IEP Triennial Evaluation and Program Review Notes for Mikayla

General Behavioral Observations and Current Student Progress

• Internal Growth and Self-Esteem:
  • Mikayla has shown a marked increase in her self-esteem, motivation, and effort levels.
  • She has displayed a more positive attitude toward her schoolwork and general environment.
• Self-Advocacy Improvements:
  • The staff has observed Mikayla actively "checking in" regarding her assignments.
  • She is communicating directly with teachers or staff members such as Ms. Kaufman to identify work that needs to be turned in.
  • This fulfills a specific "self-advocacy piece" that was a goal in previous discussions.
• Classroom Performance Indicators:
  • Mikayla is asking more questions during class sessions.
  • Mr. Hamamoto notes that her workbook is significantly more complete than in the past.
  • While she still occasionally has incomplete pages (approximately three pages were cited as incomplete recently), this is described as a significant improvement over previous quarters.
• Grading and Focus Areas:
  • Mikayla currently holds a $D$ in Mr. Hamamoto's class.
  • A primary area for academic growth is quiz performance.
  • The teacher identified a need for her to utilize provided reviews, as tests and quizzes are heavily based on these reviews.

Specific Academic Support and Memory Strategies

• The Flashcard Intervention:
  • Mikayla has seen major success in History using flashcards for vocabulary development.
  • Subject Focus: Ancient Japan and China.
  • Challenge: The vocabulary included words that were difficult to pronounce as they are not common English words.
  • Implementation: She visited the learning center twice in a single day to review cards with Ms. Kaufman.
  • Result: This boosted her confidence and reduced her fear of making errors. On a recent assessment, she only missed two questions, achieving a score between $90\%$ and $100\%$ (specifically, a $100\%$ was noted for a Monday check).
• Peer and Staff Interaction:
  • Mikayla is described as naturally timid and hesitant to ask for help because she dislikes being wrong.
  • The small-group or one-on-one environment of the learning center provides a safe space where she is comfortable making mistakes and joking about difficult pronunciations (e.g., words like "a-o-e").
• Home Support Recommendations:
  • The team suggests bringing flashcards home for review with family members (sister or mother).
  • Staff suggests turning review sessions into games to decrease anxiety and encourage continued momentum.

Goal Progress and Measurement (May Reporting Cycle)

• Making Inferences Goal:
  • February Performance: $90\%$
  • Current Performance (May): $90\%$
  • Status: Goal Met.
  • Observation: She benefits from listening to text multiple times and discussing predictions with peers or staff.
• Writing Accuracy Goal:
  • Target: $80\%$ accuracy.
  • Current Performance (May): $70\%$
  • Historical Context: She was at $60\%$ last year, showing growth despite not meeting the target yet.
• Self-Advocacy and Initiation Goal:
  • Last School Year: $30\%$
  • December Performance: $60\%$
  • Current Performance (May): $70\%$
  • Focus: Overcoming the hurdle of starting tasks when directions are complex. The multi-modal nature of directions (reading, listening, and looking at them simultaneously) can be overwhelming.
  • Strategy: Encouraging her to take a breather and ask for clarification/repetition.

Speech-Language Pathology and Articulation Report

• Current Diagnostic Status:
  • Mikayla presents with an articulation disorder characterized by distortions and substitutions of the prevocalic and palatal $r$ sounds.
  • Impact: The error is noticeable in conversation but does not generally interfere with intelligibility.
• Testing Results (Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation - GFTA-3):
  • Word level: $11$ errors; Standard Score = $40$.
  • Sequence level: $9$ errors; Standard Score = $68$.
  • Informal sample: During a chat about her dog (who reportedly "attacks" her playfully), state testing, and her cousin's trip, she produced an accurate $r$ approximately $69\%$ of the time.
  • Specific Errors: Difficulty with $r$ blends (e.g., "scratching") and final vocalic $r$ sounds (e.g., "numbers"). Prevocalic $r$ (e.g., "remember") was usually accurate.
• Speech Goals:
  • Current Goal Status: Goal not yet met. Baseline was $42\%$, current is $69\%$.
  • Future Goal (by May $2027$): Mikayla will independently identify and attempt to correct speech errors in conversation with $80\%$ accuracy.
  • Services: $20$ sessions per year, at $25$ minutes per session (roughly once per week).

Cognitive Assessment Results (CAS Brief)

• Testing Administrator: Deanna Hernandez (School Psychologist).
• Scoring Range: Average is defined as $90$ to $110$.
• Results Summary:
  • Plan Codes: $85$ (Low Average). Measures executive functioning, planning, and working under time constraints with shifting keys.
  • Simultaneous Matrices: $89$ (Low Average). Measures non-verbal problem solving and recognizing visual relationships.
  • Expressive Attention: $78$ (Below Low Average). Measures the ability to inhibit a dominant response (e.g., naming the color of ink a word is printed in rather than reading the word itself).
  • Successive Digits: Resulted in the "low range." This measures short-term auditory memory and working memory. This was identified as her most significant area of deficit and has been consistent across previous triennial evaluations.

Phonological Processing and Social-Emotional Data

• Phonological Processing (Score Range $85$ to $115$):
  • Word Discrimination: An area of relative strength within the domain, but still challenging.
  • Blending and Phoneme Segmentation: Scored in the "low range." Mikayla struggles to take words apart and put individual sounds together to identify words.
• Social-Emotional Rating Scale (BASC-3):
  • Parent Survey: Most areas fell within the "Average" (White) range.
  • At-Risk Areas (Light Gray): Attention, Leadership, Functional Communication, and Activities of Daily Living.
  • Notes: Difficulty communicating needs fully and requiring extra reminders for tasks she has worked hard on.

Academic Achievement (Woodcock-Johnson IV)

• Oral Language:
  • Sentence Repetition: $89$ (Average).
  • Oral Comprehension: $82$ (Average range, focused on listening comprehension).
• Academic Skills:
  • Math Problem Solving: $76$ (Low Average).
  • Broad Reading: Score of $6$.
  • Observations: Major struggles with letter-word identification and non-automatic word identification. She has difficulty producing initial sounds to decode words.

Proposed IEP Program and Accommodations

• Eligibility Category: Specific Learning Disability (SLD) based on deficits in phonological processing and working memory.
• Instructional Service Minutes:
  • Push-in Support: $90$ minutes daily ($450$ minutes weekly).
  • Reading Support (Separate Setting): $140$ minutes weekly.
  • Total Weekly Minutes: $590\,min$.
• Proposed New Goals:
  • Reading Fluency: Focusing on decoding multi-syllabic words.
  • Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Development.
  • Math Word Problems.
  • Task Completion and continued Self-Advocacy.
• Detailed Accommodations:
  • Executive Functioning: Digital planner usage. She is granted $10$ minutes at the start or end of each period to update it, with initial staff verification to be phased out for independence.
  • Wait Time: $5$ minutes of "think time" for processing and responding.
  • Extended Time: Up to one day for assignments and assessments. This is tied to her self-advocacy goal; she must ask the teacher for the extension.
  • Testing: $50/50$ option on assessments she attempts in full.
  • General Aids: Text-to-speech, audiobooks, graphic organizers, simplified/repeated directions, trunking of assignments, and provided copies of class notes/outlines.

Transition and Future Planning

• Extended School Year (ESY): Not recommended currently as there is no evidence of goal regression.
• Summer Bridge Program: The high school (Lincoln High) typically offers a two-week program for eighth graders to familiarize them with the campus and transition into the ninth grade. Due to construction at Lincoln High, it is not available this year but is recommended for Mikayla next year.
• General Education Summer School: Offered through the district at Brookside for eighth graders.

Questions & Discussion

• Question: In the context of the speech articulation test, what is the "sequence level"?
• Response: The sequence level refers to standard scores based on testing sounds in more continuous or connected speech patterns rather than just single isolated words.
• Question: How does the extended time accommodation interact with the self-advocacy goal?
• Response: The team clarified that Mikayla is not simply given the time automatically; she must exercise her self-advocacy skills by approaching the teacher (e.g., Mr. Hamamoto) and asking for the extra day to complete her work.
• Question: What happens to these services in the event of school closures?
• Response: All discussed services and IEP components would be transferred to an online format.
• Question: Where should the parent sign the IEP document?
• Response: The parent signs the top line for participation. Signing the second line would erroneously indicate a principal's signature. The parent also initials consent for involvement and Medi-Cal reimbursement for services and testing.