IEP help

[faire_jour]

Miss Kat is up for her triannual and her IEP. As those who follow our
story know, she has a progressive loss and was just implanted with a
CI a month ago. Miss Kat attends a voic-off bi-bi school for the
Deaf, and gets private AVT twice a week.
Now, we need help. I love her school, her teachers and all the kids
in her class but we need more. Miss Kat has not made any progress in
her listening/speech in the three years she has attended the school.
She gets speech, but the therapist is not even on the same planet as
us. She thinks that Miss Kat has "great listening skills" and she
wants to work on "final sound deletion". Are you kidding me??? Miss
Kat isn't verbal and she has only a few dozen high frequency words
that she understands. She has never met a single goal that Miss Kat
has had on her IEP.
Now with the implant Miss Kat is hearing down to 15 db. We know it is
a nice clear signal and she is hearing very well. But she has only
been hearing for 1 month! We do not have a TC option in our area and
Miss Kat clearly still needs ASL still.
We have no idea what to do. She is a terrible interpreter user
because she has attention issues, but we want her to learn to use
spoken language as well. We don't feel like the bi-bi school is
meeting her needs, but she clearly can not go to an oral class.
Mainstreaming would be terrible for her because she can not follow an
interpreter, plus she needs someone skilled with teaching spoken
language to a Deaf child. What do we do?
Advice???

 

[ClearSky]

From my experience, IEP doesn't always get met satisfactorily.

 

[loml]

Perhaps cueing would be another tool to add....

faire_jour - Perhaps cueing is an option for English aquisition and to support her speech program. Is there an SLP available to you that knows how to cue or would consider learning how to cue? Is there an educational assitant/aide in your area that would also consider learning to cue?

 

[Lissa]

Miss Kat is hearing really well as she is down to 15bd! Iv been implanted 8 years and down to 35db!
regarding miss kat's school, no progress in 3 years is not good, can your tod maybe help you find another programs for miss kat with ASL and hearing kids mixed so there would be teachers to help miss kat . Can you not send miss kat to a TC school nearest to your area and have her travel?

 

[faire_jour]

There is no TC option after preschool in our state. We have a voice-off bi-bi school with a terrible SLP, an oral program, or mainstreaming.

Her IEP is Jan. 21, and we need to decide the best placement for her. She is making progress with her academics and her language, but not with her speech/listening skills.

 

[shel90]

There is no TC option after preschool in our state. We have a voice-off bi-bi school with a terrible SLP, an oral program, or mainstreaming.

Her IEP is Jan. 21, and we need to decide the best placement for her. She is making progress with her academics and her language, but not with her speech/listening skills.

I am curious....shouldnt that be the most important thing? That is what so many deaf children lose out on so your daughter is very fortunate to be able to progress with language and academics. I am confused to what the issue here is?

 

[loml]

There is no TC option after preschool in our state. We have a voice-off bi-bi school with a terrible SLP, an oral program, or mainstreaming.

Her IEP is Jan. 21, and we need to decide the best placement for her. She is making progress with her academics and her language, but not with her speech/listening skills.

faire_jour - Would an accurate description of Miss Kat at this point in her activation, be one of a little person just now "hearing" the sounds of the spoken English language?

 

[ClearSky]

I am curious....shouldnt that be the most important thing? That is what so many deaf children lose out on so your daughter is very fortunate to be able to progress with language and academics. I am confused to what the issue here is?

Her language is important, but her listening and speech skills is important as well. It is important that Miss Kat is in a program that is working with her aural and speech skills just like her language and academic skills. When there's a CI, you can't just worry about their language skills and just magically hope the CI will pick up on it's own. The CI is 10 percent of the work and the rest is work that the parents and support staff makes as well.

 

[shel90]

Her language is important, but her listening and speech skills is important as well. It is important that Miss Kat is in a program that is working with her aural and speech skills just like her language and academic skills. When there's a CI, you can't just worry about their language skills and just magically hope the CI will pick up on it's own. The CI is 10 percent of the work and the rest is work that the parents and support staff makes as well.

Not always..I have seen almost every case in my 6 years as a teacher for the deaf working with children with and without CIs. Some develop speech skills without CIs while those with CIs are unable to do so and vice versa.

 

[faire_jour]

faire_jour - Would an accurate description of Miss Kat at this point in her activation, be one of a little person just now "hearing" the sounds of the spoken English language?

She is able to recognize everything she had with her hearing aids and more now. She was back to understanding her name and her "high frequency words and phrases" within a week or two of activation. I would say that she can understand around 50 words and follow very simple instructions "sit down" "put that in the garbage". She is able to correctly identify a word from a closed set at 100%, (the easiest level)

 

[faire_jour]

I am curious....shouldnt that be the most important thing? That is what so many deaf children lose out on so your daughter is very fortunate to be able to progress with language and academics. I am confused to what the issue here is?

I will not ignore a part of her education that I consider to be important as well. I am not saying that I want to drop the education she is getting but I want to add more. I have worked very hard to get her to this point and I am going to continue to work to get her everything she needs.

 

[faire_jour]

Her language is important, but her listening and speech skills is important as well. It is important that Miss Kat is in a program that is working with her aural and speech skills just like her language and academic skills. When there's a CI, you can't just worry about their language skills and just magically hope the CI will pick up on it's own. The CI is 10 percent of the work and the rest is work that the parents and support staff makes as well.

I agree with this. I want Miss Kat to have everything and it will take work and creativity, but I want her to succeed.

 

[ClearSky]

Not always..I have seen almost every case in my 6 years as a teacher for the deaf working with children with and without CIs. Some develop speech skills without CIs while those with CIs are unable to do so and vice versa.

This isn't a good reason to not worry about Miss Kat's speech and aural skills. faire_jour's focus is Miss Kat. It is a known fact that you must seek aural and speech support no matter what after a CI is aquired. It is important that teachers and parents be on the same page.

I would suggest for faire_jour to seek another forum like CI Circle for more appropriate support. Have you contacted the company for more support? They have a program about it as well. I do think that some form of spoken language environment can be beneficial. I have heard of parents mainstreaming half the day. I wonder if you may have to seek outside speech and aural support. Perhaps you may want to learn about Cued Speech with the teachers at school and use it during Speech Therapy at home and school. Perhaps Miss Kat needs a bit of help visually with Cued Speech. I hope you find the help that you need.

 

[faire_jour]

This isn't a good reason to not worry about Miss Kat's speech and aural skills. faire_jour's focus is Miss Kat. It is a known fact that you must seek aural and speech support no matter what after a CI is aquired. It is important that teachers and parents be on the same page.

I would suggest for faire_jour to seek another forum like CI Circle for more appropriate support. Have you contacted the company for more support? They have a program about it as well. I do think that some form of spoken language environment can be beneficial. I have heard of parents mainstreaming half the day. I wonder if you may have to seek outside speech and aural support. Perhaps you may want to learn about Cued Speech with the teachers at school and use it during Speech Therapy at home and school. Perhaps Miss Kat needs a bit of help visually with Cued Speech. I hope you find the help that you need.

I was looking for ideas. I wonder if I get get a voice interpreter in the bi-bi class or an ASL interpreter in the oral program. There is a whole new generation of deaf kids with good hearing that we need to figure out how to get correct services.

 

[shel90]

This isn't a good reason to not worry about Miss Kat's speech and aural skills. faire_jour's focus is Miss Kat. It is a known fact that you must seek aural and speech support no matter what after a CI is aquired. It is important that teachers and parents be on the same page.

I would suggest for faire_jour to seek another forum like CI Circle for more appropriate support. Have you contacted the company for more support? They have a program about it as well. I do think that some form of spoken language environment can be beneficial. I have heard of parents mainstreaming half the day. I wonder if you may have to seek outside speech and aural support. Perhaps you may want to learn about Cued Speech with the teachers at school and use it during Speech Therapy at home and school. Perhaps Miss Kat needs a bit of help visually with Cued Speech. I hope you find the help that you need.

Never mind..u missed my point. Moving on. Would rather not get into a debate.

 

[shel90]

I was looking for ideas. I wonder if I get get a voice interpreter in the bi-bi class or an ASL interpreter in the oral program. There is a whole new generation of deaf kids with good hearing that we need to figure out how to get correct services.

The program I work at offers that. U can request that ...put it in the IEP and then they (the school Miss Kat is at) have to meet your needs according to the law.

 

[jillio]

There is no TC option after preschool in our state. We have a voice-off bi-bi school with a terrible SLP, an oral program, or mainstreaming.

Her IEP is Jan. 21, and we need to decide the best placement for her. She is making progress with her academics and her language, but not with her speech/listening skills.

Those are the goals of an IEP. An IEP is written to address academic issues. That is why it is called an Individualized Education Plan.

 

[jillio]

The program I work at offers that. U can request that ...put it in the IEP and then they (the school Miss Kat is at) have to meet your needs according to the law.

Exactly. If she needs an oral interpreter to understand the academic material, then it can be written into the IEP.

 

[loml]

She is able to recognize everything she had with her hearing aids and more now. She was back to understanding her name and her "high frequency words and phrases" within a week or two of activation. I would say that she can understand around 50 words and follow very simple instructions "sit down" "put that in the garbage". She is able to correctly identify a word from a closed set at 100%, (the easiest level)

faire_jour- That is is fabulous!

Providing her with all the sounds of spoken English visually via cueing would reaffrim for her the sounds of spoken language that she is hearing and provide her with the support for the sounds that she is unsure of.

Home is the richest language enviroment for voice on English language learning/modeling. A child cannot recognise, produce or attempt to model a sound that is not consistently clear to them. If the school is unable to provide her clear access to the sounds of spoken English, a speech program that is working, to your satisfaction on articulation and auditory processing skills, an interm measure may be for you and your family to learn to cue.

 

[shel90]

Exactly. If she needs an oral interpreter to understand the academic material, then it can be written into the IEP.

But it seems Miss Kat understands the material in her first language so I dont see the need for an oral terp but probably would see the need for an ASL terp in a mainstreamed setting but that means Miss Kat would not get direct communication like she gets at the BiBi program anymore. The question is ..which is more important to the OP?