{"id":70,"date":"2010-01-31T22:52:37","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T22:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.mainelyseo.com\/cdi-upgrade\/parenting_today\/?p=70"},"modified":"2019-07-23T16:59:25","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T23:59:25","slug":"iep-criteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/childdevelopmentinfo.com\/homework-help\/iep-criteria\/","title":{"rendered":"When is a learning problem a PROBLEM?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent article by Edward Schultz in LDA Newsbriefs concerns new definitions of learning disabilities that must be recognized through the 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA).<\/p>\n

This article describes why severe discrepancies between ability and achievement (see below) are no longer required to qualify your child for an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) at school, and the author discusses new methods of determining who can profit from special classes or special teaching methods.<\/p>\n

PL 94-142, the original law regarding special teaching and classes for students with handicapping conditions, appeared in the 1970’s.\u00a0 The law was aimed at helping physically challenged students, e.g., those requiring a wheelchair to get around, or those who lacked the muscular control to produce good penmanship, gain access to the comprehensive public school.<\/p>\n

However, enterprising educators, psychologists, and others in the helping professions soon realized that there were many students who had no physical challenges, but they did have learning challenges such as dyslexia or poor auditory processing.<\/p>\n

Initially, such learning challenged students gained access to the Special Education classrooms with ease.\u00a0 Generally, these classes were legally mandated to have no more than eight students per teacher.<\/p>\n

However, as the number of students in Special Education classes swelled, the money to fund the classes did not.\u00a0 Schools were faced with the dilemma of limiting the enrollment in Special Education classes in order to maintain the 8:1 ratios without an increase in the funding.\u00a0 Since physical challenges were more blatant, the most expeditious way of limiting the number of students with learning challenges was to make the definition of what constituted a learning challenge very strict.<\/p>\n

For example, in the past, a Sophomore with average intellectual ability would have been required to read on a second to third-grade level in order to qualify for an IEP.\u00a0 This was the school district’s way of saying that the student’s learning problem met their criterion for a PROBLEM, and that the PROBLEM required special teachers or teaching methods in order to be resolved.\u00a0 This generated an IEP and placement in a Resource Specialist Classroom or setting outside the general or comprehensive classroom.<\/p>\n

After such a strict criterion was used to control the number of students admitted to Special Education classes, only the squeakiest wheels received any grease.\u00a0 Parents who had their children evaluated by the school district were often told that their children did not qualify for Special Education services because their child did not meet the stringent, and arbitrary, criteria for a learning disability that the severe discrepancy standard had set.<\/p>\n

According to Schultz, IDEA included three important new guidelines in identifying students with learning disabilities<\/p>\n