The Shenango Area School District provides special education services for all eligible students. Students in need of special education are found eligible through the evaluation process. Based on testing and information gathered through the evaluation process, an Individualized Education Program (IEP) is developed to target identified areas of deficit.
The IEP details what special education services and supports will be provided to ensure the student makes progress in identified areas.
PROGRAMS
Autistic Support
Provides specially designed instruction to students who need a program that is highly structured with a special emphasis on behavior modification. This program focuses on the development of independence and self-sufficiency in the areas of community-based instruction, functional academics, vocational, leisure and social skills.
Emotional Support
Provides a structured, behaviorally enhanced approach to students whose primary need is for social skill or emotional regulation development, or who demonstrate a pattern of maladaptive behaviors that may include poor attendance, aggression toward others, withdrawal, poor peer/adult relationships, or court involvement.
Learning Support
The Learning Support program provides specially designed instruction to students that have a significant disparity between educational expectancy and one or more of the following: written expression, basic reading skills, reading comprehension, mathematics calculation and mathematics reasoning.
Life Skills Support
Life Skills Support Program provides specially designed instruction to students whose needs include functional academics, self-care, social skills, language development, communication, and perceptual motor skills. The program offers community-based instruction as well as vocational training experiences. Students who participate in the life skills program are included in the least restrictive environment to the fullest extent appropriate.
Speech and Language Support
The Speech and Language Support program provides specially designed instruction to students whose articulation and/or language skills are not commensurate with their same age peers. These deficits affect the communication areas.
Occupational Therapy
Occupational therapy focuses on the functional performance of the student to assist in making progress in the general education curriculum. Areas covered by occupational therapy may include self-help, sensory, fine motor and postural skills. Individual and/or small group therapy sessions as well as consultative services are provided according to student need.
Physical Therapy
Physical therapy focuses on the natural opportunities for students to develop motor competence, balance and coordination in routine educational activities.
Hearing Support Program and Services
Hearing Support Services are provided to students who have an identified impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance. A child who meets criteria for deafness demonstrates a hearing impairment so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification.
Vision Support Program and Services
A visual impairment, including blindness, indicates the impairment adversely affects a child’s educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.