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Latest Statewide News
July 30, 2008
Individualized Planning for Students with Behavioral Challenges
Getting a Thorough Evaluation
If a student is having trouble succeeding in a school setting, families and professionals must first find out whether the student is able to do the tasks asked of her/him during the school day. A thorough evaluation is key to accurately answering this question. This is not a brief interview with an evaluator, but a series of tests and a clinical interview with both the child and family which determines strengths and weaknesses. If your child is having trouble mastering and completing school work, you must know what his learning abilities are. Learning and performing school work requires a complex array of abilities and skills. For example, writing involves many sub-skills from forming the letters to organizing feelings and ideas into organized sentences. Read more on Misunderstood Minds.
Testing Abilities
A Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) should be performed, as well as WISC or similar achievement tests. This will let everyone compare your child’s abilities to their achievements. For example, the WISC can tell you whether the ability to organize information is impaired – that can make it very hard to follow instructions! There are many tests that can be given, to accompany the WISC results and based on interviews with the family, child, and teacher. For example, if the child seems not to comply with spoken instructions, an auditory (listening) processing test should be administered. A child can have good hearing and still not understand what people are saying. This can make it frustrating in the classroom, the playground, and the home for everyone, but especially for the child who can not understand why he/she is failing to meet the expectations of others. An excellent resource which explains educational testing is available on Wrightslaw.com at www.wrightslaw.com.
Addressing Social and Emotional Needs
Once academic issues are being addressed, students may still have problems with their emotional and social skills in school. While medication and counseling can help these issues, the long term solution must include giving a child the coping and performing skills to be successful managing emotions and social connections. Working Together: A Guide to Positive Behavior Support For Families and Professionals was developed is to provide parents and professionals with an overview of Positive Behavior Support (PBS) and suggestions for working together while creating a support plan. Much of the suggestions in the guide are designed to help parents and professionals feel empowered as they work together during a potentially stressful period of time.
PA’s School Rights Resources
The following are federally funded Parent Training Institutes that help families understand their educational rights, and connect them with additional resources.
- The PEAL Center serves Western and Central Pennsylvania.
412-281-4404, 866-950-1040, TTY- 412-281-4409 - The Parent Education Network (PEN) is statewide.
V/TTY: 717-600-0100, V/TTY-800-522-5827, 800-441-5028 (Spanish).