Advocate for your Child's Education

No one is a better advocate for your child than YOU! Always remember that no matter how hard or long of a process it is... You're fighting for your child's education and no one can fault you for that. Some of you know the struggles we have had with making sure our daughter Ariah not only receives the right services for her to be successful, but also how they are being executed on a consistent basis to make her thrive with her education.

It's been quite a long road. I know there are many parents that are dealing with this constantly as well for their children. We've had our daughter in an IEP since she was 3 years old. We did early intervention at 19 months old. Ariah was diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia (which is a severe speech delay) at age 2. We received services through child find until she turned 3 years old. Once a child turns 3 you can put them in a school system and we felt like that would be the best choice for her to receive her speech therapy before entering Kindergarten. As a family we knew she needed more and we decided to seek outside services in addition. The services included a Childhood Apraxia Specialist through GBMC hospital. That specialist was a miracle worker and Ariah came out of there 6 months later talking. She went to occupational therapy through Mt. Washington, private speech, private tutoring and therapy every Friday for 2 1/2 years before entering Kindergarten. We had outside testing and evaluations done multiple times through Trellis Services and Mt. Washington Children's Hospital. Just to give you an idea of the road we have been on, Ariah is now 9 going into 4th grade this Fall. She has been diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia, ADHD and Autism (Aspergers)

Today was a big day for our daughter's education. We recently hired an advocate and lawyer to move this process along in more of a timely manner. Honestly, in our opinion it shouldn't have needed to get to this point, but they're listening now. We also had a person from the Special Education department of Harford County attend this meeting and we received really promi