My sons has an IEP.. This year (and end of last school year) he has an increase in emotional and behavioral difficulties. The school is suggesting to change his primary eligibility Service for special Ed due to “Emotional Disturbance” and specific learning disability becomes second. Because he needs more support for his social-emotional functioning at school he will have to be placed at a different school.
I would like to hear stories from others who has kids with “Emotional Disturbance” on their IEP special Ed. Where they in a different program separate from gen ED students? Did they ever transition out of it? Did it help them?
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Was this change decided by an assessment? Have you seen the data? What are the most significant behaviors? Do you think he needs to be in a different setting? Has your son had couseling with the school? Do you have counseling/support outside of school?
My son had ED for his secondary and is in the general education inclusive classroom. He recenetly has gone to a 504. This may not be the norm but they can transition out of ED. We had Speech and Language services that helped with pragmatics/expressive language. We had outside family counseling and consult with the school counselor.
it can be either good or bad to get a ED qualification. It doesn’t mean he has to be in a different school but it does mean they have to categorize and deal with his behavior differently. It COULD be just the thing he needs to actually get the district to pay for a therapeutic boarding school, residential treatment center or non public school. Most kids in those three non public options all have ED. If he gets an ED qualification, I would make sure they give him all the services he needs
Hi, I had this exact experience last year with my 9 year old daughter. She experienced a spike in her social emotional reactions at school and they did all of their evaluations and changed her primary on her IEP from “other learning disability (ie ADHD) to ED. She had an extremely HARD year at school last year, I attribute it primarily to the chaos in the classroom and lack of support staff at the school but regardless she was unable to function at school last year. We homeschooled her the second half of the year last year which improved her quality of life dramatically and then they offered us a spot in their social emotional class at a different school. The class has 12 kids and 6 adults. At first we were absolutely against it since she had proven she could function in a typical classroom under the appropriate circumstances, after a few months of research with the director of special Ed, the teacher in that classroom and parents from that classroom, here is what helped us make the decision we made for our child:
1. Children that are in this class typically had less behavior because of the more one on one attention they receive.
2. Parents were extremely involved and protective of their children’s environment.
3. (This is the biggest one for me) placing your child in this classroom was not an all or nothing situation. It’s Al La carte. Maybe they only need that maximum support during certain subjects, so you can have them start their day in the social emotional class and transition them to typical classes for whatever subjects they don’t need as much support.
The end goal is that they learn the coping skills and strategies that serve them when they feel heightened emotions. Once they learn their personalized coping skills they graduate from ED (atleast that’s how I look at it).
Also, if you don’t agree with the ED as the primary you don’t have to sign the IEP, you can tell the school that you don’t agree with it, if they won’t move it, you can tell them to hire a mediator(at the districts expense) to help find a happy middle ground for family and school.
To date, my daughter is thriving in her new environment, we chose to put her in the social emotional class. She lives the staff and the kids. She doesn’t take as long to recover from meltdowns and shutdowns anymore, I think primarily because she isn’t the only one who has them anymore. The class is like a family environment.
Also, my final thought, I think that regardless if you are exploring a smaller classroom like we did or just a change in schools, sometimes a change in the school environment can make all the difference. We aren’t at their school, so it’s hard to tell what is setting our kids off. For my daughter it was the chaos and unstructured classroom, and the lack of administrative support and understanding of children with spectrum disorders including adhd and autism.
That’s great your daughter is doing better with her meltdowns. I wish the same for my son. What type of support does your daughter have outside of school? Does she do CBT one on one or group therapy as well? Weekly, monthly?
Hi! She was going to CBT once a week but was having to meet online with the counselor because of the spike in needs for mental health counselors during and after the pandemic. The zoom call therapy wasn’t working at all for her, so after I spoke to our director of special education about it during an IEP she offered an Ermhs evaluation to provide therapy during the school day. Now she gets it once a week privately, and the class she is in gets it once a week together. Ermhs stands for Educationally related mental health services. The counselor at school does not provide one on one therapy, they typically provide on the spot support to general Ed children, as well as run small therapy groups for different issues (ie. depression, coping skills, anxiety, military families that have separation, so on)
The ermhs therapist is a separate department or an outside contractor. They solely serve the students that have qualified for their services.
When the IEP team decides to change the primary disability it really means that there are other areas that need to be focused on and the professionals who can help in this area can now intervene. Every IEP is individualized to help the student where they are right now. This can change with goals, supports and focus in that area.
Hope your child is able to learn, grow and get the support they need.
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