Disabilities

Services for Children with Disabilities

Our enrollment must show that children with disabilities are 10% of the total enrollment in both programs.  We intentionally recruit children with any disability through our flyers and all recruitment efforts.  Once a child is enrolled in the program, the following steps are followed:

ALL enrolled children are screened for developmental, social-emotional, and health concerns within 45 days of enrollment.  Screening tools used are the ASQ, ASQ-S/E, Speed DIAL 4, Developmental Profile, and the Preschool Developmental Profile.  Vision and Hearing are screened with machines by the health staff.  If speech and/or language are concerns, the Education-Disabilities Specialist (EDS) will administer the Acu-Screen Speech and Language Module in an interview with the parent, or the child may have received a screening by another agency previous to entry to our program.

If the child does not have an age-appropriate score on the developmental and/or the social emotional screen, a discussion is held with the parent, teacher/home visitor, Area Services Manager (ASM) and the EDS to determine if the child needs to be rescreened in 2 weeks, or if the child should be referred for services.

If the child is referred for services to Birth to Three EHS (Early Head Start) or the LEA (local education agency) or OST-EI (Oglala Sioux Tribe Early Intervention), they then take over the process with support from Badlands Head Start: Prenatal to Five staff.  Evaluation is done by specialists in the respective fields of expertise (speech-language pathologist, occupational or physical therapist, or school psychologist).

If the child qualifies for birth to three (Part C of IDEA) or special education services (Part B of IDEA), the referral agency and parent will develop an Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) for EHS, or an Individualized Service Plan (IEP) for HS with BHS: P-5 as a partner.

As with all children in BHS: P-5 each child identified as needing special services will receive an education that is developmentally appropriate, exploratory, active, and respectful of her/his language, culture, temperament, and interests and will be fully integrated into all program activities.