Home » Mind & Soul » Child Mental Illness » Individualized Educational Programs

Individualized Educational Programs

© Sheri Wallace

What is an Individualized Educational Program or IEP? It is a custom designed educational plan for providing the services necessary to meet the educational needs of a student with a disability. This process usually involves several meetings with the school staff and the child's parents and can take some time to get fully implemented, but it can be invaluable in providing services to your child.

How do you get an IEP? First meet with the principal or school administrator and discuss the need for an IEP. Bring with you the documentation showing how the current services being provided to your child are inadequate and be prepared to give a few suggestions of possible remedies. Perhaps your child needs special diagnostic tests to be sure of exactly what would be helpful. This will be a first step in implementing the IEP.

The IEP, when drawn up, should be comprehensive and include all of the deficit areas, including communication, behavior, socialization, self help, academics, motor skills, vocational skills, transition services, related services and needed accommodations in both general and special education. It should also be specific and list goals and objectives in measurable, observable behavior. The IEP should also be sequential and realistic. The language of the IEP should be understandable to you as a parent, so if something doesn't make sense, get it changed. The IEP should also be developed individually for your child with collaboration between the parents, the student and the school personnel.

The IEP will probably have some basic headings.

 Present Level of Educational Performance: This is a written statement that describes what your child's current strengths, weaknesses and learning styles.  Annual Goal(s): This is a statement of what your child can reasonably be expected to accomplish in one academic year. This should address all of the weaknesses mentioned in the Present Level statement and the goals should be realistic and measurable.  Short Term Objectives: There should be a number of sequential, short-term goals for your child. This will describe how your child is expected to meet the annual goals set forth in the goal section.  Evaluation Criterion: This is the level of performance necessary for mastery of a given objective. This can be expressed in percentage of accuracy required, the number of times a certain performance is required, etc.  Evaluation Frequency or Schedule: This is the schedule of evaluation. It should list how often the various objectives will be evaluated.

The copyright of the article Individualized Educational Programs in Child Mental Illness is owned by . Permission to republish Individualized Educational Programs in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.