I’m not sure what the labels on the teachers mean because each state can call the teachers something a little different, even though they may do the same thing.

I’ve been a special ed teacher and I wouldn’t worry about the labels. Your son’s IEP should guide everything that the school does for him, but you will want to stay informed about what services he gets. I often found that even students who qualified for services because of a learning disability benefited from some practice in changing a few behaviors. In fact, behaviorists would say that we can know that learning has occurred when some behavior has changed.

I am curious about the change in schools, especially since you did not choose it. Can you tell us more?

I have a NOW 13 year old son that has been tossed around from school to school for years now. Even told he could not attend JK OR SK because of his LABLE….so unlike what has been said LABLES COUNT.

Yes true we as parent should be able to go by our childs IEP to know where they are and where they are going. BUT once they hit a special ed class they are tossed aside and most of the LEARNING they do is from home base or pay a tutor. Not sure where you live so it might not happen to yours. But the TDSB here makes it a full time job to make sure my son is Learning…. I mean they don’t even give him homework so I can see what goes on at school.

Do some drop-in with out calling the school..see what is going on.

Best of luck

I am not sure where you live, so I too do not know what the initials stand for. The bottom line is that you need to call a meeting and ask them to take their time and explain in detail what the distinction is between the two different types of teachers. The other thing you may be able to do is ask for a parent advocate or a pupil personnel worker. They do this in my school district, but the key is that the school system is not in the business of letting you know what is available to you unless you ask them specifically. Tell them that you need someone who works for the school who is able to tell you exactly what your son’s learning style is, the types of programs that are available to him, and how to achieve the least restrictive environment. Also, although it is quite boring, take the time to read the Rights and Responsibilities brochure that they give you so you will know what to do when you disagree with them.

Good luck and all I can say is that you are your child’s best advocate, so try your best to find someone who will share info with you.

Each school district can have different titles for their special education teachers. The way to measure if your child is getting the right service is to take a look at his IEP. Is he meeting his IEP goals? If he is, then I would say regardless of the teacher’s title, he is getting the right service. If he is not meeting his IEP goals, then perhaps you should request an IEP meeting to discuss his goals.

Depending upon the countrys’ laws determine what labels and qualifications are encumbered upon an educator–what country/state are you from? In the USA, the latest spin is ‘educational specialist’ for a processing disorders ‘expert’. I am supposedly one.

Look at your sons identified processing disorder in his psycho-educational evaluation report (by a school psychologist) and look at his current IEP goals to determine whether the goals appear to focus on allowing your son to learn adaptive behaviors/processing techniques to ameliorate his processing disorder or not.