![]() Sometimes, a kid truly does need to be in the front seat, and that is okay. For the people writing the IEPs, it usually means seated away from distractions. For teachers, this means front row seating. However, the wording is a bit tricky and a thing I’ve asked to be clarified on quite a few accommodations. Preferential seating is a common accommodation on IEPs and 504s. Make sure the student isn’t just being steamrolled by the adults involved in the process. A student knows which classes are a bigger struggle for them than others, a student knows when they struggle to focus or get easily distracted (they also can tell you what things are their biggest distractions), and a student also knows if they struggle to complete work on time or face other challenges. ![]() On the teacher side, I can make suggestions and give feedback based on what I have noticed, but the student in question knows themselves better than anyone else and absolutely needs to have their voice be part of a process. The older students get, the more they should be involved in speaking up about what their needs are, especially regarding accommodations. What role should a student play in accommodations? If not, you may need to contact your child’s school to get things started. If your diagnosis happened through the school, they usually streamline things. Otherwise, kids with ADHD can be covered by a 504. Kids with severe ADHD (or ADHD coupled with a disability from the IDEA Act Thirteen) will get an IEP. A 504 still gets yearly reviews and is still legally binding like an IEP. A situation that needs accommodations but doesn’t qualify for an IEP gets a 504 and is handled through the counseling department. These accommodations are legally binding and teachers must abide by them.Ī 504 is very similar except the student has a situation not covered by the thirteen IDEA Act categories despite their situation impacting their ability to learn. The plan includes accommodations for helping a student to be successful in a classroom setting and might include provisions determining where a student sits, how much time they have to complete work, how their work gets graded etc. Once a year, this plan is reviewed and adjusted as needed. A meeting is set up through a school’s Special Education department to establish one once a student has been diagnosed with one of the thirteen disabilities as defined by IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and it is determined that the disability in question is adversely impacting them in school. What are 504s and IEPs?Īn IEP is an Individualized Education Plan. I recently thought it might be a benefit for more parents outside of my personal social group to hear, so I’m going to share my insights and advice here as someone who actually has seen what it looks like for an ADHD kid in class. With these experiences under my belt, I have given some advice to parents I know about what I would recommend asking for, and what they might need to know, to assist their newly diagnosed kid. I would like to note that I did have some students that also did not respond well to ADHD medication, so that wasn’t always an available tool for ADHD management. Two, I worked in low-income schools where quite a few families couldn’t afford ADHD medication and just barely made enough money to be ineligible for any assistance that way. One, I usually had second lunch so kids had to attend my class for fourth period before having lunch. ![]() My experience with ADHD kids was also impacted by two big things. I can only imagine that the elementary to middle school shift would be similarly different. This was because most accommodations were left over from middle school and sometimes they emphasized things that were not really a thing in high school (for example, spelling tests often don’t appear in high school, but sometimes still do in middle school), but lacked other things I thought would be beneficial. I taught ninth grade for almost every one of those years and this was a significant accommodation update point. As a former high school teacher, I’ve worked with quite a few kids with ADHD and attended quite a few IEP and 504 meetings where we discussed accommodations.
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