Ideas for Special Needs Elementary School IEP

Individualized Educational Program (IEP) Strategies for Developmentally Delayed, Early Childhood and Elementary Special Education Students

*Your student’s IEP can be amended at any time. If you do not have some of the following strategies on your child’s IEP, you can have these, or other strategies added at any time.

1. Special Transportation: This is a fabulous tool that can be utilized throughout your student’s time in school from Early childhood through age 21.

a. Instead of riding the regular bus, your student can be can ride a smaller bus, with fewer children that has and an assistant on board ,in addition to the driver.

b. The bus will pick your student up at the address you provide, as long as it is within the school district.

1. My child was picked up at the end of our driveway each morning, then dropped at daycare after school.

c. If needed, an assistant will help your child onto the bus, get safely secured for the ride, and then assist them in existing the bus.

2. Sensory Breaks: Ensure your child is given breaks away from and out of their desk. Make sure there is time and an appropriate space for your child to move about daily.

3. Fidgets:

a. For restless hands: Silly putty or a stress ball

b. For restless feet: A rubber inner tube wrapped around desk’s legs.

c. Restless body: A bouncy type of seat pad helps bodies in motion to focus.

d. For Anxiety: Wearing a weighted vest helps to calm.

4. Occupational Therapy – OT: Enroll your child in this therapy if they need help with fine motor skills, which most developmentally delayed children do.

a. Improves skills in everyday tasks such as writing, using scissors, buttoning a shirt and tying shoes.

5. Speech Therapy: Autistic and other developmentally delayed children have trouble communicating. Speech therapy is great help, especially at a young age.

6. Visual Supports: Helps students learn new skills and to know what to do.

a. Pictures and drawings used to label the classroom helps promote independence.

1. Helps students to know where to find things and where to put them away.

7. Appropriate Placement: Inquire about the other students in your child’s class. Autistic and developmentally delayed students should not be place in environment with children who have behavioral disorders.

8. Disruptive Children: Many schools place their disruptive, problem children in the special education classrooms when they misbehave in the regular Ed classes.

a. The developmentally delayed students may become victims of the problem children, imitate their behaviors, or both.

b. Ask about school policy regarding students from other classes joining your child’s classroom. DO NOT allow the school to integrate your child’s classroom with the problem kids. This should NEVER be allowed to happen.

Agencies to assist with IEP:

If you aren’t sure what you should be asking for, or if your child’s IEP is appropriate for them, contact an agency to help you.

Advocates for Access is an Agency that helps to educate and empower special needs parents and teachers. They can provide an advocate to help you through the IEP process.

The advocate will attend your child’s IEP meeting to make sure that your child is given appropriate accommodations to help ensure their success.