From the desk of Theresa Golden, following questions from our department meeting:
In response to your questions...typically social would go under behavior. We are NOT required to do a FBA/BIP although it's oftentimes best practice especially when there are significant behaviors which are causing safety/classroom disruption concerns. Adaptive behavior may also provide some links to social development, and as you mention especially with non-verbal students. Typically however when behavior is checked that also implies exploration of social-emotional development that may impact learning.
There is a lot of confusion about supplementary aides and services and support to school personnel. I have a question about this currently into our procedure committee when we meet again. The differences that are outlined in the current documentation guide are this: 'Supplementary Aides and Services' refers to the need of the student of an aide in order to ACCESS their education in the learning environment. Typically this then is for a 1:1 for a student with physical/visual/motor/behavioral concerns who without the aide would not be able to literally be in school due to safety concerns, physical needs etc... The 'Support to School Personnel' is just that aide assistance to the special education/general education teacher to assist with instructional/behavioral needs the student would have in the LRE environment. Examples of this are: pre-teaching concepts, re-teaching, verbal prompting, small group work to provide additional modifications, accommodations. These are things that assist the teacher as they can't be everywhere and need support to insure that work is differentiated for the IEP student.
Finally, students can/will qualify for an IEP only needing IH or IVision support and like speech only or OT only they would have a support only IEP with no weighting. If there are additional instructional supports required through a district special education teacher or additional assistive technology devices the student will garner a weighting.
It is true that FBAs are not required. According to the procedures manual, "A FBA should be conducted for any eligible child/youth with a behavioral concern..." Further, research data indicates that Behavior Interventions Plans created without an FBA are more likely to fail than succeed. I would consider it a compelling professional issue that FBAs ALWAYS be done when a BIP is written.
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