Fostering Futures℠
The California Association of Health and Education Linked Professions is excited to introduce you to Fostering Futures℠ a podcast that brings you high-quality, research-based content designed to inspire and educate. Each episode is crafted with care, drawing on the knowledge of credible experts, parents, and community members to ensure both trustworthiness and depth.
Our mission is to engage and expand our audience by delivering thought-provoking material that focuses on key areas crucial to the development and well-being of all youth. Through our discussions, we aim to provide insights that are not only relevant but also transformative.
Join us as we explore innovative approaches in special education, Social Emotional Well-Being, and Community. Be ready to be apart of a community committed to making a positive impact.
Visit us at www.cahelp.org
Fostering Futures℠
Episode 18 - What Happens to Speech Services at Age Three?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, Pam Bender fills in as host and is joined by Iván Campos, Program Specialist at CAHELP, for an in‑depth conversation about speech and language services from an educational lens.
Iván brings his experience as a bilingual speech‑language pathologist and early intervention specialist to break down how families can navigate speech and language supports across systems. The conversation explores the differences between medical and school‑based eligibility, how early intervention services transition at age three, and what parents need to know when requesting school assessments and participating in IEP meetings.
Pam and Iván also discuss multilingual language development, how to distinguish language difference versus language disorder, and why families should continue speaking their home language. Listeners gain practical strategies for supporting language development at home, advocating during IEP meetings, and understanding parent rights throughout the special education process.
This episode offers parents, educators, and service providers clear guidance, reassurance, and tools for supporting children through speech and language services, while keeping the focus on empowerment, connection, and doing what works best for each child.
Highlights
- Iván explains the differences between medical and school‑based speech services.
- Clear guidance on early intervention and the transition process at age three.
- Insight into multilingual language development and evaluation.
- Practical tips for parents entering IEP meetings.
- Strategies families can use at home to support language growth.
- Emphasis on cultural identity, access, and parent empowerment.
Key Takeaways
- Medical and educational speech services serve different purposes and use different eligibility criteria.
- Parents must initiate school assessments; services do not transfer automatically.
- Multilingualism does not cause language delays.
- Parents have the right to interpreters and to ask questions during IEPs.
- Consistent interaction matters more than technology for language development.
- Understanding the process empowers families to advocate effectively.
Thanks for listening! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram | www.cahelp.org | podcast@cahelp.org
00:00:10 Intro
The relentless pursuit of whatever works in the life of a child.
00:00:18 Intro
Welcome to Fostering Futures with CAHELP, a podcast dedicated to our relentless pursuit of whatever works in the life of a child.
00:00:26 Intro
I'm your host, Athena Cordero, inviting you to join me and countless others as we share our unique perspectives and expertise in the world of special education, behavioral health, social-emotional well-being, and community.
00:00:39 Intro
Follow us on Buzzsprout, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
00:00:45 Pam Bender
Hello, I'm Pam Bender, and I'm going to be your host today, filling in for Athena Cordero.
00:00:50 Pam Bender
I'm thrilled to be joined by Iván Campos, Program Specialist for CAHELP.
00:00:55 Pam Bender
Iván brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in helping schools and families navigate speech and language services.
00:01:02 Pam Bender
Together, we'll discuss eligibility, available supports, and practical strategies for parents to advocate for their child's success.
00:01:10 Pam Bender
Welcome, Iván.
00:01:12 Iván Campos
Thank you for having me here.
00:01:13 Pam Bender
Well, to start, could you tell our listeners a little bit about your role and background in speech and language services?
00:01:19 Iván Campos
Absolutely.
00:01:20 Iván Campos
I would say that my introduction to speech and language services came through
00:01:25 Iván Campos
early intervention.
00:01:26 Iván Campos
I used to serve as an interpreter.
00:01:28 Iván Campos
And so there I became aware of ages zero through three in terms of their needs.
00:01:34 Iván Campos
And that's where someone suggested to me, oh, you'd be great if you become a speech language pathologist.
00:01:40 Iván Campos
So I started off on that journey.
00:01:42 Iván Campos
And in terms of my work experience as a speech language pathologist, bilingual speech language pathologist, there's only about 8% of us in the United States.
00:01:53 Iván Campos
My journey has taken me through serving the public schools, also in some private practices, and along with a residential nursing facility for children that are vent dependent, and also receive intravenous feeds, and also an inpatient rehab for Loma Linda.
00:02:12 Iván Campos
So a little bit about kind of where I've been.
00:02:16 Iván Campos
In terms of what I do at the SELPA, as a program specialist, I'm assigned to various school districts,
00:02:22 Iván Campos
and support in the areas of what it could be professional development, maybe a thought partner to the special ed director, maybe facilitating IEPs, compliance work, and then also professional development in various different areas, including speech and language and AAC.
00:02:39 Pam Bender
So as you talked about becoming a speech language pathologist and starting out as an interpreter,
00:02:46 Pam Bender
What do you think inspired you the most about moving on to being a speech-language pathologist?
00:02:52 Iván Campos
That's a great question.
00:02:54 Iván Campos
I was living in rural Virginia at the time, where small towns, maybe two or three thousand, you know, population, and the Hispanic population, Spanish-speaking population was maybe the one percent of the population there.
00:03:09 Iván Campos
And so,
00:03:11 Iván Campos
I saw such a great need in terms of early intervention, in terms of being able to communicate with families in their native language, that it made such a dynamic-- it influenced the dynamic between the speech-language pathologist, the early intervention staff, and the family.
00:03:29 Iván Campos
And so I saw myself of, wow, imagine if I was able to continue my education and obtain this degree.
00:03:38 Iván Campos
What an impact I could have with families in terms of somebody speaking their language, understanding their culture, and being able to be a bridge to obtaining services.
00:03:48 Iván Campos
And that's kind of where the desire, I think, came from.
00:03:52 Pam Bender
Okay.
00:03:53 Iván Campos
To fill a need.
00:03:55 Pam Bender
Right.
00:03:56 Pam Bender
That sounds exciting.
00:03:57 Pam Bender
And so when we were talking earlier, you had shared that
00:04:02 Pam Bender
you had an experience with a family at a park one afternoon.
00:04:06 Pam Bender
And I think about, as you talk about how exciting you were about bringing everybody together, even where you're at now, when you're out in the community, you're still thinking about that.
00:04:17 Pam Bender
Do you want to share a little bit about your experience with this family?
00:04:20 Iván Campos
Definitely.
00:04:21 Iván Campos
I'm going to give credit to my wife because she's the social butterfly.
00:04:25 Iván Campos
And so we're at the dog park and, you know, we have our little two Chihuahuas there.
00:04:30 Iván Campos
and there's all these other big dogs and you know, there was a little interesting interaction between a bigger dog and a little Chihuahua one of my Chihuahuas and so a conversation started with a family that was there that my wife kind of brought it forth and so Somehow my wife shared that she's special education teacher.
00:04:50 Iván Campos
Oh, and my husband's a speech language pathologist He now works at CAHELP and so that kind of started this conversation and I'm gonna use a pseudonym
00:04:59 Iván Campos
for just to kind of paint a story of how this family went through a journey to get services.
00:05:05 Iván Campos
And so child is 3 years old, name is Sophia, and was receiving services through her insurance.
00:05:14 Iván Campos
Did not go the route of early intervention from zero to three, but started off maybe with speech and language services through medical insurance.
00:05:23 Iván Campos
And so they were asking,
00:05:27 Iván Campos
is there anything at school that could help my child?
00:05:29 Iván Campos
I know there's preschool programs, but those are for kids that are talking, correct?
00:05:33 Iván Campos
My child is still not potty trained.
00:05:35 Iván Campos
Will they accept her?
00:05:37 Iván Campos
And so it was kind of this conversation about, are there any services for our child from three years and above?
00:05:43 Iván Campos
And I said, absolutely.
00:05:45 Iván Campos
So then that kind of spurred a conversation about, do you know where your homeschool is?
00:05:50 Iván Campos
And the family did not know.
00:05:51 Iván Campos
So then I hopped on my phone, we looked up the district where they lived in,
00:05:56 Iván Campos
and were able to find a home school, and so kind of set them on their way.
00:06:01 Iván Campos
And so, but their questions were related to, how do I ask for an assessment?
00:06:05 Iván Campos
How do I, who do I talk to?
00:06:07 Iván Campos
Do I need to enroll my child?
00:06:09 Iván Campos
They had so many questions about services and what they could look like, and they were asking, well, what if she has other areas of need?
00:06:17 Iván Campos
Do I need to tell them, or will they know, meaning the school?
00:06:22 Iván Campos
And that was kind of that interaction that kind of had me thinking,
00:06:26 Iván Campos
I wonder if there's more families that maybe are trying to figure out how to get support for their child but may not know where to start, especially if they didn't go through Inland Regional Center or a zero to three infant toddler program.
00:06:38 Pam Bender
So with that, because she was getting medical services, do you see that there's an area that perhaps education needs to work with the medical staff to let them know what's available in addition to medical services?
00:06:54 Iván Campos
I think that
00:06:55 Iván Campos
I think there needs to be some type of understanding.
00:06:59 Iván Campos
Sometimes medical doctors may or may not fully understand services in the school setting because they're educationally related, where in the medical setting, they're more to improve health and daily functioning.
00:07:11 Iván Campos
There's the term called medical necessity.
00:07:14 Iván Campos
And so sometimes these two systems are operating, but they may not be talking to each other.
00:07:19 Iván Campos
You know, once in a while, doctors will write a prescription for a one-on-one aid.
00:07:23 Iván Campos
or for a child to be assessed in the school setting right right but many times maybe they're just they have so much too many patients on their caseloads maybe that conversation isn't had even from a speech-language pathologist perspective say you're in a private practice I think maybe sometimes we kind of just focus within our silos and don't really well they're getting speech here so but the mom is not really or the dad is not really asking for more so
00:07:53 Iván Campos
this child will eventually talk.
00:07:54 Iván Campos
I don't see that they need special.
00:07:56 Iván Campos
It might be a clinical, medical, speech language pathologist kind of having that thought process.
00:08:01 Iván Campos
But I think that there needs to be some interaction.
00:08:03 Iván Campos
I know when I worked in another district, prior to coming here to the SELPA, we would have some reaching out to different clinics because sometimes you get too many requests from a particular doctor.
00:08:14 Iván Campos
And to kind of maybe bring to them information about what to look for, what not to look for.
00:08:20 Pam Bender
Right.
00:08:21 Pam Bender
And it's always interesting when you look at the medical model, because I've heard from parents before that, well, the doctor told me that they'll just grow into it.
00:08:30 Pam Bender
They're eventually going to talk.
00:08:32 Pam Bender
And they're not talking.
00:08:34 Pam Bender
And then I have another child, and that child starts to surpass their older sibling.
00:08:40 Pam Bender
And then I'm thinking, well, maybe I should have asked for more.
00:08:44 Pam Bender
And so I think making sure we understand that parents should ask for more if they are questioning.
00:08:50 Iván Campos
Absolutely.
00:08:51 Iván Campos
And there is some variability in childhood development, child development where we're looking at windows of development.
00:08:58 Iván Campos
At certain ages, we expect a child for maybe, let's say, 24 to 36 months.
00:09:04 Iván Campos
Maybe they're going to be doing X, Y, Z, right?
00:09:07 Iván Campos
So we are really looking at windows of development.
00:09:09 Iván Campos
Like not all children start walking at 12 months.
00:09:12 Iván Campos
Some of them start at 10, some of them start at 15.
00:09:14 Iván Campos
So there's a window within which we expect things to occur.
00:09:18 Iván Campos
But if they're not occurring when during these windows, then it could be some pause for concern.
00:09:24 Iván Campos
And going to a medical doctor could support a child, you know, that is not enrolled in school or even in school, but receiving a medical-based service.
00:09:33 Iván Campos
which by the way, the eligibility to receive those services is very different than at the school setting.
00:09:37 Iván Campos
I'm sure you're aware.
00:09:38 Pam Bender
That was going to be my next question is what's the difference between medical eligibility and educational eligibility, IDEA, which is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
00:09:48 Pam Bender
For those of us who, just so that you know, it's the 50-year anniversary of that right now as well.
00:09:54 Pam Bender
So what does that mean?
00:09:55 Iván Campos
I think within the medical setting, we're really looking at is there a medical necessity, meaning that without intervention,
00:10:04 Iván Campos
the client or the patient's quality of life will be impacted, their daily functioning.
00:10:09 Iván Campos
And so we're looking at it from a daily functioning, improving health outcomes model.
00:10:15 Iván Campos
And there's criteria.
00:10:17 Iván Campos
I always say that whoever's paying for the service determines the criteria in a way.
00:10:22 Iván Campos
And because within the medical model, you can either have an enrichment service, which means that there's not really a medical necessity,
00:10:31 Iván Campos
And many times families will pay out of pocket for those services.
00:10:34 Iván Campos
But then there is the insurance side of it, which the speech pathologist has to determine a medical necessity.
00:10:40 Iván Campos
And they do that through their clinical observations, standardized measures, various diagnostic tools.
00:10:47 Iván Campos
And eventually they will provide a diagnosis, a treatment plan, and then therapy services.
00:10:54 Iván Campos
And then insurance will either approve or deny.
00:10:58 Iván Campos
Now, you asked also about schools, correct?
00:11:00 Iván Campos
Yes.
00:11:01 Iván Campos
So now you mentioned an acronym, IDEA.
00:11:05 Iván Campos
And so within the school settings, we're bound to federal law and then California Ed Code that explains how they're meeting the requirements of IDEA.
00:11:17 Iván Campos
And so within the school environment, there are 13 areas of eligibility for various
00:11:24 Iván Campos
disabilities.
00:11:25 Iván Campos
And so in the school model, it's called speech or language impairment.
00:11:29 Iván Campos
And what we're really looking at, whether there's an impact on learning or the classroom performance, and whether it requires special ed or related services.
00:11:40 Iván Campos
And speech is many times considered a related service.
00:11:44 Iván Campos
And so sometimes parents are like, well, Ivan, my child is receiving articulation therapy in a private practice.
00:11:52 Iván Campos
for one sound error perhaps, or maybe two.
00:11:56 Iván Campos
But at school, they don't meet eligibility.
00:11:59 Iván Campos
How could that be?
00:12:00 Iván Campos
How could they receive services here and not at school?
00:12:04 Iván Campos
Well, then it goes back to the purpose and the why behind the medical model and the why behind the school-based model.
00:12:12 Iván Campos
And again, in the school model, they do assessments, evaluations, reports, and then they meet for an IEP meeting, individualized education.
00:12:21 Iván Campos
program or plan.
00:12:22 Iván Campos
I've heard it said both different ways, depending on who you talk to.
00:12:26 Iván Campos
And then it's a team decision based to support that child if they're eligible.
00:12:32 Pam Bender
So if they're already medically eligible, how would they use that insurance report when they want to request school-based services?
00:12:44 Iván Campos
That's a great question.
00:12:46 Iván Campos
Many times, parents don't want to bring information in, but if they choose to bring in information, the parents, as part of this evaluation process to determine whether their child meets eligibility for special education, can bring outside reports to be considered by the IEP team.
00:13:03 Iván Campos
Again, I mentioned earlier that the medical model looks at medical necessity and looks at it from the perspective of improving health and daily functioning, while at school, we're really looking at
00:13:16 Iván Campos
Does the child have a disability that is impacting their ability to access the general ed curriculum?
00:13:22 Iván Campos
Does it require a specialist?
00:13:24 Iván Campos
And essentially also, do they meet eligibility for a disability under one of those 13 areas?
00:13:30 Iván Campos
So I hope I've answered your question.
00:13:32 Pam Bender
I think you have.
00:13:33 Iván Campos
Okay.
00:13:34 Pam Bender
Right.
00:13:34 Pam Bender
And so I kind of want to move into the fact that you're bilingual.
00:13:39 Pam Bender
And being a bilingual speech pathologist or speech language therapist,
00:13:46 Pam Bender
How do you share with parents of families that are multilingual in knowing whether or not their child has a speech and language deficit?
00:13:57 Pam Bender
Maybe is it a language barrier or is there an impairment of some kind?
00:14:02 Pam Bender
How do we how do we go about knowing whether or not that child would need therapy?
00:14:08 Iván Campos
You know, that question requires us to look at many different factors.
00:14:16 Iván Campos
But in talking to a family, parents know their children the best.
00:14:21 Iván Campos
And so regardless if they're speaking Spanish at home, if they're speaking Hindi, Arabic, Tagalog, a child, we expect to develop language according to milestones, right?
00:14:38 Iván Campos
So there's some universal markers for language development, however,
00:14:42 Iván Campos
When you look at different languages, there's some splitting off because some languages may have these grammar tenses, this other language may not.
00:14:50 Iván Campos
And so there's some differences, but we expect children to have words to communicate within their daily environments at home.
00:14:55 Iván Campos
Now, if it's a family that has maybe English, Spanish at the same time, maybe the grandparents are speaking one language to their adult children, and maybe the parents are speaking English amongst themselves, and maybe only English to their children.
00:15:08 Iván Campos
then these child are multilingual and they may be receptively Spanish speakers and English speakers, but expressively only Spanish.
00:15:16 Iván Campos
But we are still looking for that they're going to have, based on developmental milestones, certain number of words, certain number of utterances, certain number of sounds that they're able to produce.
00:15:28 Iván Campos
And so you want to compare children that are bilingual with other children who are bilingual to see if there's a difference or not.
00:15:37 Iván Campos
And so it's not necessarily a standardized score or a test like it is for many, for maybe English only students.
00:15:45 Iván Campos
There are some Spanish measures, but they're limited.
00:15:48 Iván Campos
And so we really want to look at that child's language acquisition profile to understand in this context, should we expect English or Spanish or, but again, it should, we should, by developmental milestones, say a child is five, we should expect sentences five to six words.
00:16:05 Iván Campos
Regardless of whether they're bilingual or not So parents will compare and say and going back to Sophia right Sophia is Comes from a home where they do speak English in another language.
00:16:18 Iván Campos
I don't remember the other language right now But they were concerned that when they compare it to her cousins that are also bilingual that She's only at the one word stage where the cousins around that three or four year olds They're talking three or four word phrases
00:16:35 Iván Campos
And so that kind of pause was a pause for concern for this family.
00:16:41 Iván Campos
When we compare her to other similar same age peers, is there a difference or not?
00:16:46 Iván Campos
And if there is, how far is it?
00:16:47 Iván Campos
Could it be that one child is shy?
00:16:50 Iván Campos
But I would say if you're talking several words decrease in spoken production, that's for concern.
00:16:58 Pam Bender
So in those families where they find that there's
00:17:03 Pam Bender
a decrease in the language, whether it's their native language or English, would you, how do speech language pathologists feel?
00:17:14 Pam Bender
Because I was going to say you, but not necessarily you.
00:17:19 Pam Bender
The recommendation for parents in developing that language, is there a recommendation from your associations or from your professional
00:17:33 Pam Bender
area about encouraging parents to speak in one specific language to assist with that language development?
00:17:42 Pam Bender
Or is it still a good thing to be speaking both languages?
00:17:47 Iván Campos
My recommendation to parents was to continue to speak to their language, sorry, in the language to their children that they are comfortable with at home.
00:17:56 Iván Campos
Sometimes some well-meaning educators will state to families at an IEP meeting
00:18:01 Iván Campos
if you want them to learn English, only talk to them in English.
00:18:06 Iván Campos
And so I think that is well-meaning.
00:18:08 Iván Campos
However, language is identity.
00:18:11 Iván Campos
Language is culture.
00:18:12 Iván Campos
And so if you're lacking the ability to express yourself in your parents' language, you're missing out on the rich cultural history traditions that are part of who your parents are.
00:18:25 Iván Campos
And so
00:18:27 Iván Campos
I always encourage families to speak in the languages at home that they are comfortable with and to, if they want their child to become proficient in the native language of the parents, they have to practice it.
00:18:39 Iván Campos
They have to use it.
00:18:40 Iván Campos
Maybe my parents, for my example, they only spoke to us in Spanish at home.
00:18:47 Iván Campos
I'm assuming that if they had allowed us to speak English at home, I would be a receptive Spanish.
00:18:54 Iván Campos
and not be able to express myself in Spanish.
00:18:57 Iván Campos
And so you have to use the language, you have to live in the culture to be able to connect it all together and to be able to participate within that language community.
00:19:07 Iván Campos
And so to me, it's very important that parents maintain that.
00:19:10 Iván Campos
And there's no such thing as a perfect bilingual.
00:19:13 Iván Campos
I also want to tell parents that, and anybody listening that,
00:19:18 Iván Campos
Sometimes we think that, well, their English is not good enough, their Spanish is not good enough, and so don't talk in Spanish or don't talk in English.
00:19:26 Iván Campos
And so I say that there's a concept called translanguaging, which is really a neat concept in which language is not a Spanish bucket, an English bucket, but it's really one bucket, a unified system in which the languages interplay off of each other.
00:19:42 Iván Campos
And it's okay to not know a word in Spanish or in English as you're talking or to mispronounce.
00:19:47 Iván Campos
That's the beauty of being bicultural, bilingual, where the old idea was that you had to be perfect.
00:19:55 Iván Campos
My mother would tell me, that's not how you say that.
00:19:57 Iván Campos
And then at school, the teachers would tell me, that's not how you say that in English.
00:20:01 Iván Campos
And I had struggled with that, to be honest with you, because
00:20:05 Iván Campos
I'm not good enough in one language or the other, according to the teacher, according to my parents, according to my cousins in Mexico, my aunts in Mexico, and my uncles.
00:20:13 Iván Campos
You don't speak proper Spanish, but I think I went through my own journey of accepting that this is a new language, especially here in California where we're so close to the border where, and we have such a high number of individuals that speak Spanish that we have Spanglish.
00:20:30 Pam Bender
Right.
00:20:31 Iván Campos
And so,
00:20:32 Iván Campos
I embrace it.
00:20:33 Iván Campos
I love it.
00:20:33 Iván Campos
And I encourage families to speak in the language that they feel most comfortable in.
00:20:38 Pam Bender
I think that's great advice for parents, because I think parents struggle not knowing what they should do, especially if they're realizing that their child is delayed in one language or the other, or both.
00:20:50 Pam Bender
So when you're thinking about that, I kind of want to go back to when you were talking about Sophia and families receiving services through Inland Regional Center, which
00:21:02 Pam Bender
provide services for our zero to three population, yet some counties will provide that as well.
00:21:08 Pam Bender
And so when you think about a child that's under three and they're getting services through regional center, what happens when they turn three?
00:21:18 Pam Bender
What's that process?
00:21:19 Pam Bender
Are they then dropped from regional center or do they go to the schools?
00:21:26 Pam Bender
What's kind of that process?
00:21:28 Iván Campos
Great question.
00:21:29 Iván Campos
But before I kind of go into that process, I do want to share that with early intervention, it's part of IDEA, it's labeled Part C.
00:21:39 Iván Campos
And they're really looking at developmental support in their home natural environments.
00:21:45 Iván Campos
And the eligibility is a little bit different in the schools.
00:21:48 Pam Bender
Okay.
00:21:48 Iván Campos
Eligibility is really based on our developmental delay or diagnosed condition.
00:21:54 Iván Campos
And so they have determined their own percentage of what is considered a delay.
00:22:00 Iván Campos
And so it's really a different type of program.
00:22:03 Iván Campos
It's provided in the home environment, it's provided in the park or wherever the child is, and it incorporates the family as part of that model.
00:22:12 Iván Campos
Now, your question was, when they turn three, if I get, let me see if I got your question correct.
00:22:17 Iván Campos
If they turn 3, do services just start at the school?
00:22:22 Pam Bender
Right.
00:22:22 Pam Bender
Do they start at the school?
00:22:23 Pam Bender
Does it end with regional center?
00:22:25 Pam Bender
Does it just stop?
00:22:27 Pam Bender
And of course, with Sophia's family, she didn't, the parents didn't even know that they could go to the school.
00:22:33 Iván Campos
Right.
00:22:33 Iván Campos
And so services officially will end on the child's third birthday through in the regional center or early intervention, right?
00:22:43 Iván Campos
Part C.
00:22:44 Iván Campos
And so then there is actual process that
00:22:47 Iván Campos
Inland Regional Center will initiate with the receiving school district.
00:22:52 Iván Campos
And it begins months ahead.
00:22:54 Iván Campos
I used to be on an early childhood assessment team and I would take all the Spanish-speaking phone calls.
00:23:01 Iván Campos
And they would, I think I believe six months before there was a meeting in which I got a phone call from the regional service worker saying, Iván, I have the family here on the phone.
00:23:11 Iván Campos
We're going to have this meeting.
00:23:13 Iván Campos
But I believe even before that, the district is notified of this child potentially coming.
00:23:18 Iván Campos
I didn't receive that, but I know our district did.
00:23:20 Iván Campos
And so then I got the phone call from Inland Regional Center.
00:23:24 Iván Campos
And then we talk about transition planning meeting, kind of discussing what the school eligibility process and what is required to enroll in a school and how parents need to enroll in the school district and that the evaluation is not going to just magically happen.
00:23:40 Iván Campos
there's a process and it takes time.
00:23:42 Iván Campos
And so sometimes we've had parents that didn't enroll their child or request special education assessment.
00:23:50 Iván Campos
And so they were upset that when their child turned 3, they weren't receiving services.
00:23:55 Iván Campos
So I believe two months before the child turns 3, the district can initiate the assessment process.
00:24:04 Iván Campos
However, like I said earlier, a parent has to enroll the child into that
00:24:09 Iván Campos
preschool or that service assessment center and also they have to sign an assessment plan meaning parent is not if provided a paperwork that states that we suspect that there's a disability with your child here's the areas that we're going to assess by what's type of professionals speech psychologist maybe a classroom teacher special ed teacher and then but the parent has to sign.
00:24:36 Pam Bender
So the schools can't do an assessment without the parent agreeing through a signature on an assessment plan.
00:24:42 Iván Campos
Correct.
00:24:43 Pam Bender
Okay.
00:24:44 Iván Campos
And then we hold an IEP meeting to discuss the findings.
00:24:48 Iván Campos
And if the child is eligible, they could be eligible for early intervention Part C, but at school age or three and above, it's Part B of IDEA, they may not meet that eligibility, either because they've caught up or because
00:25:07 Iván Campos
Yeah, they've caught up in terms of the development.
00:25:10 Pam Bender
Okay, so if I have a child who is 3 and they have, they've been assessed by the schools and found that they still need some services, but I want them to go to my private preschool that's down the street from me, how do I get services or do I have to go to the school's preschool programs, which a lot of them don't have?
00:25:34 Pam Bender
How do I get services for my child?
00:25:37 Iván Campos
So, okay, this is an interesting question, not an uncommon one.
00:25:42 Iván Campos
I did have some students that, they were not enrolled in a district preschool program, like a Gen.
00:25:49 Iván Campos
ed preschool program.
00:25:51 Iván Campos
And so, and maybe they were going to a daycare twice a week, a private preschool, you know, in the morning, in the afternoon, or maybe all day.
00:26:01 Iván Campos
And so the way we treated it in my last district was I used the term community preschooler, not enrolled in a district program.
00:26:09 Iván Campos
And so when we have the IEP meeting, if it's only determined that they only need speech and language services, you know, the amount of services, the goals is determined in that meeting.
00:26:19 Iván Campos
And so parents would bring their child to the school.
00:26:23 Iván Campos
They wait in the office.
00:26:25 Iván Campos
I will provide therapy.
00:26:26 Iván Campos
Sometimes I invited parents in.
00:26:28 Iván Campos
And then when I would drop off the child back in the office, I'd have the conversation with the parent and the parent went their way.
00:26:34 Iván Campos
This is for preschoolers.
00:26:35 Iván Campos
I believe that was your question, correct?
00:26:37 Pam Bender
Yes.
00:26:37 Pam Bender
Yes.
00:26:38 Pam Bender
Okay.
00:26:39 Pam Bender
And when I think about that, coming into the schools, when you have a little one that was already getting the same medical services for speech, it's a little intimidating because now I come in and now I have to sign an assessment plan, now there's
00:26:57 Pam Bender
this IEP meeting with a bunch of people.
00:27:00 Pam Bender
I don't have an educational level at the level of these people.
00:27:04 Pam Bender
I don't really know what questions to ask.
00:27:07 Pam Bender
What kind of advice would you give a parent when they come into an IEP meeting?
00:27:11 Pam Bender
You, you said it greatly when you said parents know their child the best, but now I'm coming into this room with all of these experts and now I'm feeling like
00:27:23 Pam Bender
I don't really know anything 'cause I'm just the parent.
00:27:26 Pam Bender
How do you help a parent to prepare going into the IEP meeting to talk about the assessment and the possible offer of services?
00:27:36 Iván Campos
I think it all begins with the first contact.
00:27:39 Iván Campos
I started my career off in preschool special ed, and then eventually was able to do the rest of the continuum K through 12, right?
00:27:48 Iván Campos
And I really appreciated when families would reach out about their child's concerns, and I would talk to them about, kind of give them a big picture about the process.
00:27:58 Iván Campos
You have concerns, you've enrolled your child partially in the school so that an assessment can be done.
00:28:04 Iván Campos
And so I kind of gave them a lay of the land.
00:28:07 Iván Campos
I said,
00:28:08 Iván Campos
Thank you for coming in, bringing your child.
00:28:10 Iván Campos
Now I can meet you and address your concerns.
00:28:13 Iván Campos
And then we would move toward an assessment.
00:28:15 Iván Campos
If there was other areas of suspected disability, I would bring in the school psychologist or refer to a center that did more of the assessments, right?
00:28:24 Iván Campos
But I would kind of give them an overview of the process.
00:28:26 Iván Campos
I would even just jot it down on a piece of paper, draw a diagram they could take home.
00:28:30 Iván Campos
We're here.
00:28:32 Iván Campos
In order for us to determine eligibility, there's all these steps that need to happen.
00:28:36 Iván Campos
So I think just having that dialogue and kind of front-loading parents about what is to come is really helpful.
00:28:43 Iván Campos
And I would say also that, you know, you're going to hear terms at the meeting that can be difficult to understand, or maybe we're talking to the school staff is using acronyms.
00:28:52 Iván Campos
And I said, if at any time you have any questions, ask.
00:28:56 Iván Campos
Some parents don't want to ask questions and so and some parents has too many questions.
00:29:02 Iván Campos
Also, parents can request an interpreter in their home language to be at the meeting to interpret for them.
00:29:08 Iván Campos
It's it's it's built into the laws for parents to have access to the information in their home language.
00:29:15 Iván Campos
And so sometimes families would bring a relative with them to the meeting.
00:29:19 Iván Campos
Maybe they bring a friend, maybe a teacher somewhere or a speech pathologist, and so they bring others to the meeting.
00:29:28 Iván Campos
And I would tell families, sometimes the principal would say, are you going to get them to sign?
00:29:35 Iván Campos
And I would say, prior to the meeting, I would say, I want the parent to take the documentation home.
00:29:42 Iván Campos
I want them to take it home, read it, share it with their spouse if the spouse was not in the meeting, talk to others to get input from their community of support before deciding whether they want to sign the IEP or not.
00:29:55 Iván Campos
It's kind of like buying a car or buying a house.
00:29:57 Iván Campos
All these papers get placed in front of you.
00:29:59 Iván Campos
Initial here, check here, sign here, date here.
00:30:04 Iván Campos
It's a lot of information.
00:30:05 Iván Campos
And the challenging thing is that as a parent, you're facing a diagnosis.
00:30:12 Iván Campos
And so sometimes parents can be in denial, or they can be in anger, or they can be trying to understand what is happening.
00:30:19 Iván Campos
My very, Sophia, for example,
00:30:23 Iván Campos
Her family, I think, was afraid to go to the school for maybe hearing the news of other areas of disability.
00:30:32 Iván Campos
And so they were in denial, I think, to the degree.
00:30:36 Iván Campos
And so I think for families, it can be very emotional to be at a meeting, and maybe it could be too long of a meeting.
00:30:45 Pam Bender
It's overwhelming.
00:30:46 Iván Campos
Overwhelming, I guess is the word.
00:30:48 Pam Bender
Yes, I think it's really overwhelming.
00:30:50 Pam Bender
Coming from a person who special ed is all I've ever done, the amount of special ed ease, we talk about that all the time.
00:30:57 Pam Bender
In special ed, we're always talking about acronyms, and it doesn't make sense to people who are outside of special ed.
00:31:04 Pam Bender
Even educators don't always understand it.
00:31:07 Pam Bender
But I've been in an IEP meeting with my stepson who was a student with a speech impediment.
00:31:14 Pam Bender
And I remember sitting in there the first time with his mom and going,
00:31:20 Pam Bender
Okay, I'm not even understanding the report.
00:31:23 Pam Bender
This is something I do all the time, and I'm an expert in special education, and I'm having a hard time because of the emotions that are connected with it.
00:31:32 Pam Bender
And so...
00:31:33 Pam Bender
That helped me to understand parents coming in who have no background, and then I'm asking them to sign this IEP.
00:31:40 Pam Bender
I love the fact that you allow parents to take it home, read it, and understand it, and then ask questions about it, because we don't always allow that.
00:31:49 Pam Bender
We think they have to come in and sign right away.
00:31:52 Pam Bender
But the other thing I wanted to just mention when you talked about parents bringing other people with them to an IEP, which I think is awesome.
00:32:01 Pam Bender
But it's also the district's responsibility for bringing in the interpreter.
00:32:06 Pam Bender
The parent is not the responsible...
00:32:08 Iván Campos
Thank you for saying that.
00:32:09 Pam Bender
Yes, because they're not responsible for bringing someone to translate.
00:32:13 Pam Bender
The district is responsible for that, correct?
00:32:16 Iván Campos
A hundred percent.
00:32:17 Iván Campos
When I worked in another district, we had a population of students from Guatemala that spoke a language named Conchobalm.
00:32:25 Iván Campos
And...
00:32:27 Iván Campos
many of these families only spoke conjobal and then depending on where they landed in the U.S.
00:32:34 Iván Campos
either they would learn Spanish say they were in a Latino neighborhood maybe they're embracing Spanish or if they're not then maybe it'll be conjobal in English and so many and other times there were these children were speaking conjobal English and Spanish and so I recall a meeting and I'm getting a little emotional here where
00:32:55 Iván Campos
Those of you that know me know that I have emotions as a male, but I would say that the family was from Guatemala and they spoke conjobal, but yet they spoke enough Spanish to enroll their child and maybe have basic conversation with the school staff.
00:33:13 Iván Campos
So we're sitting at this IEP, and it was for a child in a special day class and a mild-moderate class, and we had a Spanish interpreter there.
00:33:24 Iván Campos
And at that time, I did not know enough about these families.
00:33:28 Iván Campos
I, you know, eventually this kind of caused me to learn more.
00:33:33 Iván Campos
And so we finished the meeting and then the parent raised their hand.
00:33:36 Iván Campos
And this is the only statement they said in the whole meeting.
00:33:39 Iván Campos
The father did.
00:33:42 Iván Campos
When will we get a trumpet for my son?
00:33:46 Iván Campos
And I thought to myself, wait, what's going on here?
00:33:51 Iván Campos
And then I looked at the principal and I wondered to myself, there's another language that is being spoken by this family.
00:33:58 Iván Campos
And I don't think Spanish is their language that they are very proficient then.
00:34:04 Iván Campos
That was a conversation I had with the principal after and the case carer.
00:34:08 Iván Campos
But basically, and then the parent asked another question, does every child get this meeting?
00:34:13 Iván Campos
But it was the Spanish was not what I would call conversational Spanish.
00:34:17 Iván Campos
And so
00:34:20 Iván Campos
I was I just left kind of aghast like wait did this parent comprehend the contents of this meeting and so that was kind of prompting me to really understand who are who are our students and we have a duty as educators to advocate for our families and so I did ask that I'm wondering if at the next meeting we can have an interpreter that speaks comfortable because I'm not sure this family understood the purpose of our meeting right and so
00:34:50 Iván Campos
The district did eventually contract out, and we would have a Cahobal interpreter.
00:34:56 Iván Campos
And I actually was very privileged to also work with the Cahobal interpreter for my speech and language assessments.
00:35:02 Iván Campos
Sometimes I was doing trilingual assessments, English, Spanish, and Cahobal.
00:35:06 Iván Campos
And as you mentioned earlier, that when children are learning a new language, they sometimes start to lose another language.
00:35:12 Iván Campos
But imagine children with three languages, and imagine now having to analyze that data and determine whether there's a language
00:35:19 Iván Campos
disorder or an impairment or a language difference.
00:35:23 Iván Campos
As they're learning one language, they're losing others.
00:35:25 Iván Campos
And so how do you determine, because there is no test, standardized measures that encompass trilingualism.
00:35:32 Iván Campos
So I'm glad that you brought that up.
00:35:35 Pam Bender
Right.
00:35:36 Pam Bender
It's difficult, and it's very difficult, I think, for our parents who are multilingual and our kiddos as we're trying to work with them.
00:35:42 Iván Campos
I do have a tip for school professionals.
00:35:46 Iván Campos
I know there's various opinions of this.
00:35:49 Iván Campos
And so my perspective is that we want to make our IEP meetings comfortable, meaning that we're not talking down to parents, but we're having a conversation.
00:36:01 Iván Campos
And so over the years, I developed a different strategy of presenting my evaluation reports, which was I provided a copy to the parent, and I would say, I'm going to be providing a summary today at this meeting of this 20-page report.
00:36:16 Iván Campos
Here's my card.
00:36:17 Iván Campos
You can contact me at any time.
00:36:18 Iván Campos
Stop me at any time during this meeting if you have any questions.
00:36:22 Iván Campos
And I would basically start off with, here's what the referral concerns were.
00:36:28 Iván Campos
Here's where your child is currently at.
00:36:30 Iván Campos
Here's how I gathered information.
00:36:33 Iván Campos
I did a parent interview, teacher interview, interviewed the student if appropriate, based on their age level, writing abilities.
00:36:39 Iván Campos
I did classroom observations, not classroom observations, reviewed school records.
00:36:45 Iván Campos
And then I worked with the student and I administered these assessments.
00:36:48 Iván Campos
That took me, what, 30 seconds?
00:36:50 Iván Campos
Right.
00:36:50 Iván Campos
And then I would say, out of those four areas that I was looking at, I was looking at articulation, voice, fluency, whether there's a language disorder in expressive or receptive or social language.
00:37:02 Iván Campos
Mom, dad, out of those four areas, I saw concerns only in one.
00:37:08 Iván Campos
And those are speech sounds.
00:37:10 Iván Campos
Your child, correct, is having difficulty with their production of speech.
00:37:14 Iván Campos
that is causing them not to be understood.
00:37:16 Iván Campos
It's frustrating them.
00:37:17 Iván Campos
It's impacting their ability to engage in the school environment.
00:37:22 Iván Campos
And so they do meet eligibility.
00:37:25 Iván Campos
And we're going to now talk about a plan to support your child at school.
00:37:28 Pam Bender
Very good.
00:37:29 Iván Campos
I never opened my report.
00:37:31 Iván Campos
I never referred to the test scores.
00:37:34 Iván Campos
I just kept it simple because I also have a child with special needs and
00:37:39 Iván Campos
It can be very emotional to sit in that meeting and to hear that your child can't do something.
00:37:44 Pam Bender
Right.
00:37:45 Iván Campos
And scores don't tell the story of who a child is.
00:37:48 Pam Bender
It doesn't.
00:37:49 Pam Bender
And parents don't understand the scores.
00:37:50 Pam Bender
It doesn't make sense.
00:37:51 Iván Campos
And I embrace that model.
00:37:53 Iván Campos
I know that maybe some attorneys listening or some professionals would be like, but I did all this work in this report.
00:38:01 Iván Campos
But as a family, they want to know if their child is okay or not.
00:38:05 Iván Campos
And if they're not,
00:38:07 Iván Campos
How do we support them?
00:38:08 Pam Bender
Yeah, what are we going to do?
00:38:10 Pam Bender
So with that, we can talk about what we would be doing in the classroom or at school, what the services are.
00:38:17 Pam Bender
What are some tips you would give to parents at home for what they can do to help improve their, whether it's articulation or language?
00:38:27 Pam Bender
What are some ideas you would give parents to work on at home?
00:38:30 Iván Campos
I would say that talk to your children, have conversations with them.
00:38:36 Iván Campos
read with them.
00:38:37 Iván Campos
If you're not able to read, then play a video with a narration or something that is a book maybe read aloud.
00:38:46 Iván Campos
Pretend play, sing songs, talk about your day, ask open-ended questions.
00:38:53 Iván Campos
These don't require any toys, any gadgets, any apps.
00:38:58 Iván Campos
I would say that technology has its, it's a double-edged sword today in today's society where sometimes
00:39:05 Iván Campos
children are interacting more with a device than with a parent.
00:39:08 Iván Campos
When families, preschool age families would say, I want my child to be evaluated at the school level, you know, three to five years old, not in a school program, when the parent would come in and said, I want an evaluation, I would ask the family, bring your child's toys that you play with your child with.
00:39:26 Iván Campos
I want to see how you guys interact.
00:39:30 Iván Campos
And I had a parent once tell me,
00:39:32 Iván Campos
Mr.
00:39:32 Iván Campos
Campos, this was the dad, this child.
00:39:36 Iván Campos
My child has never interacted with toys.
00:39:40 Iván Campos
It's always been an iPad.
00:39:42 Iván Campos
And so she's coming home from, or coming when, this child was in kindergarten now.
00:39:48 Iván Campos
When your child, when she's coming home from school, she's talking about some toy that you had that she's never played with before.
00:39:56 Iván Campos
And now she's asking me for it because all she's ever interacted with was an iPad.
00:40:02 Pam Bender
Isn't that interesting?
00:40:02 Pam Bender
And I think sometimes parents think that, well, there's so much language going on because they're playing games or they're watching videos or doing this.
00:40:10 Pam Bender
But it's one thing to watch language.
00:40:13 Pam Bender
It's not interactive, right?
00:40:15 Pam Bender
So they're not really working on their language because they're not interacting with anybody.
00:40:19 Iván Campos
They're not.
00:40:21 Iván Campos
to meet parents halfway, and I'm not sure if this is scientifically validated or not or research-based, but I would say for every minute you're spending on a device with the child or a child is spending on a device, you need to spend a minute talking to your child.
00:40:34 Iván Campos
So if it's two hours, then be prepared to talk two hours with your child.
00:40:38 Iván Campos
I said, do you have four hours?
00:40:41 Iván Campos
And I said, you know, and I understand that it's easy to hand a child the device to perhaps
00:40:47 Iván Campos
calm them down or entertain them.
00:40:49 Iván Campos
But like you said earlier, if we don't use language, we lose it.
00:40:52 Iván Campos
And language is so situational, it's related to context, related to situations, related to culture, related to opportunities, right?
00:41:02 Iván Campos
And so I agree that less screen time, more live interaction, live conversations, maybe make a technology-free kitchen table.
00:41:13 Iván Campos
Maybe make a technology-free family time where all phones, all devices are here.
00:41:19 Iván Campos
Now, children will protest.
00:41:21 Pam Bender
Right.
00:41:22 Iván Campos
And so many times in restaurants, you'll see a child who the iPad was taken away and it's a scene.
00:41:29 Iván Campos
Well, you're going to experience a scene until the child now connects with you as the parent and sees you as a real, live,
00:41:41 Iván Campos
parent that can provide needs because the device cannot, can fulfill a need, but not in the environment itself.
00:41:47 Pam Bender
Right, right.
00:41:48 Pam Bender
So there's so many things that we can do as parents that we sometimes forget.
00:41:51 Pam Bender
And sometimes we as parents, we're on technology too much.
00:41:55 Pam Bender
And so our kids are modeling what we're doing.
00:41:58 Pam Bender
So I think we have to kind of look at that aspect too.
00:42:00 Iván Campos
But you know, it's interesting because my teenager at home, he's so aware of, he's a freshman in high school, he's so aware of
00:42:09 Iván Campos
the impact of technology on his peers.
00:42:13 Iván Campos
And he's like, dad, I don't want the apps.
00:42:17 Iván Campos
Dad, I don't want this.
00:42:18 Iván Campos
I don't want technology to become me.
00:42:22 Pam Bender
That's great.
00:42:22 Iván Campos
And he'll even reference AI like, I want to do it myself.
00:42:26 Iván Campos
I don't want a robot doing it in the background.
00:42:29 Iván Campos
I want it to be my voice, my work.
00:42:32 Pam Bender
Very good.
00:42:33 Iván Campos
Which I'm wondering if there's a pushback from
00:42:36 Iván Campos
younger generations, you know, they've seen the adults, us, sometimes be buried in our phones as our children are talking to us.
00:42:45 Iván Campos
Maybe they've seen that as that's not what we want life to be.
00:42:49 Iván Campos
And so they're pushing against it.
00:42:51 Pam Bender
Right.
00:42:52 Pam Bender
It's going to be interesting watching as the generations come up.
00:42:55 Pam Bender
Exactly.
00:42:56 Pam Bender
So you've talked a lot about interactions and what we can do.
00:43:00 Pam Bender
So what would you think are the
00:43:03 Pam Bender
Three top things that you would tell a parent who's just starting this journey.
00:43:09 Iván Campos
I would say to the parent, realize that this is a process and that the evaluation process is now like at a medical setting where you get a referral, you get sent to the specialist, and boom, you have a diagnosis, you have services.
00:43:26 Iván Campos
In the school, we have 60 days to evaluate once a parent signs the assessment plan.
00:43:33 Iván Campos
So give time for the professionals at school to do their portion.
00:43:39 Iván Campos
Number 2, parents, I would encourage them to be active participants in a meeting.
00:43:45 Iván Campos
Also, as you mentioned, request an interpreter that the school needs to provide by law.
00:43:50 Iván Campos
That's still #2.
00:43:52 Iván Campos
And then #3, parents also have procedural rights as a parent of a child with a disability, meaning that
00:44:00 Iván Campos
If they don't agree with something, they can exercise rights, meaning they can request for an independent educational evaluation.
00:44:09 Iván Campos
They can perhaps call their SELPA to speak to a program specialist, speak to the director, speak to a manager about their concerns.
00:44:19 Iván Campos
The SELPAs are there to support families as well.
00:44:23 Iván Campos
Maybe
00:44:24 Iván Campos
If there's another disagreement, maybe it needs to be elevated to a different level, but I would say ask questions, stay curious.
00:44:32 Iván Campos
You know your child the best, and the professionals at school have your child for a little bit of a time.
00:44:39 Iván Campos
And so sometimes parent input is so important in a meeting, but I understand that some parents may feel from particular cultures that the school is always right.
00:44:51 Iván Campos
And so there's a power dynamic.
00:44:53 Iván Campos
And I think as practitioners, we also need to be aware that sometimes the playing field is not level.
00:45:00 Iván Campos
So those are the top three, I think I would say.
00:45:03 Pam Bender
I think that's great, because it helps parents to get them some empowerment, right?
00:45:08 Pam Bender
We forget that.
00:45:10 Pam Bender
Any final thoughts or messages on the encouragement for parents navigating speech services?
00:45:17 Iván Campos
I would say, and this is something I learned in my graduate
00:45:20 Iván Campos
training graduate school training I took a class on counseling and you may be wondering why is this why is a program have a class on counseling for speech pathology right well it's because they wanted us to understand what the client the family the student may be experiencing I think that's great and they and I would say it was and I'm getting goosebumps here talking about it it was I think the most beneficial program class in my program
00:45:50 Iván Campos
It was taught by a licensed clinical social worker, and they talked about something called the Kluver-Ross grief cycle, in which there's five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
00:46:05 Iván Campos
Myself as a parent with a child with special needs, I've gone through that cycle, and sometimes I get stuck on one.
00:46:12 Pam Bender
Absolutely.
00:46:12 Pam Bender
And it's not even going through each of those things in order.
00:46:16 Pam Bender
It jumps around all over.
00:46:17 Iván Campos
And I think denial is the hardest one to think to overcome because as a parent, it's hard to accept that your child is not perfect or not the way that you hope for them to be.
00:46:28 Iván Campos
And so sometimes we delay seeking support, delay seeking services because we as a parent are not ready to accept.
00:46:37 Pam Bender
Right.
00:46:37 Iván Campos
And I would say that to me,
00:46:41 Iván Campos
That's the most important portion.
00:46:42 Iván Campos
And for service providers is knowing to identify.
00:46:47 Iván Campos
And again, we're not social workers, we're not mental health clinicians, but learning to understand where a family may be along that cycle in order to support them and encourage them and not close the book on them because they're in denial or they're angry.
00:47:03 Iván Campos
And sometimes I've told some families that I've had to work with here at the SELPA that
00:47:10 Iván Campos
I'm wondering if you're stuck right now in one of the, and I'll bring up the stages.
00:47:13 Iván Campos
Where do you see yourself at?
00:47:15 Pam Bender
Nice.
00:47:16 Iván Campos
And help them understand.
00:47:17 Iván Campos
And I said, you know, what do you, how do you think this is affecting your participation in this meeting at the idea table?
00:47:26 Iván Campos
And then have them identify, have them talk about it.
00:47:29 Iván Campos
And I said, and then I'll say, you know, how could maybe, if you were able to resolve through this,
00:47:37 Iván Campos
It won't maybe delay our meetings or maybe make them much longer than they need to be, but we're able to now support your child.
00:47:44 Iván Campos
So sometimes the advice is for parents also to seek counseling themselves to help their child.
00:47:51 Iván Campos
Because it's very, I remember when my child was given the label of a disability and I went through this, but you project their life and you're thinking they're not going to achieve their dreams, but I would say to this parent,
00:48:07 Iván Campos
embrace your child, love your child, and accept and provide them all the supports to the various professionals that we have access to in this country to be able to help your child.
00:48:18 Pam Bender
I think that's great.
00:48:19 Pam Bender
I love the fact that you not are only talking about the grieving stages for parents, but also for the speech pathologist to understand that and be being able to acknowledge that within
00:48:32 Pam Bender
what's happening with the parent, because that's how they're going to interact with the family.
00:48:36 Pam Bender
And I think it's important for them to be aware of that as well.
00:48:39 Pam Bender
So I love the fact that your program had that counseling program.
00:48:42 Pam Bender
So just to wrap up, it's been a great opportunity to talk with you about speech and language pathology and speech services for our students who are multilingual, the IEP process, the assessment process.
00:48:56 Pam Bender
But here at CAHELP, we have a mission statement that is
00:49:03 Pam Bender
We are here for the relentless pursuit of whatever works in the life of a child.
00:49:08 Pam Bender
And what does that mean to you in who you are as a person, who you are as a speech pathologist, and who you are as a program specialist with our organization?
00:49:19 Iván Campos
Well, Pam, you've asked a very, very thought-provoking question here.
00:49:24 Iván Campos
And so I think that one of the reasons I
00:49:30 Iván Campos
commute to this job and work, as well as many others, is because this organization allows us to really live out that mission and be able to support school districts, families with thinking outside the box to ensure that a child is receiving what they need based on the IDEA, based on special ed.
00:49:54 Iván Campos
And so I think it's a privilege to be able to support families in school districts throughout that process, right?
00:49:59 Iván Campos
And to really not just be a mission that just lives out there on a piece of paper, but to me, it fills my bucket.
00:50:06 Iván Campos
And one thing that when I was a small child, I must have been maybe seven or eight years old, we would visit my grandparents in Mexico twice a year, Christmas and summer, and we would be there for a while.
00:50:21 Iván Campos
And so
00:50:23 Iván Campos
My parents lived in a very rural part of Zacatecas, 3 1/2 hours north of Guadalajara through a very mountainous, curvy Rd.
00:50:32 Iván Campos
And we would take the journey on a third class bus.
00:50:37 Iván Campos
Oh, wow.
00:50:37 Iván Campos
Yes, third class bus.
00:50:39 Iván Campos
And so you're like, where are you going with this, Ivan?
00:50:45 Iván Campos
Don't worry, I do have an end point.
00:50:48 Iván Campos
Anyways, on this bus,
00:50:50 Iván Campos
it would stop off and you get nauseous from all the curves and bumpy roads and asphalt and no asphalt on the road and whatnot.
00:50:59 Iván Campos
But a family came on the bus that was carrying like what I saw a teenager and sat him down right behind us.
00:51:08 Iván Campos
And somehow I kept looking back.
00:51:11 Iván Campos
It was a person, it was a child with a disability that was not able to walk.
00:51:14 Iván Campos
There was no wheelchair or anything.
00:51:15 Iván Campos
And so I kept peering through the seats
00:51:20 Iván Campos
And I saw that the child was crying and the window was open.
00:51:24 Iván Campos
And I said, dad, that kid is crying and his mom is not doing anything about it.
00:51:30 Iván Campos
And so my dad got up and said, ma'am, your child is crying.
00:51:34 Iván Campos
And she goes, he doesn't talk.
00:51:37 Iván Campos
He cannot walk.
00:51:38 Iván Campos
And in Mexico at that time, there was really no services for special ed.
00:51:41 Iván Campos
Right.
00:51:42 Iván Campos
And so, and even now they're still developing, right?
00:51:47 Iván Campos
They're better in many places, right?
00:51:50 Iván Campos
And so then the lady told me my dad, he doesn't talk.
00:51:54 Iván Campos
We don't know why he's crying.
00:51:55 Iván Campos
And then my dad said, is he hungry?
00:51:59 Iván Campos
The lady said, we haven't eaten in two days.
00:52:02 Outro/Ad
Oh, wow.
00:52:02 Iván Campos
So my dad took my orange, peeled it that was in my hand and gave it to this child.
00:52:10 Iván Campos
And so I saw that the relentless pursuit of whatever makes
00:52:15 Iván Campos
And I can't remember because I'm choking up the rest of the mission here, but I saw how my dad did that for that child.
00:52:21 Iván Campos
And again, I think that was my first exposure as a child that was 78, seven or eight years old to disabilities.
00:52:28 Pam Bender
Right.
00:52:29 Iván Campos
Because back then in schools, they were not integrated.
00:52:33 Pam Bender
They were kept separate or weren't even allowed.
00:52:34 Iván Campos
And so that story stays in the back of my mind of we have to do what's right for children.
00:52:39 Pam Bender
And I think you live your mission.
00:52:41 Pam Bender
So thank you very much for coming and talking to us today.
00:52:46 Pam Bender
I really enjoyed our time together and thank you.
00:52:49 Iván Campos
Thank you for the opportunity.
00:52:50 Pam Bender
Absolutely.
00:52:53 Outro/Ad
Before we wrap up, we want to remind you that if you or someone you know is facing a crisis, help is available.
00:53:01 Outro/Ad
You are not alone.
00:53:03 Outro/Ad
If it's an emergency, please call 911.
00:53:07 Outro/Ad
For immediate support, you can reach out to the Crisis and Suicide Hotline by dialing 988.
00:53:14 Outro/Ad
Remember, taking the first step to ask for help is a sign of strength.
00:53:19 Outro/Ad
Stay safe, take care of yourself, and take care of each other.
00:53:24 Outro/Ad
Until next time, be well.
00:53:27 Outro/Ad
In this episode, we highlight child welfare and attendance and why it matters more than you think.
00:53:33 Outro/Ad
We explore how schools work behind the scenes to support attendance, maintain stability, and navigate school placement changes.
00:53:40 Outro/Ad
Tune in for an eye-opening discussion about stability, access, and why showing up truly matters.
00:53:47 Outro/Ad
See you next time!
