Special education referral process

After my personal experience as an assistant in learning support and the research I have made to complete this activity, I realize how complex could be the process to decide if a child needs special education or not.

According to IDEA, this process is divided in eight different phases:

1. Recognition. In this phase parents or teachers realize that the child has some difficulties, so they have to collect as much data as possible and stay in touch. The team formed by teachers and parents have to meet often and comment the child's progress. 
2. Pre-referral. If the student still struggling, the teacher should implement some RTI in order to make easier for the student the learning process.
3. Referral for Special education evaluation. If after all the intervention made by the teacher or parents the student still having difficulties, he/she should be evaluated by the counselor or the special education teacher.
4. Special education evaluation. This evaluation is carried by a group of professional that include parents, teacher, special education teachers, counselor and any other specialist that could give some data about the disabilities that the child could has (doctors for example).
5. Eligibility. After the evaluation, the group of professionals that have participated in the referral process decided if the student is eligible for special education.
6. IEP meeting. The purpose of the IEP meeting is to put the data all together, so they can figure which measures should be implemented.
7. IEP implementation. After the student has design his/her plan and sign by teachers and parents, it should be implimented in the child's learning process.
8. Reevaluation. Each year the IEP has to be revise and make sure this still fit the student's needs.

In the next video we will see which are the main phases of the referral process and what we can expect of them.

In my personal experiece, after the teacher suspect the child could need extra help to achive the same level that his/her peers the special education teacher starts monitoring the child. If after implementing some changes like pull him/her out to re teach the lesson still stuggling with some problems, they have to be evaluated. The assesment and the data of his/her classwork are essential. After evalute the needs of the student, the teacher implements the changes that the student will need.

References

• The Special education referral process (2015) Project IDEA. Retrieved from http://www.projectidealonline.org/special-education-referral-process.php
• Learning support department of AISJ
• Georgia department of education. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Curriculum-and-Instruction/Pages/Referral-Process.aspx