I used to be one of the expert evaluators that would give an opinion on whether a program was “appropriate” or “not appropriate.” I almost never agree to do these any longer, even though it can certainly help children get better programming–sometimes. I just didn’t enjoy the work. I’d rather be the person doing the programming and let someone else evaluate my work. I’ll Poogi more that way, too.
By law, schools are supposed to provide children with disabilities FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education). But what does “appropriate” look like? Parents of children with disabilities and school districts often don’t agree on what “appropriate” means. There is a lot of legal opinion on this topic that I don’t intend to get into here. For now, the main point is that there is no agreed-upon standard to determine if a program is appropriate.
There are some generally accepted rules. For example, the school district is not required to provide the “best,” only what is appropriate. On the other hand, if a child is making no progress or very minimal progress, the program is clearly “not appropriate.” This is an adversarial process; the district and parents will often fight about who are the appropriate experts to settle the dispute.
When you have a subjective standard like this, it is impossible to prevent huge biases from entering into the decision. This is especially true when large sums of money are involved (e.g., if the results of the evaluation determine whether or not a student is outplaced to a private school). That’s why there is so much fighting over who is the appropriate expert. Their biases (and I think who is paying them) can have a huge impact on what their opinion might contain.
What would be an example of a huge bias? Well, there are lots of things that BCBAs do not agree on easily; PECS vs Sign Language, IISCA vs. Traditional Functional Analysis, or VB MAPP vs. PEAK. Sometimes the person on the other side is from a different profession, which makes the conflict even more difficult.
The key lesson for me is that these decisions are rarely decided based solely on data (even if the primary decision-makers are BCBAs). I’ve seen terrible programs survive an evaluation as appropriate. I’ve seen excellent programs deemed as not appropriate. It is not enough to master data analysis; we must learn to work in complex social environments, too.
There isn’t an easy answer if you are stuck in one of these conflicts. But I can offer at least one small, yet helpful tip. People might say the decision is based on science and data, but that is rarely the case. The reinforcers controlling the decision are complex and usually have very little to do with the child. As soon as you realize that, you can better work to advocate for the child in a way that truly is based on science and data.