Autism Therapy: child-centered

From Catherine Whitcher, M.Ed, Precision Education

First, let me remind the Precision Education Community that I was a special education teacher. I have the utmost respect for teachers. They show up everyday to teach children and deal with the political system. I also admit that I violated my student's rights, I BROKE THE LAW!

I never read a student's IEP from front to back. I rarely charted goal progress. I only glanced at modifications that needed to be done. I was told by my administration to "watch out" for a problem parent whose child was assigned to my classroom. Sure enough, the problem parent called and asked for a meeting before school started. The mom drilled me on teaching strategies, charting and reporting. The curriculum had to be explained to her and the aides had to have training. My world was turned upside down.

I discussed the conversation with the administrator. She told me that I had to comply with the Mom's requests because in the IEP it was written to communicate everything she had been asking. What? Wait a minute, if this IEP was written with accountability- what were the other ones written like?

So I spent the weekend reading all my students IEP's and found out that this child's IEP really wasn't written much different than the others. The difference was that this Mom knew what was in her child's IEP and how her child's education should be executed. Armed with this newfound knowledge, I took it upon myself to initiate the same types of meetings with the parents of all my students.

Parents were amazed at how much information I was giving them and how I wanted them to be involved. Goals were not only being met, but exceeded and IEP's needed to be rewritten by December. My administrator walked into the room a few months later and my entire class was sitting at their desks. A reading exercise was on the overhead and the aides were engaged in assuring the lesson was adapted to each level as I directed from the front of the class. It was an unexplainable experience to have my superior stand speechless at the progress that was made simply by me doing my job according to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

I ran into the parent who turned my world upside down last summer. I told her this story and she had no idea that she had such an impact on not only her son's education, but also on me as a professional and the other students who passed through my classroom. I went from an average teacher violating student rights, to a proud teacher of successful students all because of a parent who knew her son's rights and had the strength to become a proactive member of her child's education team.

Copyright 2007 Precision Education
(May be reprinted with permission)

Catherine Whitcher, M.Ed, founder of Precision Education, Inc. holds multiple special education teaching certificates, has been featured on AutismOne radio show, published in The Autism Perspective and is Co-Author of Asperger's: The Positive Side. She is a member of the National Association of Special Education Teachers and Co-founder of the non-profit Disability Community Solutions.

Proud sister of a successful man with Down Syndrome, Ms. Whitcher's dynamic teaching within the classroom led her to her life-long passion of bringing education teams together for student achievement. For over 10 years, Precision Education, a special education consulting firm has been focused on maximizing special education results for students, parents & teachers. The development of Back to Future IEP Planning TM, exclusively presented by Precision Education, has led to students with exceptional learning needs meeting their potential and exceeding expectations. Precision Education represents a parent focused, school friendly, child-centered approach to success.
800.432.0170 www.PrecisionEducation.com