Special Education: Services and the Individualized Education Program (IEP)

Once your child is found eligible for special education, the school team has 30 days to create an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The IEP is a legal document that outlines your child’s needed supports and services. It will be put into action as soon as possible after the IEP is finished being written.

By your child’s third birthday—and at the start of every school year after that—the school is expected to have an IEP in place if your child has a disability.

For your child’s first IEP, the school will create and begin the plan within the shortest of these three time frames:

1. Within 30 calendar days after the school decides your child needs special education and related services;
2. Within 90 calendar days after you sign and return the form giving permission for an evaluation; or
3. Within 120 calendar days after you or the school first asked for an evaluation.

IEP Team Members

You are a key member of the IEP team.

Other members can include professionals already working with your child, or ones who may provide services in the future. You can invite anyone you choose to IEP meetings, such as a professional, a relative, or a friend.

By law, the following people must be part of the IEP team:

• You (parent or guardian).
• A Regular Education Teacher (if your child is or may be in general education classes).
• An Intervention Specialist (Special Education Teacher or Provider).
• A District Representative who understands special education law, district resources, and can approve services.
• Someone who can explain the evaluation results.
• An Interpreter or Translator in your family’s native language (if needed).
• Specialists as needed.
• By age 14, your child must be invited to attend their IEP meetings. They can join earlier if you or they feel it would be helpful.

Understanding Needs

• The IEP team will review the data documented in the Evaluation Team Report (ETR).
• This data highlights your child’s areas of need and areas of strength.
• Specific supports, services, and auxiliary aids are selected to match your child’s identified needs.
• Assessments are often an ongoing part of your child’s education, even after initial evaluation, to help track progress, guide instruction, or see if supports are working. In particular, the ETR assessment process may be repeated every three years.
• It is important for the IEP team to understand how your child’s deaf or hard of hearing status affects learning.
• The team should have a shared understanding of your child’s preferred language and communication method, and how they use it.
• Your child’s strengths, preferences, and interests should also be known and used to help build the best possible plan.

What is in an IEP?

In general, each Ohio IEP includes the following sections:

• Future planning.
• Special instructional factors.
• Profile of your child.
• Extended school year services.
• Post secondary transition.
• Measurable annual goals.
• Specially designed services and instruction.
• Transportation as a related service.
• Non-academic and extracurricular activities.
• General factors.
• Least restrictive environment (LRE).
• Statewide and district wide testing.
• Meeting participants.

While every part of the IEP is important, the next section of this guide highlights three areas: Future planning, special factors, and specially designed services, along with tools and resources that can support planning.

Future Planning

It can be hard to know where to begin when planning for your child’s future. You and the IEP team may find the Charting the LifeCourse tools helpful as you work through this section of the IEP form together. Charting the LifeCourse offers flexible, person-centered tools designed to help families and teams create a shared vision for a meaningful life.

Tools like the Life Trajectory, Integrated Supports Star, and Mapping Relationships guide conversations about what is important to your child, what supports are in place, and what goals to work toward. These tools can help identify strengths, clarify priorities, and make future planning more approachable and collaborative.

Special Factors

This section of the form asks the team to think about whether your child has needs in the areas of communication, assistive technology, behavior, adaptive physical education, braille, or limited English proficiency. It is vitally important for these factors to be seriously considered for deaf/hard of hearing, or deafblind learners. The following are tools that the team can use to thoroughly identify needs and whether services are needed to address special factors.

• Communication: All students have the right to communication in order to feel safe, understand instruction, connect with others, and learn. Ensuring communication is especially important for students who may not hear speech, use verbal communication, or see print. A Communication Planning Guide can be a helpful tool for considering this area of need.
• Assistive technology: This refers to both high-tech and low-tech tools that support a child in accessing learning and completing tasks. It does not cover hearing aids or cochlear implants. Some examples are a DM system, a flashing timer, or a communication board. OCALI offers a tool to help teams with the Assistive Technology Consideration Process.
• Behavior: Some children may need help with things like managing feelings, following directions, or getting along with others—particularly if there are communication or sensory challenges. With the right supports, children can feel safe, stay focused, and join in school routines. A Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) can help figure out what’s behind behavior and what might help. OCALI’s Challenging Behavior series offers tools for exploring if behavior supports are needed.
• Adaptive Physical Education: Physical education helps all children build strength, coordination, confidence, and social skills. Deaf/hard of hearing students may miss out if PE activities rely mostly on verbal directions or sound cues like whistles. If a student seems confused, unsafe, or left out during PE, it may be a sign that they need communication or visual supports. Helpful adaptations might include hand signals, color-coded cones, flashing lights, or visual timers. With small changes like these, PE can be safe, inclusive, and fun for everyone.
• Braille: For children who are deafblind, braille may be an important way to read, write, and learn—especially if vision is limited or changes over time. Some children use large print, pictures, tactile symbols, or sign language, but braille can support strong literacy and independence. A Learning Media Assessment (LMA) can help the team understand how a child uses vision, hearing, and touch, and whether braille instruction is needed now or later.
• Limited English Proficiency: If a language other than English is used at home, it is important to think about how this may affect learning. For deaf/hard of hearing students, this includes understanding their full communication history and language use—spoken, signed, or both. American Sign Language is not the same language as English, so a student may still be considered an English learner even if they use sign. Assessments should use qualified interpreters and tools that match the student’s language needs. The National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes offers helpful guidance for considering deaf/hard of hearing students' English proficiency.

Specially Designed Services and Instruction

A key part of the IEP explains what services will be delivered, who will provide each service, and how often, where, and for how long it will happen. These are based on your child’s individual needs. Some examples include:

• An educational audiologist visits the school to check hearing levels and make sure hearing assistive technology is working properly, at least quarterly, or more often if needed.
• An interpreter is available every full school day, including after-school programs, to support your child’s language and communication access with others.
• A teacher of the deaf (TOD) supports the classroom teacher in making reading instruction accessible and works directly with your child twice a week to build literacy skills using visual tools and strategies.
• A speech-language pathologist works with your child during recess to support social communication skills once a week.
• A caption access real-time transcriber (CART), someone who types what is said during class to provide real-time captioning, supports your child in accessing spoken language, for each subject.

Tips for Families

• You can ask for an IEP meeting at any time.
• Write down your questions, concerns, and observations about your child before the meeting.
• You can ask to record the meeting and/or bring someone to help take notes.
• Know your legal rights as you go through the IEP process. You do not have to do it alone — a Parent Mentor or a local advocacy group can support you.

What’s Next?

After your child’s needs, supports, and services are identified, the IEP team will decide how and where all of that will be delivered to your child. This is called the consideration of the least restrictive environment (LRE).

LRE helps the team choose the best educational delivery for your child — one that allows them to learn and grow alongside their peers as much as possible, while still meeting their needs.

Continue to the next section of this guide to learn more:
LRE and the Educational Placement Continuum.

Or, go back to start the evaluation process.

Deepen your understanding by checking out these national educational service guidelines: Optimizing Outcomes for Deaf/Hard of Hearing Students.