Clinical Field Experience B: Collaborating with Service Providers I observed and interviewed a first grade teach in special education. We discussed the different ways she collaborates with different service providers and how important it is when working in special education. We talked about the difference between clinical and educational therapies. Clinical providers main goal is to evaluate, identify and treat mental health problems. Whereas, educational providers work with the parents, the special educational teacher and other professionals to improve the student’s development while in school. Ms. Davidson stated for a child to do great in the program you must have good communication, joint decision making an respect to support each personal on the IEP team. These choices that everyone collectively gathers and decides what is best for the student’s education. Each service provider has some way
to sort and gather information through out the school year to show where that student has improved over the school year. There is different ways to gather information from data sheets that each service provider has for that student. The ones Ms. Davidson uses is to track the progress of the goals that she has written for the student. She will collect data and use benchmarks to show the improvement the student has made over the school year. Another one is social-emotional this is where they collect the data of the student’s social abilities, emotional control and interpersonal relationship. Another one is Speech pathologist they track the way a student is able to use their words to express themselves. All the data that each individual takes has to be stored and place in a private area. When you have regular meeting, informal contact and progress reports it helps the team to know how the student is doing. When making decisions on the student education it is critical to be well informed and also that all the IEP team is aware of the same information. Sometimes service providers may have a lack of continuity and this
