IEP Meeting season is almost here! So, for this blog post, we wanted to focus on how Datability can help you be better prepared for your meetings and provide some tips on how you can approach them better.
ADHD PARENTING & TEACHING: IEP Meeting Tips
When it comes to students with ADHD—or any disability really—it’s all about teamwork between parents and teachers. And, as our friend Tanya from Project Happy Home highlights in her video below, Datability gives you a collaborative platform that makes tracking and goal setting so much easier for you and the child!
Keep reading to discover more benefits of Datability and some tips on how to prepare for IEP meetings whether you’re a parent or a teacher.
Benefits of Using Datability for Students with ADHD & IEP Meetings
- Provides a platform for measurable smart goals.
- Allows you to easily create, track, update, and assess goals.
- Enables you to set clear time periods for goals.
- Allows you to effortlessly change the framework of how you evaluate goals.
- Implementing checkpoints gives you greater clarity about where the student is at throughout the year.
- Lets you see a clear progression and assessment of behaviour.
On top of these, Datability was created to help students meet goals as opposed to recording deficits.
IEP Meeting Tips for Parents
When preparing for these IEP meetings, parents should keep an open mind and go in with a collaborative attitude in order to focus on what’s best for your child. Here are some other IEP meeting tips for parents to consider:
- Be prepared: Write down all of your child’s needs, challenges, questions you might have, and what you’d like to accomplish.
- Bring a friend, or someone to go with you.
- Establish a point-of-contact person in advance.
- Make it personal: Remind the team of who your child truly is with pictures, their favorite toy, or other items that represent them.
- Plan a follow-up meeting and send a follow-up email.
IEP Meeting Tips for Teachers
As a teacher, being organized, positive, and open are your best friends when it comes to IEP meetings. On top of those, here are some other IEP pointers that will help ensure a successful meeting:
- Make sure everyone who needs to be there is at the meeting.
- Start and stay positive throughout the meeting.
- Be sensitive: Remember that everyone just wants the best for the student.
- Use empathy: Realize that parents know their children the best and only want them to succeed.
- Ask for help: If you need additional support, don’t be afraid to ask your administration or counselors for assistance.
If you’re a teacher or a parent that has a student with ADHD, you’ll definitely want to check out Tanya’s video and her channel.
Don’t Go Through Another IEP Season Without Datability!
Did you miss out this year on the effectiveness of Datability? Don’t let another year go by without it!
I understand things are extremely busy right now but why not take this time (or this summer) to plan more effectively for the next school year? Schedule a professional development session with me and have your district adopt Datability for the next school year. That way, your teachers can implement good tracking practices for special needs students from the get-go. This will significantly help them in the long run—by the end of the year, they’ll have a much better understanding of their student’s progress and will have saved tons of time along the way.
We encourage you to take advantage of all that Datability has to offer by watching our tutorials.