Welcome back to the Student Involvement in the IEP Series, where we are exploring the different ways we can involve students in their own Individualized Education Plan, both as part of an IEP meeting and throughout the year. 

In Part 1, we explored a variety of ways students can get involved in their own process, whether or not they are formally part of the meeting, and in Part 2, we talked about ways to involve students in the preparation process for their meetings. 

In Part 3, we are taking a closer look at teaching students about their own role in the IEP process and what their participation may look like in practice.

It is one thing to talk about goals with a student in the abstract and then decide how to advocate for them during the meeting, and another entirely to coordinate with a student to make sure they have the space to practice self-advocacy when they want to and when they might prefer that you step in. On top of getting on the same page, an official meeting can be an intimidating thing! 

Students seeking to advocate for themselves must do so in front of a group of people who have a lot of decision-making power over their future education. Teaching and familiarizing students with how the IEP process works can go a long way toward helping students gauge what is the best use of their time while also helping to normalize the process and make it less stressful. So let’s dive in!

Before even getting started on the IEP, one helpful part of building a foundation for success is getting on the same page about why an IEP exists in the first place, both in the sense of its legal necessity and the spirit of what it hopes to fulfill. 

One particular point of emphasis worth making is that one goal IEPs are meant to help fulfill is making sure every student has equal access to education. It follows that one important reason we want students involved in their IEP is because we want students to feel like their education is meaningful, and setting goals is that much easier when we include input from the person that the goals are for! 

While different students may express different degrees of interest in the process, establishing a foundation of why can go a long way toward staying committed to finding a form of participation that feels right for a given student’s needs.

One thing students might rightfully wonder in the context of an IEP meeting is what their role might really look like, both in the sense of what they are “supposed” to do and the ways they feel comfortable sharing their thoughts. 

Offering students some primers on what each part of the IEP is for and how they might contribute to it, along with other people at the meeting. Especially interested students may even want to find ways to ensure that their meetings are framed from a student-led standpoint. 

Some handy guides and graphics pertaining to the ins and outs of meetings and what might be expected of a student based on how much they want to contribute can go a long way toward helping students decide and plan on how they want to engage with their own IEP.

Fundamentally, a student’s legal rights to share input at an IEP meeting do not automatically grant a student the ability to clearly communicate their needs to a group of people who may have differing opinions and all hold power over the student in some form. 

Put another way, IEP meetings can be an intimidating thing for a student to participate in! For all the steps we can take as teacher to normalize the process of students offering clear feedback on their own education plans, one conscious activity we can try is to run a practice meeting where a student can share their goals in the way they want to, practice potential scripts, and see how it feels to engage with the process in a safe setting. As a teacher, you can play the role of other stakeholders in the meeting to better simulate the different things that might be discussed during such a meeting. 

You can fill out a practice plan and use it both to inform your student’s goals and to see how it compares to the outcome of the actual meeting. The more normalized the process feels, the more students can focus on the much more important question of deciding what goals are most important to them.

There is no rule saying exactly what students need to do during an IEP meeting, and it makes sense! After all, every student has different needs and priorities and will want to contribute to their meeting in different ways. 

For students who want to participate but are intimidated by the process, we can make great use of this dynamic by inviting them to come to a meeting and start out by playing roles where they are minimally involved and fully considerate of their comfort level with active participation. As time goes on, we can offer students opportunities to offer feedback based on what they heard and, over time, open up the possibility of giving feedback in real time, and then maybe even bringing their own agenda to the meeting. 

Every student’s path will be different, but the bottom line is not to be afraid of meeting students where they are in a live meeting setting and going from there. After all, self-advocacy is its own skill needing practice, and we should do all we can to support students in building the skills they find most important!

We hope this post has offered some baseline ideas on how to teach your student about the role they will play in their IEP meeting, based on their preferences and on what is practical in a meeting context. If you have any experiences teaching or learning about IEP involvement that you would like to share, then we would love to hear from you! Just drop us a line at hello@autismgrownup.com and stay tuned for Part 4, where we will talk about how to keep your student involved in their IEP throughout the school year.