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Original video made by Christina Riccio starting with facts and showing what to expect from this page!

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Article written by Meg Flanagan on MilSpouseFest says “at a minimum, this ruling raises the standards of special education services provided by public schools. It ensures that all students will receive a rigorous education. For military families, it can help during transitions to ensure that necessary services are continued from duty station to duty station.”

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According to a 2014 report from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD), there are 2 million military children enrolled in school. Of this population, approximately 20 percent are enrolled in special education.

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Military families with special health care needs face complex issues and rely heavily on both military-specific and community-based programs. Policies must be aligned to the problems to eliminate barriers to care. 

(HSC Foundation)

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Tricare - Military Medical Insurance

According to a post on Military.com on the “Military Report”, The military’s largest benefits update, TRICARE covers speech therapy to treat speech, language and voice dysfunctions resulting from birth defects, disease, injury, hearing loss and pervasive developmental disorders.

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Impact of Geographic Mobility on Military Children’s Access to Special Education Purposes

 http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=95034405&site=ehost-live

An article found in USF Libraries Academic Search Premier written by Jessica Carol Jagger and Suzanne Lederer says “One of the constants of the military lifestyle is geographic mobility, or permanent change of station (PCS). The PCS has a particularly profound effect on military children with disabilities and their families. With each PCS, families choreograph an elaborate dance with losing and gaining schools and providers as they navigate the complexities of a new special education system. In this study, more than 100 individuals, enroUees of a military program for families with dependents with disabilities and providers serving them, participated in focus groups and interviews to idendfy the challenges that families face and the resources that are available to them. Drawing on relevant research literature and the results of the study, the authors explore some of the common challenges military students with disabilities and their families face and offer resources and recommendations for school staff supporting them. School staff can take steps to assist and support these families, such as proactively planning for the PCS with the families, infomiing families about ways in which current services may be different from what they have previously experienced or will experience, and joining in the children's circle of support as an ally and a trusted source of information.”

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Children and families are involved in multiple care systems. Family environment and unmet needs are associated with a child’s developmental outcomes, and military families can have special unmet needs that are associated with complex family environments. 

(HSC Foundation)

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An article on Stars and Stripes titled : 'We are just tired of this fight:' Special-needs families say military is still failing them talks about how Army 1st Sgt Carrigg and his wife couldn’t get the services they needed for their two younger children with special needs — including therapy or a school aide for their autistic son. Their assigned doctor denied their baby girl — who also has Down syndrome — the hearing treatment she required and refused to acknowledge their son’s diagnosed life-threatening condition, leaving him in peril, they said.

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Problems are particularly significant for military family members who are low-income or less-educated as may happen with some enlisted personnel.  Referring these parents to websites simply is often not enough and they need more 1:1 support, said one advocate. (According to reports in 2009, military families redeemed food stamps at twice the rate of civilian families; low income parents often face significant barriers in advocating for children in special education.)

Jessica Butler in her article titled Overcoming Barriers Faced by Military Children with Special Needs

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A personal blog from a military spouse talks about all things military but in an blog post she wrote titled When You Have Special Needs Kids With A Spouse In The Military she says “You need to be aware of changes with health care for your special needs child. They don’t always cover everything you need and sometimes you will have to fight for it. Sadly, some military benefits get taken away and that can hurt your special needs child.”

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A video from AirForceTV from the Spouse and Family Forum on the protocols they follow for families with special needs

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More recently, 35 military families submitted a formal complaint to the principal deputy inspector general ...

for the Department of Defense, citing that “DoD’s continued failure to follow the law, its history of mismanagement of these critical programs, and the inconsistent approaches across the services warrants the in-depth type of review and oversight only your office can provide.

(CNAS.org)

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“Many families have been assigned to duty locations where they cannot obtain necessary medical care or educational support for their dependents. “ - Lieutenant Coronal Brad Orgeron

(CNAS.org)

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In the past 10 years, about half of active-duty service members have deployed at least once, and National Guard and reserve forces have accounted for one-third of all deployments. The average length of deployment is 12 months for the Army, 7 months for the Marine Corps, 6 months for the Navy, and 3 to 4 months for the Air Force. The cumulative length of deployment is associated with family stress and the health and mental health of family members. 

(HSC Foundation)

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Many deployed forces are reserve and National Guard and are spread out across the continent in small communities. They can have problems in attaining access to care. These areas can be deemed medically underserved (MU),

(HSC Foundation)

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ASHA 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 audiologist.

Educational and Developmental Intervention Services (EDIS) provides early intervention to children and infants of active-duty service members both overseas and in the U.S. Only certain bases have EDIS programs. If a stateside base lacks an EDIS program, local early intervention programs provide the necessary services both on- and off-base. The military won’t send families with identified needs to bases overseas unless the base offers an EDIS program (which most overseas bases do). Clinics vary, with some providing two or three speech-language pathologists in one clinic and others sharing a traveling SLP among small bases located near one another.

EDIS programs follow the same rules and procedures as state programs, including evaluations, individualized family service plans and transition services. All EDIS programs provide home-based and family-centered treatment. EDIS programs fall under the umbrella of base health systems, so providers have direct access to children’s medical records if they receive care in a military facility. All military families use the same insurance provider, which doesn’t require co-pays or medical coding.

Most EDIS children transition to the Department of Defense Dependent Schools (DoDDS) on base at age 3. The DoDDS follows the child’s IEP just like the community school system. Stateside, only children living on base are eligible for these schools. Families stationed overseas can attend them regardless of where they live. DoDDS follows federal law requirements including IEPs, 504 plans and evaluation schedules.

Because military families move every few years, EDIS programs and DoD schools try to standardize paperwork and procedures—obviously helpful to audiologists, SLPs and other service providers.

So the next time you meet a military family in your professional life, remember that your treatment will start or continue a process that follows the child and family all over the country and world. Help them lay a solid foundation to take with them on their adventures.

Written By: Lisa Lunsford, MA, CCC-SLP, has worked for the military for more than 11 years and in early intervention for 20 years. She’s provided treatment in four different states and four different countries.

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CSHCN have diverse needs. Between13percent and18 percent of these children have health care expenditures that are three times greater than those of a typical child. Even with these increased expenditures, CSHCN have more unmet health care needs than other children. 

(HSC Foundation)