by Leigh Goessl

Created on: May 22, 2009

Parent advocates are an important part of every child's education. A child who has special needs is going to need someone to organize and pull together their education plan to ensure they get the best structured education that will meet their individual learning needs.

The ideal parent advocate for a special education student is the child's own parent. Parents know their child's personality, learning style and needs best and have the best insight and understanding of what should be included in their child's learning plan.

Advocating is an overwhelming process and it entails learning a whole new environment, and to some extent a whole new language. Understanding the meaning of all the acronyms and lingo is a tough hurdle to climb over. However, it isn't impossible and once you've got the jargon down, this makes things easier.

With a little research, guidance and going on your own instincts, you too can be a strong parent advocate for your child. If the Individual Education Plan (IEP) is a new process for you, it can be frustrating, intimidating and confusing.

Navigating the special education process is a definitive learning curve and takes some effort to learn how to work in the system. Bureaucracy is often difficult to navigate and learning your legal rights is another aspect to learn. Here is a rundown of the basics in the special education process:

*Annual Review

The annual review is when the Committee of Special Education meets as a group to review, assess and determine a child's special education needs. This is an important meeting because the classification decided will impact your child's education.

As a part of this process, an IEP is developed and this will determine the education plan for the following school year. Adjustments, additions, and deletions are made from the previous year's plan after assessments and discussions occur. Sometimes new needs develop, or benchmarks have been met and changes are made as the child grows.

*Related Services

Related services are any needs that help facilitate learning. Some children have occupational, physical, speech or cognitive therapy needs that will enable learning, and without these services a child may have difficulty keeping up.

Other services may be physical accommodations or counseling. There are many different kinds of related services which may be considered. During the IEP meetings it is determined if and any kinds of services are deemed necessary to a child's special education needs. Once

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