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Identification of Preschool Students (3-5 Years of Age)
Our district conducts it’s own early childhood screening for children 3 to 5 years of age. To initiate this screening process, parents and other referring parties contact the Special Services Department.
Through this process, children who may require special education services are referred to the Planning and Placement Team for consideration for further evaluation. Parents and other referring parties may also contact the Special Services Department to refer a child to a PPT.
Identification of School Age Students (5-21 Years of Age)
• Transfer Students
The principal or designee in each of our schools reviews the records of any new student transferring from another school system. If the records indicate that the student has been identified as a student with disabilities and that the student requires special education and related services, the student is immediately enrolled in school and given the appropriate program and services identified on the student’s IEP. The programs and services will match the existing IEP as closely as possible. If the Individualized Education Program from the sending school requires modifications, a Planning and Placement Team meeting is held at the earliest possible opportunity. For students transferring from another state, the PPT may need to evaluate the student’s determined eligibility by Connecticut guidelines.
•Currently Enrolled Students
Students attending our district schools receive the ongoing attention of professional personnel to help support their successful learning. Students whose behavior, attendance, or progress in school is considered unsatisfactory, at a marginal level of acceptance (i.e., potential drop-outs), or are suspended repeatedly, are promptly referred to a PPT by completing the district’s standard referral form and notifying the parents within 5 days of the referral by completing the Notice of Referral to PPT. A PPT is scheduled to discuss the referral concerns and to decide how the PPT will proceed (See Chapter 4 Evaluation). Such students are identified through anecdotal records, conversations with parents, individual performance records and standardized test results (including, but not limited to, the Connecticut Mastery Tests or Connecticut Academic Performance Tests).
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TYPES AND DEFINITIONS OF EXCEPTIONALITIES
FEDERAL DEFINITIONS
The Education of the Handicapped Regulations (34 CFR 300.5(b) provides the following definition of a handicapped child:
The term "handicapped children" means those children evaluated in accordance with Regs. 300.530-300-534 as being mentally retarded, hard of hearing, deaf, speech impaired, visually handicapped, seriously emotionally disturbed, orthopedically impaired, other health impaired, deaf-blind, multi-handicapped or as having specific learning disabilities, who because of those impairments need special education and related services.
The regulations provide specific definitions for the following exceptionalities:
Autistic: means having an autistic condition which is manifested by severe communication and other developmental and educational problems.
Deaf: means a hearing impairment which is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, which adversely affects educational performance.
Deaf-blind: means concomitant hearing and visual impairments, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational problems that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for learners who are deaf or blind.
Hard of hearing: means a hearing impairment, whether permanent or fluctuating, which adversely affects a learner's educational performance but which is not included under the definition of "deaf" in this section.
Mentally retarded: means significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the development period, which adversely affects a learner's educational performance.
Multi-handicapped: means concomitant impairments (such as mentally retarded-blind, mentally retarded-orthopedically impaired, etc.), the combination of which causes such severe educational problems that they cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments. The term does not include learners who are deaf-blind.
Orthopedically Impaired: means a severe orthopedic impairment which adversely affects a learner's educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by congenital anomaly (e.g., clubfoot, absence of some member, etc.), and impairments from other causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns which cause contractures).
Other Health Impaired: means having limited strength, vitality or alertness, due to chronic or acute health problems such as a heart condition, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever, nephritis, asthma, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, epilepsy, lead poisoning, leukemia, or diabetes, which adversely affects a learner's educational performance.
Seriously Emotionally Disturbed: is defined as follows:
1. The term means a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree, which adversely affects educational performance:
a. an ability to learn which cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors;
b. ability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers;
c. inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances;
d. a general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or
e. a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.
2. The term includes learners who are schizophrenic. The term does not include learners who are socially maladjusted, unless it is determined that they are seriously emotionally disturbed.
Specific Learning Disability: means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or to do mathematical calculations. The term includes such conditions as perceptual handicapping conditions, brain injury, minimal brain disfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does not include learners who have learning problems which are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor handicapping conditions, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance or of environmental, cultural or economic disadvantage.
Speech Impaired: means a communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, which adversely affects a learner's educational performance.
Traumatic Brain Injury: means an acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychosocial impairment, or both, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as cognition; language; memory; attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgement; problem-solving; sensory; perceptual and motor abilities; psychosocial behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech. The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or birth injuries induced by birth trauma.
Visually Handicapped: means a visual impairment which, even with correction, adversely affects a learner's educational performance. The term includes both learners who are partially seeing and learners who are blind.
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ANNUAL NOTIFICATION TO PARENTS - CHILD FIND
The Montville Board of Education is committed to providing full and appropriate educational opportunities to all disabled students. The Montville schools offer a full range of special services, including but not limited to the following:
o specialized instruction for students who are identified as learning disabled, neurologically impaired and developmentally disabled;
o services for visually, hearing and physically impaired;
o psychological services;
o physical and occupational therapy;
o homebound instruction;
o evaluation in all areas related to educational programs;
o services for special needs preschoolers ages 3-5.
When services for educational needs cannot be provided within the public schools, the district contracts for services with private agencies.
Federal regulations require that all handicapped children, Birth to 21 years of age, be located, evaluated and identified.
For children Birth to Three years of age - the school district is responsible to identify the child's needs. The school district provides evaluation for children Birth to Three in the following areas: speech/language, audiological, developmental assessments. Prior to and upon completion of all evaluations, the school district staff, parents and other professionals would meet to determine which evaluations appear necessary and to discuss the results of the evaluations that have been conducted. Direct services are not provided to children from Birth to Three, but the district is dedicated to working with parents to locate appropriate services for their child.
Preschool children requiring special education services or a related service are defined as "children who have attained the age of three and whose degree and type of exceptionality, based on evaluation by the PPT (Planning and Placement Team), is such that the absence of special education will impair the child's educational development to the extent that it is unlikely that the child will be able to make satisfactory educational progress when he/she attains school age."
Referrals are accepted from parents, agencies, and other individuals. For children who are ages Birth to Three, are of preschool age, and school age children who are not enrolled in our town schools, please contact:
Donna M. Maynard
Director of Special Services
Office of the Superintendent
Old Colchester Road
Oakdale, CT 06370
(860)848-1228
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RELATED SERVICES DEFINITIONS:
The PPT, in its recommendation for programming for children with special needs, should consider the following related services. If recommended by the PPT, these become part of the child’s individualized education program, and must be provided at no cost to the parents.
1. "Audiology" includes:
Identification of children with hearing loss and the determination of the range, nature, and degree of hearing loss, including a referral for medical or other professional attention;
Determination of the child’s need for group and individual amplification, selecting and fitting an appropriate aid, and evaluating the effectiveness of amplification.
2. "Counseling services" means services provided by qualified social workers, psychologists, guidance counselors, or other qualified personnel such as a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist.
3. "Early identification" means the implementation of a formal plan for identifying a disability as early as possible in a child’s school life.
4. "Medical services" means services provided by a licensed physician to determine a child’s medical condition as it relates to his/her handicap which results in the child’s need for special education and related services.
5. "Occupational therapy" includes:
Improving, developing or restoring functions impaired or lost through illness, injury, or deprivation;
Improving ability to perform tasks for independent functioning when functions are impaired or lost; and
Preventing, through early intervention, initial or further impairment or loss of function.
6. "Parent counseling and training" means assisting parents in understanding the special needs of their child and providing parents with information about child development.
7. "Physical therapy" means services provided by a qualified physical therapist.
8. "Psychological services" include:
Administering psychometric, and/or projective tests in addition to other assessment procedures;
Interpreting assessment results;
Obtaining, integrating, and interpreting information about child behavior and conditions relating to learning;
Consulting with other staff members in planning school programs to meet the special needs of children as indicated by psychological tests, interviews, and behavioral evaluations; and Planning and managing a program of psychological services, including psychological counseling for children and parents.
9. "School health services" means services provided by a qualified school nurse or other qualified person.
10. "Speech pathology" includes:
Identification of children with speech or language disorders that adversely interferes with their educational performance;
Diagnosis and appraisal of specific speech or language disorders;
Referral for medical or other professional attention necessary for the habilitation of speech or language disorders;
Provisions of speech and language services for the habilitation or prevention of communicative disorders;
Counseling and guidance of parents, children, and teachers regarding speech and language disorders.
11. "Transportation" includes:
Travel to and from school and between schools within district;
Specialized equipment (such as special or adapted buses, lifts, and ramps), if required to provide special transportation for a handicapped child.
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