If you are the parent of an Arizona K-12 student with autism spectrum disorder, then you know your student's special needs for school disability accommodations and services. School officials in these and other Arizona school districts also generally know that they must recognize, respect, and satisfy your autism spectrum student's disability rights: Mesa Unified School District, Chandler Unified School District, Tucson Unified School District, Peoria Unified School District, Gilbert Public Schools, Deer Valley Unified School District, Paradise Valley Unified School District, Phoenix Union High School District, Dysart Unified School District, and Scottsdale Unified School District.
If your autistic student needs help getting the mandated disability accommodations and services in any of these school districts or other districts across Arizona, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team. Our highly qualified attorneys are available in Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Scottsdale, Peoria, Tempe, Surprise, San Tan Valley, Goodyear, Yuma, Buckeye, Avondale, Flagstaff, and other Arizona locations. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now for effective help getting autism spectrum disorder accommodations.
Recognizing Autism Spectrum Disorder
Arizona's public schools generally recognize their legal duty to identify and accommodate students with autism spectrum disorder or other disabilities. The Phoenix Central School District Code of Conduct and Tucson Unified School District Code of Conduct, for two examples, assure parents and students that the schools will comply with all disabled students' rights to accommodations and services. Yet, autism spectrum disorder can present a challenge to identify and accommodate. Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disability subtly altering communication and interaction out of a mix of environmental, congenital, or unknown causes. The medical field calls it a spectrum disorder precisely because of its range of mild to severe presentations. Your student may exhibit obvious differences in speech and interaction preferences or may instead exhibit few outward signs, while still being profoundly affected. Let us help you if you face difficulty getting your student's school to recognize your student's autism.
Federal Laws Recognizing and Defining Autism
You have strong support from federal law when advocating with your autistic student's Arizona K-12 school for disability accommodations and services. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) expressly defines and addresses autism among the disabilities the law recognizes and for which it requires K-12 school accommodation. The IDEA law defines autism as “a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction... that adversely affects a child's educational performance.” The IDEA law's definition adds that autistic students may show “repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.” While the IDEA law's definition states that autism is “generally evident before age three,” the IDEA law does not require an early diagnosis.
Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is another federal law that specifically recognizes autism as a disability deserving of K-12 school accommodations. The ADA protects only students who have “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Yet autistic students can readily qualify for ADA protection when their autism substantially impairs concentration, attention, or other cognitive functions. ADA Title II regulations state expressly that “autism substantially limits brain function.”
Arizona Laws Recognizing and Defining Autism
Arizona state education laws also recognize and similarly define autism. Arizona Code Section 15-761 defines autism, much like the federal IDEA law, as “a developmental disability that significantly affects verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction and that adversely affects educational performance.” Arizona's legal definition of autism also includes the typical outward signs and symptoms. The Arizona Department of Education accordingly includes autism as the first of its disability categories qualifying for K-12 school accommodation. The Department of Education also declares that “an individual with autism may need specialized instruction, assistive technology, therapies, and positive behavioral supports that reflect their unique strengths in order to develop the skills to actively participate in the world.” You and your autistic student have substantial state law and agency support for your student receiving disability services and accommodations from your student's Arizona K-12 school.
Arizona's Program to Identify Autistic Students
You also have strong support from federal law and Arizona's Board of Education when it comes to the school identifying your student's autism for appropriate accommodations and services. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) regulations, titled “Child Find,” require Arizona and other states accepting federal education funding to “have in effect policies and procedures to ensure that... all children with disabilities residing in the State..., regardless of the severity of their disability, and who are in need of special education and related services, are identified, located, and evaluated.” Arizona's Department of Education recognizes the duty of the state's schools to implement child-find programs. You should not have to step forward to demand that the school identify and evaluate your autistic student for disability diagnosis, services, and accommodations. The school instead has that obligation. Let us help, if you are facing challenges getting your autistic student's K-12 school to comply with its child-find identification and evaluation obligations.
Arizona's Duty to Evaluate Autistic Students
You can see above that Arizona both has and accepts its federal law obligation to identify your autistic child as qualifying for disability services and accommodations. However, you should also appreciate that the school's obligation is not just to notice developmental delays interfering with educational performance, but also to see them as signs of your student's autism. The school's obligation is also to refer your autistic student for evaluation by a medical professional qualified to make an accurate and reliable diagnosis of autism. The IDEA law's Section 1414 requires that the “local educational agency shall conduct a full and individual initial evaluation” of your student when recognizing reduced educational performance from developmental delays. Arizona Code Section 15-761 reiterates the duty for special education referrals through “a written request for an evaluation to determine whether a pupil is eligible for special education services....” Under Arizona law, the referral to the medical specialist must even include “documentation of appropriate efforts to educate the pupil in the regular education program.” Let us help if your autistic student's K-12 school officials are hesitating to take the time and expend the resources to refer your student for diagnosis.
Parental Consent to Autism Diagnosis Referral
You have the federal and Arizona statutory right to either grant or deny consent to the school's referral of your student for autism or other disability diagnosis. The IDEA law's Section 1414 and the corresponding Arizona Code Section 15-766 grant you that referral consent or non-consent right. It's up to you whether you want your autistic student to go through the referral examination and testing. You may have good reason to seek and approve the referral to get your autistic student the services and accommodations your student needs. But you and your student may conversely have reasons not to have your student diagnosed as autistic or not to have the school's medical specialist making and sharing that diagnosis. If, for instance, you and your student are managing well with your own specialist's diagnosis, and you do not need further school involvement, especially through another medical specialist, then you may withhold consent. Let us know if the school proceeds without your consent, or if you have other issues with your student's autism diagnosis referral.
Parental Consent to Autism Disability Services
You also have the right to grant or withhold consent to the disability accommodations and services the referral and your student's IEP team recommend. Both the IDEA law's Section 1414 and the corresponding Arizona Code Section 15-766 grant you consent or non-consent rights to disability services. Even if your student's school officials know that your student is autistic, you and your student need not agree to the disability accommodations and services the school offers your student. You and your student may determine that your student benefits more from striving without special accommodations and services, or you and your student may prefer other accommodations and services than the ones the school proposes. In that case, you may withhold consent for the services and accommodations that school officials wish to provide. Let us help if you have issues with the school moving forward with accommodations without your consent.
Second Opinions on Autism Diagnoses
You should also appreciate that you and your student may demand a second evaluation at the school's cost if you disagree with the first evaluation's conclusion, denying your autistic student disability accommodations and services. Both the IDEA law's Section 1414 and the corresponding Arizona Code Section 15-766 provide for reevaluations at the parent's request. A reevaluation may be especially appropriate if the first evaluator simply misses the autism diagnosis. But reevaluation may also be appropriate if the first evaluator minimizes or exaggerates your student's autism, placing your student at the wrong point along the spectrum, while recommending inappropriate or inadequate services and accommodations. Don't be surprised at disagreements over the initial evaluation. You know your student and the effects of your student's autism. The school's evaluator may have seen your student only once for a brief, perfunctory, and even inadequate examination. Let us help if you need to convince the school of its obligation to pay for a second evaluation of your autistic student and to consider that second evaluation's results.
Your Student's Federal Right to Autism Services
Your Arizona K-12 autistic student's right under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is for disability accommodations and services. The IDEA law's free appropriate public education (FAPE) construct determines the extent of your student's accommodation rights. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a second federal law prohibiting discrimination against students with disabilities, including autism. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is yet another federal law requiring your student's Arizona K-12 school to reasonably accommodate your student's autism-related disabilities. Your autistic student's Arizona K-12 school should thus be providing the disability services and accommodations that provide your student with the appropriate education that non-disabled students likewise receive.
Autistic Student Rights to the Regular Classroom
Your autistic student has another important right under federal and Arizona law: not to be unduly segregated from non-disabled students outside of the regular classroom. Section 300.114 of the IDEA law and related sections require that state public K-12 schools receiving federal funding educate disabled students in the least restrictive environment(LRE). Arizona Code Section 15-765 and related Arizona statutes and Department of Education regulations echo the IDEA law's least restrictive environment requirement. The mandates are to counter the unfortunate traditional practice of schools warehousing disabled students in special rooms away from their peers, where the students lack peer social support and development, while also losing important educational structure and instruction. Don't let your student's school officials segregate and isolate your student unnecessarily. Get our help if you find school officials removing your student from the regular classroom unnecessarily when aides or other services and accommodations could keep your student mainstreamed in the regular classroom.
Autism Spectrum Disorder Learning Impacts
You and your student may need to recognize the broad impacts autism can have on your student's learning before you and your student seek appropriate services and accommodations from your student's Arizona K-12 school. Autism can seriously interfere with learning, especially when not recognized and accommodated. Conversely, disability services and accommodations can mitigate autism's impact and greatly help many autistic students to learn. Here are four areas in which autism can impact your student's learning:
- voices and other sounds in the regular classroom, hallways, cafeterias, and other school areas may come across to your autistic student, like shouting, screaming, or other high-volume disturbing and distracting noises;
- touch sensations from furniture, furnishings, clothing, books, computers, and other equipment and materials may come across to your autistic student, like burning, abrasion, or other disturbing and injurious irritation;
- direct facing demeanor like instructor interaction or student groups or crowds may come across to your autistic student like embarrassing or agonizing confrontations, causing your student to shut down and avoid others; and
- lighting or motion from overhead lights, fans, lamps, projectors, screens, and windows may come across as blinding or nauseating, disturbing, and upsetting to your student.
Autism Spectrum Arizona K-12 School Interventions
Your autistic student's Arizona K-12 school likely has a wide range of approaches available to it to serve and accommodate your student's autism disability. Arizona distributes substantial federal special needs funding to its local districts and K-12 schools. Arizona also provides substantial technical training and assistance at the Department of Education level and regional levels to ensure that local K-12 schools take appropriate advantage of the available federal funding and special services. Indeed, the Arizona State Autism Project (AzSAP), a state Department of Education-approved program operated by a private nonprofit organization, provides teachers, aides, and accommodations officials with substantial resources, training, and technical assistance specifically to address autistic student needs. The program's interventions to aid autistic students can take one or more of these several approaches:
- behavioral accommodations manipulating the instructional setting to shape and reward your autistic student's appropriate responses;
- developmental approaches building your autistic student's skill in specific areas needing remediation;
- educational approaches altering learning environment methods and designs to draw on your autistic student's strengths;
- social-relational approaches creating instructor and peer bonds on which your autistic student can draw;
- psychological approaches helping your autistic student to sync thoughts and feelings with behaviors; and
- complementary approaches helping your autistic students adapt to the school environment.
Enforcing Arizona K-12 Autism Disability Rights
The Arizona Department of Education mandates and maintains a dispute resolution administrative system that provides due process of law to parents and their students in addressing and enforcing disability rights. The Department of Education publishes a Special Education Handbook outlining the Department's dispute resolution procedures and the legal and regulatory requirements backing up those procedures. The Department's publication recognizes the obligation of Arizona K-12 public schools to meet the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and other federal laws to accommodate your autistic student. Following are the main enforcement procedures we can help you invoke.
Your Autistic Student's Arizona K-12 IEP Team
Under the federal IDEA law and corresponding Arizona state statutes and Department of Education regulations, your autistic student's Arizona K-12 school must convene an individualized education program (IEP) team to develop and implement your student's IEP. Arizona Code Section 15-763 is the principal statute acknowledging the state's obligation to respect the IDEA law, designate your autistic student an IEP team, and write and implement your student's IEP. Under the state and federal laws, you and your student have the right to be on your student's IEP team, although you may choose to participate without your student's presence if your student is better served in that manner. The IEP team must notify you of its meetings and permit you to attend and participate, giving you the chance to advocate for an appropriate IEP. Let us help if your autistic student's Arizona K-12 school is not regularly convening IEP team meetings, at least annually, and whenever the school proposes to alter your student's IEP. State and federal law require those meetings. You may also require your autistic student's Arizona K-12 school to review your student's IEP within fifteen days of your request, if you believe the IEP needs adjustment.
Your Autistic Student's Arizona K-12 IEP Contents
The federal IDEA law and corresponding Arizona statutes and regulations also detail the contents your autistic student's Arizona K-12 school must include in your student's IEP. Your autistic student's IEP must include your student's current educational performance, measurable annual goals for your student to reach under the IEP, a description of measurements and reports to assess your student's progress toward those goals, the disability services and support the school will provide, the regular classroom activities in which your student will participate, and the exam or other assessment accommodations the school will provide. Let us help if you find that your student's IEP team is failing or refusing to include these details. The IEP is your legal tool to get your autistic student the accommodations and services your student needs.
Challenging Your Autistic Student's Arizona K-12 IEP
If you disagree with the plan that the IEP team adopts for your Arizona K-12 autistic student, you may invoke the federal IDEA law's procedural safeguards. Those safeguards, recognized and endorsed by Arizona's Department of Education Special Education Handbook, require that your student's IEP team provide you with prior written notice (PWN) whenever the IEP team proposes to change your student's IEP or refuses to adopt and implement your requested accommodations and services. The PWN gives you the chance to object and advocate with the IEP team. If your advocacy fails, then we can help you invoke the other procedural safeguards, including mediation under the guidance of an independent mediator, followed by a formal administrative complaint and hearing. We can perform any or all of the following tasks to ensure that your autistic student gets the accommodations and services your student needs:
- getting your student's education and disability records to help you evaluate your student's needs and rights;
- obtaining additional referrals, diagnosis, and evidence of your student's autism and needs for services and accommodations;
- communicating, advocating, and negotiating with school, district, and state officials on your student's behalf for early voluntary resolution;
- invoking the district and state dispute-resolution procedures for a formal hearing at which to present your student's evidence and challenge the school's contrary evidence;
- if you have already exhausted all hearings, then appealing the school's adverse decision through the state administrative procedures; and
- if you have already lost all appeals, then seeking alternative special relief through district oversight channels.
Premier Arizona K-12 Autism Representation
If you and your Arizona K-12 autistic student have a dispute with the school over the disability accommodations and services your student needs and deserves, then you need skilled and experienced attorney representation. Autism spectrum disorder can be difficult to diagnose and accommodate. School officials may, unfortunately, deny or minimize your student's diagnosis while refusing to provide needed and available accommodations and services. Your student's Arizona K-12 school likely has substantial federal funding available specifically to pay and provide for disabled student needs. Don't let the school deny your autistic student those services because of cost, ignorance, intransigence, or any other excuse. Instead, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team to represent your student. We have helped hundreds of students nationwide gain disability accommodations and services, and resolve other school disputes. Call 888.535.3686 or use our contact form now to tell us about your student's Arizona K-12 school matter.
