What are Supports and Services?

A Supplementory aid or service is any device, provision of help, or activity that adds to or completes a child's education by making up a deficit. They enhance a child's ability to access general curriculum, to learn and/or participate.

From the LDOnline.org: A child may require any of the following related services in order to benefit from special education. Related services, as listed under IDEA, include (but are not limited to):

* Audiology services
* Counseling services
* Early identification and assessment of disabilities

*Interpreting services
* Medical services for diagnostic or evaluation purposes

* School health services and school nurse services
* Occupational therapy
* Orientation and mobility services
* Parent counseling and training
* Physical therapy
* Psychological services
* Recreation, including therapeutic recreation
* Rehabilitation counseling services
* School health services
* Social work services in schools
* Speech-language pathology services
* Transportation

Children may also be eligible for specialized devices at home. IDEA 300.308(b) states: "On a case-by-case basis, the use of school purchased assistive technology devices in a child's home or in other settings is required if the child's IEP team determines that the child needs access to those devices in orderto receive FAPE."

Though these are the only services listed in the law, related services are not limited to this list. A state or district may list any service that they wish, if it is appropriate for the student.

IDEA does make one exception: surgically implanted devices. These include (but are not limited to): cochlear implants, insulin pump, baclofen pump, pacemaker, G-tube, and vagus nerve stimulator device. However, if the child has a surgically implanted device, the district does have a responsibility to provide supportive related services in relation to that device {§300.34(b)}.

The district is not responsible for optimizing these devices, maintaining them, or replacing them. It is responsible for “routine checking to determine if the external component of a surgically implanted device is turned on and working” (71 Fed. Reg. 46570) and for providing other types of services the child needs, as determined by the IEP team, including:

• assistive technology (e.g., FM system);
• proper classroom acoustical modifications;
• educational support services (e.g., educational interpreters); and
• receiving the related services (e.g., speech and language services) that are necessary for the child to benefit from special education services.