The ABCs of IEPs

By Sheila Wolfe – IEP Services

Many parents experience frustration when their child with special needs does not make progress at school. Case Conference Committees often spend hours discussing what a child should learn but not how a child should be taught. Special education is not supposed to be a guessing game.

Schools are required to use evidence-based practices when teaching students requiring special education. Cook, Smith, and Tankersley (2012) define evidence-based practices (EBPs) as practices that are shown to be effective through high-quality research to meaningfully improve student outcomes. Simply, EBPs are practices that are supported by a strong, highquality evidence base to have a positive impact on student learning.

You rely on your doctor to know which medication to prescribe to improve your health. Parents should also be able to rely on their school/ teacher to use a methodology or curriculum that has shown, through data and research, to have a meaningful and positive impact on student learning in a particular subject/skill. Parents have a right to review the research behind any program, methodology, or curriculum used by the school to see if it is backed by high-quality evidence to have a meaningful, positive impact on the learning of students with your child’s particular disability and/or needs.

If parents raise the question of how a teacher intends to instruct a student, the answer is often, “We use best practices for all of our instruction.” “Best practice” (or “effective practice”) is a vague term that does not necessarily indicate something is backed by scientific research. More importantly, “best practice” does not indicate that the practice has evidence of improved student outcomes. Often “best practice” boils down to the curriculum the school corporation has chosen for that subject and grade for that school year. After two years of using that program, another “new and improved” program could be introduced based on nothing more than a great sales pitch from an established educational publisher. Hype surrounding programs and approaches in education are often backed by popularity and not by science.

Think about evaluating educational practice the same way you evaluate medical practice. If you have a headache and have heard through friends and social media that peppermint oil is great for relieving a headache, you may give it a try. Maybe it helps the first time, but over time its effectiveness is very unpredictable. You treat your next headache with pain relieving medication like acetaminophen, and it continues to work every time. Peppermint oil can be an effective treatment for getting rid of a headache, but that finding is anecdotal, not evidence-based. There isn’t highquality research to provide evidence of its effectiveness. Instead, the use of peppermint oil for headaches is validated by social media, companies that sell it, and people you know.

I advise the parents I work with to do their own research on different programs and instructional techniques designed to teach students comparable to their own. The What Works Clearinghouse https://ies.ed.gov/ ncee/WWC is a fabulous resource for families. It allows you to search based on age/grade, skill area, and disability. Look for programs and educational approaches/methodologies that have research showing that they are effective for students with your child’s disability. A reading program that is effective in improving reading fluency for a typical child may not be effective for a child with dyslexia or autism.

Be prepared to suggest the use of specific programs that are researchbased and effective for students similar to yours. If the school refuses to discuss the educational approach and/or curriculum program they will use with your child, submit a written request for the information and the research which supports that program’s effectiveness for students with your child’s disability/needs. If your school refuses to provide the information or cannot back up the program with research that provides evidence of effectiveness, you have the option to file a complaint with the state Department of Education to compel the school to provide the information and to use a program which is evidence-based. This is one of the most important ways you can advocate for your child to improve their educational outcome.

References: National Center on Intensive Intervention. https:// intensiveintervention.org/ CEEDAR Center: We Provide Opportunities to Learn for Teachers and Leaders. http://ceedar.education.ufl.edu/ What Works Clearinghouse: Find What Works! https://ies. ed.gov/ncee/wwc/ Evidence-Based Intervention Network. http://ebi.missouri.edu/ Vanderbilt University: Special Education Resource Project. https://my.vanderbilt.edu/spedteacherresources/ what-are-evidence-based-practices/