In this Travel Note, Mary discusses what to consider before signing parental consent. While procedural safeguards are built-in to the consent process and forms, it remains important to know specifically what you are consenting to and that your consent form reflects that understanding. Consent forms can tend toward generalities like listing general developmental areas to be assessed or stating that information will be gathered by one or more of the following methods. General consent forms provide flexibility and are often encountered when serving large numbers of children, but they also leave room for the unexpected. Including the details in your consent form and being abreast of them make for a positive, less worrying experience with your child. Examples of more and less specific consent forms are made available for listening to review.
A helpful website with detailed information concerning consent and the public school system. https://www.parentcenterhub.org/consent/
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:12 Doing our due diligence
02:00 Mary advisement on how to obtain more specificity when you receive a general consent document to sign
03:00 Potential responses to your inquire(s) and how to move forward
05:08 Why your consent matters most
06:35 What to do if you are unsure of the details or the implications
Check out the Late Talkers Foundation website for more helpful resources: https://latetalkers.org/
Introducing Mary: Mary Camarata is a speech pathologist with more than 40 years experience teaching children with a wide variety of abilities, including giftedness, exceptional learners, language disorder, Autism, and cognitive disabilities. In addition to assisting families and schools across the country, she has coordinated numerous federally funded research projects on language & learning, support models, treatment efficacy, and behavior. In this capacity, she has been an author on more than 35 scholarly papers appearing in peer-reviewed journals. Over the past years, she has held positions at Pennsylvania State University, University of California Santa Barbara, and Vanderbilt University. More recently, assisted with the development of new tests for the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities and Achievement. Mary is in private practice assisting families whose children are experiencing developmental delays, have successful outcomes in their homes, school, and other daily environments. Finally, she is the mother of seven children, including one who had an IEP from preschool through middle school.