Special Education Advocacy with Ashley Barlow Ashley Barlow

One of my most favorite and successful strategies has very little to do with negotiation strategy. Rather, it is founded in a desire to make meetings as efficient as possible... but it has a huge positive impact. In today's episode I share my tried and true strategy of requesting a draft of an IEP prior to the meeting and then submitting written questions, comments, and ideas back to the school team prior to the meeting. This strategy was meant to simply be efficient, but it has had a huge impact of IEP meetings for me. I hope you find it helpful, too!

I talk to about one professional a week about an Inclusion case. Attorneys, advocates, outpatient therapists, social workers, pediatricians, and so many other professionals have questions about Inclusion. I'm not only honored that these colleagues call me, but I'm also always excited to geek out about Inclusion and to provide my insight. The only group of folks that I consistently disappoint is the attorneys. Why? Because my approach to inclusion cases is really hands-on. It's practical. It's communicative. It's sometimes even messy. In today's episode, I'll give you some of the practical tips that I've dished out to some of my friends in the last few weeks.

I like to say that the "heart and soul" of special education is the specially designed instruction. This is the instruction that is supposed to be uniquely tailored to the child's needs. This should be drastically different from the accommodations and modifications that students on IEPs get in their general education classrooms and other environments at school. When I recently spoke on Specially Designed Instruction to parents, attorneys, and advocates, I got a ton of questions:
What's the difference between SDI and Tier 1 / whole group instruction. Is SDI the same as modifying work? Is SDI like tutoring? Where does SDI occur?
Let's dive into these questions in today's episode.
Transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/9ZF4KwqNrV4

Oh, the emails I got! I posted about IEEs in my stories a few weeks ago, and I got so many messages from professionals asking about them. I took those questions as a sign that we needed to spend a second more on IEEs here on the pod. So, let's take a step backwards and hammer in on a few basics on Individual Education Evaluations. Fact One: They're free. Fact Two: They're intended to level the playing field for parents in special education. Now that I have you attention, tune in to the whole episode for more!!!!
Transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/Mnj8VduBVK7

Last week I attended the COPAA Conference, and a session on IEEs, presented by esteemed VA SPED attorney, Melissa Waugh, I had an epiphany about cognitive testing. Many of my clients that have kids with Down syndrome and other intellectual and developmental disabilities shy away from cognitive/ IQ testing. In this episode, we'll ponder (yet another) reason why this may not be a great idea. I promise to invite Melissa to be on the pod, too, because man alive, she's a wealth of information!

Last week I presented at COPAA, the Counsel for Parents, Attorneys, and Advocates, which is my favorite conference of the year. The topic of my presentation matches this week's podcast topic. Maybe soon I'll invite my co-presenter, the amazing Melissa Waugh, from Virginia's famous and wonderful firm, The Belkowitz Firm, on to the pod. But for now, i want to share an experience with you, and then I want to dive into the shallow end of SDI with you. It has been my recently experience that district's arent's providing SDI, and worse, don't know it. What can you do about it?
Transcript: https://share.descript.com/view/8GTndSde5UP