What to Know About the Military Special Education System

Military families live all over the U.S. and, if needed, most of their children receive special needs services in the local early-intervention or school systems. Even if you don’t work in the military system, you likely have worked or will work with children from military families. It’s helpful to understand the military special-education systems and how they relate to on-base schools, the military medical system and the local community. I hope this brief description of military-based early-intervention and school-aged services helps explain these complex systems and what military families navigate daily.  Military families are unique in a variety of ways and if their children require service for special needs, they have unique choices and options. Those options vary depending on whether the family is stationed overseas versus stateside, and whether they live on- or off-base. Military-based special-education programs stateside work only with children living in base housing. Children living off-base receive services from their local public early-intervention programs or school systems. Eligible children are entitled to services whether or not the family chooses to use them. Military policy says they can receive required services at the base or in the local community, or they reassign the active-duty family member to a base that provides those services. For example, the military won’t send a child with cochlear implants to an overseas base without an...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Tags: Audiology Speech-Language Pathology Autism Spectrum Disorder Early Intervention Hearing Assistive Technology hearing loss Language Disorders military special education systems Speech Disorders Source Type: blogs