Active Calming” by Conscious Discipline are linked for videos and songs that accompany each activity. The guide also features active calming strategies that will keep you and your children in the optimal brain state for learning and problem-solving." |
AuthorLaura Verhulst |