Developing Educational Treatment Plans for your Students
Downloadable Version of Part X – (PDF File)
One of the most important approaches to the education of students with special needs is to develop a practical, worthwhile and sound educational treatment plan. Treatment plans are used in many other professions and represent a total plan for an individual which heightens the success rate of the goals in the plan. For instance, in the medical field this treatment plan usually involves several different personnel; social worker, psychologist, and psychiatrist. In the educational field this usually only involves the teacher and the student and leaves out a very crucial part of the child’s chances for success in school, namely the parent. An educational treatment plan that involves the school, the child, and the parent will have the greatest chance of helping the student succeed in school.
The educational treatment plan for your students with special needs will need to be a triangular plan. Coordination of services and techniques between the school, the child and home will increase the chances of success for a child with special needs in school. Many times it is only the school that is involved with the child, while the child is a passive recipient, and the parent’s onlookers. To increase the chances of success for the child you will need to coordinate the three sides of the educational plan. The three sides of this educational plan include the responsibilities of the school, the parents, and the child.
One side of the triangle should be the responsibilities on the part of the school to help the child reach his/her potential. The schools responsibilities should include the following:
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Academic goals and objectives
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Determining and monitoring modifications
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Determining and modifying accommodations
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IEP development
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Adaptations to the curriculum
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Determination of the child’s learning style
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Maintaining communication with the home
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Writing year end reports
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Teaching the required curriculum
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Providing and monitoring related services
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Collaborating with the child’s other teachers
You will need to communicate and instruct the parents so that they are very clear as to their role in this process. The side of the educational plan that contains the responsibilities of the parents could include items such as the following:
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Making sure that homework is checked every night so that the child comes to school every date feeling a sense of accomplishment and avoiding a sense of embarrassment or failure.
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Contacting you through mail, email, or phone if the child has had difficulty with an assignment and needs to go over it again.
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Reading to the child every night before bed if in elementary school and having the child read for 15 minutes every night if in secondary school. The reading should be of their choice. Reading is reading and stress free reading before bedtime is advisable. You do not want the child to go to sleep frustrated.
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Attending all conferences
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Working with their child on homework in ways described further in this section.
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Helping their child study for tests by following learning and studying guidelines set forth by you. Here you will have to carefully instruct the parents through specific directions the appropriate study support procedures that will not frustrate the child.
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To ensure that the child begins studying for tests on the study start date indicated to them by you. This should take into account the child’s learning style.
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Returning all progress reports on time with signatures indicating their awareness of the progress or concerns. Keep these in your files for accountability if there should ever be a concern.
The child makes up the third side of the triangle and his/her involvement in this process is equally important. His/her responsibilities can be outlined in the form of a contract or letter to the child they should include:
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Finishing homework every night or trying as much as he/she understands.
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Allowing his/her parent to check homework and suggest corrections. Note that you will have to work with parents on constructive suggestions verses criticism.
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Follow class rules
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Begin studying for tests when you inform the parents of the study start date for an upcoming test.
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Be able to approach the teacher when he/she is unable to do an assignment or does not understand a topic.
This plan should be written and given to all the parties involved if the age and developmental ability of the child allows for some understanding of responsibilities. This type of plan should work very nicely with what we call high incidence disabilities, namely those disabilities with the greatest number of students; learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, speech and language impairment and mental retardation (higher functioning). There are also other types of disabilities that could benefit from such a plan i.e. AD/HD under Other Health Impaired.
