Communicating With Parents and Team Members for Special Education Students

Early Childhood

As Service Coordinator, my role is to explain the IFSP and the IEP and serve as liaison with other people and agencies who are part of the child's plan. The screening process looks at cognitive, physical, emotional, social, and communication development to identify strengths and weaknesses upon which the plans can be put together. Parents' questions could include time frame for the program, expected results, prognosis for success in school, and alternatives if the program does not seem to be producing desired results.

In Massachusetts, two agencies that assist children with developmental delays and their families are the Department of Education and the Head Start Program. The Head Start Program assists with early detection and diagnosis; the Department of Education has a tiered support system once children reach school age. Diagnostic testing includes observation, interviewing, and drawn responses. In speaking with parents, it is wise to show results for several tests conducted by different individuals to assure parents that there was no bias in testing. Observation, for example, could be conducted by the Service Coordinator, a social worker, and a child psychologist, all of whom have training in the detection of developmental delays.

Diagnostic testing helps in the planning of education programs because it looks at what the child can already do, and what gaps remain. The goals for the education plans must be realistic in terms of time frame and achievability by the student.

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By understanding working memory, the teacher can address a child's strengths. If a child has poor auditory skills, for example, visual cues would be helpful. This same child would benefit from getting just small chunks of information at a time, rather than a string of instructions, to allow time for processing.

Students with autism spectrum disorders have difficulty with abstract concepts. They can usually understand the "who," "the where," and "the what" but have difficulty with "how" and "why." Team members must be very concrete when communicating with these students. The students may also have little or no verbal skills. Each team member could make their own book of visuals with software such as BoardMaker, or use a mobile device and an app such as Touch2Talk to facilitate communication.

In Massachusetts, there are three chapters of the group Autism Speaks. Families can benefit from sharing resources with others. They can find support with a peer group that really understands what they are experiencing with their child.

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Parents may try to give the educator information as though s/he does not know how to work with the child. For example, the parent might say: "When you ask him a question, you need to make sure he is looking at you first." Rather than get into an argument about professionalism and training, it is better just to listen, then offer parents reassurance about teacher-family communication.