Sandy: Can an IEP for speech include diabetes so that a 504 plan doesn’t need to be written as well?
Speech IEP: CAN SPEECH IEP INCLUDE DIABETES ISSUES?
Special Education Law and Advocacy
Sandy –
A student’s IEP should include all of the student’s education-related needs, whether or not they are related to the student’s “primary” disability category. Furthermore there is nothing that can be included in a 504 plan that cannot be included in an IEP, and OCR considers an IEP one way of meeting Section 504’s FAPE requirements.
So, yes, an IEP can and should address both speech and diabetes-related issues.
That said, it is common for students to have an IEP and a Health Plan. The IEP will address the parts of the health issue that impact the student’s day-to-day experience in the classroom, and the health plan include the medical management side of it – i.e. the info the school nurse needs, but individual teachers do not (to help protect the student’s medical privacy).
The IEP should still include anything a teacher should know or look out for – such as the signs of high or low blood sugar and what they should do to accommodate that. But information like medication dosage can go in the Health Plan.