Questions to Ask Parents of Special Education Students
These are questions to ask parents about their child with a disability, written for two readers: the teacher, case manager, aide or therapist meeting a family for the first time, and the student teacher assigned to interview the parent of a child with special needs. The 60 questions follow the order that conversation tends to take: the child as a person, the family's story so far, hard days, life at home, goals for the year, and how you and the parent will work together. The wording assumes a US school and an IEP, so if the plan has another name where you work, swap it in.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Your child
Tell me about your child outside of school: what do they do when nobody is asking them to do anything?
Why ask it
Opening with the child rather than the paperwork changes the register of the whole meeting, because many of the school conversations these parents have had began with what their child cannot do. The answer also hands you reinforcers and conversation hooks you would otherwise spend two months discovering.
What would you want me to know about them in the first week, before I know them well?
Why ask it
Parents usually have one or two things they are hoping somebody asks, such as a name preference, a fear of the fire alarm, or a sibling situation. If they hesitate, it may be that earlier staff did nothing with what they shared, so say what you will do with the answer.
What can your child do that tends to surprise people who have only read their file?
Why ask it
A file lists what a child cannot do yet, so staff meet the gaps first. The surprise might be a memory for bus routes, perfect pitch or patience with a baby cousin, and it gives you a strength to start a lesson from.
What do people most often get wrong about your child when they first meet them?
Why ask it
Parents have watched the same mistake many times: adults talking over a child who understands every word, or reading a still face as boredom. Hearing it now saves you from making it yourself.
How does your child communicate best: speech, signs, a device, pictures, or something only the family can read?
Why ask it
Get the whole system, including the gestures and sounds that never made it into a report. If there is a device or a picture book, find out where it lives during the day and who makes sure it is charged and within reach.
When your child has picked up something new at home, how did it happen: watching, being shown, lots of repetition, working it out alone?
Why ask it
Asking about a real skill, such as riding a scooter or using the microwave, gets a better answer than asking for a learning style. Listen for how many tries it took and whether an adult had to step back before it worked.
What is your child into right now, the thing that comes up in every conversation?
Why ask it
A deep interest is the quickest way into a hard task: trains can carry a math problem and a favorite show can carry a writing prompt. Find out how the family handles it when the topic takes over, so that you set the same limits.
What does a good day at school look like from your side of it?
Why ask it
You are asking what the child is like at four in the afternoon, which is the only evidence a parent has about your classroom. A good day defined as no phone call from school tells you the family's expectations have already been lowered.
How does your child feel about school, and how can you tell?
Why ask it
How they can tell is the half that matters for a child who cannot or will not say. Stomach aches on Sunday night, a backpack packed the night before or a refusal to get out of the car are all answers.
Who are the people your child is closest to, at home and beyond it?
Why ask it
Names you will hear all year become names you can place: the grandmother who does pickup, the respite worker, the cousin who is a hero. It also shows whether the child has anyone their own age.
Their story
When did you first notice that your child was developing or learning differently, and what did you see?
Why ask it
Let the parent begin wherever their version begins, which may be a daycare worker's comment or a feeling nobody else shared. In a parent interview for a course this is usually the opening question, and it deserves several minutes without interruption.
How did the diagnosis or the school's evaluation come about, and what was that time like for your family?
Why ask it
Some families pushed for an evaluation for years and others had one arrive unasked, and the two walk into school meetings very differently. What that time was like is an invitation only, so accept a short answer and move on.
How much does your child understand about their own supports and diagnosis?
Why ask it
Staff regularly discuss a student's plan in front of them without knowing what language the family uses at home, or whether the child knows there is a plan at all. Ask what words are used and what the family would rather you not say.
What services or therapies has your child had so far, and which ones made a difference you could see?
Why ask it
The list tells you what the child has already practiced and with whom. Which ones worked is the parent's own evidence, and it may not match the discharge reports, so write it down beside them.
What has their schooling been like up to now: which settings, and how did each one go?
Why ask it
A child who has moved between a general education class, a resource room and a separate program learned something about school from every move. What prompted each change, and who decided, tells you more than the list of placements.
What has a previous teacher done that you would want me to keep doing?
Why ask it
This gets you a working strategy for free and tells you what the family counts as good practice. It also gives the parent the experience of being treated as a source of expertise rather than as a recipient of updates.
What has been tried that did not work, so I do not repeat it?
Why ask it
Families of students with IEPs have often watched several years of interventions come and go, and they can save you months. Listen for anything tried more than once: when the same approach has failed twice, look at whether the goal fit the child before you question anyone's effort.
What was the hardest stretch so far, and what got your family through it?
Why ask it
It may be a hospital stay, a school that kept calling them to pick their child up, or a year with no answers. What got them through shows what the family leans on, and the stretch itself can explain a reaction that would otherwise look out of proportion.
How has your child's disability shaped daily life for the rest of the family, brothers and sisters included?
Why ask it
Appointments, sleep, work hours and vacations are often arranged around one child, and siblings notice. The answer shows how much room the family has for the home practice a school tends to ask for.
What do you know now that you wish someone had told you at the start?
Why ask it
Parents answer this one generously because it turns their experience into advice. For a new teacher or a student interviewer it is often the most quotable answer of the conversation, so get permission before you repeat it anywhere.
If you could get one thing across to every teacher your child will ever have, what would it be?
Why ask it
Expect something plain, such as 'believe me when I say it is different at home' or 'he hears everything you say about him'. For a student teacher it is the answer most worth carrying into a first classroom, since it is addressed to you.
Hard days
What does a hard day look like when they get home?
Why ask it
Many students hold themselves together all day and come apart at home, so the parent may be seeing costs that never appear in your data. What time it usually starts, and what came before it, can point at a particular part of the school day.
What are the early signs that they are getting overwhelmed, before it is obvious?
Why ask it
A parent who can name a five-minute warning window has handed you the center of the plan, because staff can act inside that window and not after it. Ask what the sign looks like in a noisy room, where it is easiest to miss.
When they are already upset, what helps and what makes it worse?
Why ask it
Ask specifically about touch, talking, offering choices, and being watched, since well-meaning staff instincts often make things worse for a particular child. What makes it worse is the half of the answer that rarely gets written into a plan.
Are there sounds, lights, textures, smells or crowded places that are hard for them?
Why ask it
Walk through the school day in your head as they answer: the hand dryer, the cafeteria, the bell, the glue. One swapped seat or a warning before the bell can remove a trigger that nobody had connected to the afternoon's trouble.
How do they handle a change of plan, such as a substitute teacher, a fire drill or a cancelled trip?
Why ask it
For some children the surprise does more damage than the event. Find out how much notice helps and in what form, since a picture the night before settles one child and only feeds another's worry.
After a meltdown or a shutdown, how long does it take them to recover, and what do they need in that time?
Why ask it
Schools tend to expect a child back at work within minutes of looking calm. If experience at home says it takes an hour and no talking, a debrief straight afterwards is likely to start the whole thing again.
Has your child ever run off, hurt themselves or hurt someone else when things got too much, and what was happening just before?
Why ask it
Ask it plainly and without alarm, because parents often expect to be judged for the answer. What happened just before is the part a school can change, and the safety details need to reach everyone who supervises the child, including at lunch and on the bus.
What does your child do to calm themselves, and is it something we should leave alone?
Why ask it
Rocking, humming, chewing a sleeve or pacing may be what is holding the day together. Staff who stop it for looking odd take away a tool and offer nothing in its place, so agree which habits are fine and which need a quieter substitute in class.
How does your child show that they are in pain or feeling ill, if they do not say so?
Why ask it
A child who cannot say that an ear hurts may hit their head, refuse food or go very still, and at school that is easily written up as a behavior problem. Get the family's own signs, and find out who they want called when you see one.
Are there medical details, medications, or sleep patterns that show up during the school day?
Why ask it
Medication timing, seizure activity, and sleep changes explain a great deal of variation that otherwise gets recorded as behavior. Ask what a dose change looks like from the outside so staff do not misread a medical week as a regression.
At home
What does a school morning look like at your house, from waking up to getting out of the door?
Why ask it
A child who has already fought through dressing, breakfast and a bus harness arrives with less in reserve than the schedule assumes. Knowing that lets you make the first twenty minutes of the day easy on purpose.
What is homework and reading time like at home, and how long is it taking?
Why ask it
A task set for twenty minutes can take several times that at a kitchen table without the classroom supports, and parents often assume that is normal. The real duration is data you can use to change the assignment rather than the family's evening.
What can they do for themselves at home, such as dressing, eating and using the toilet, and where do you still help?
Why ask it
Independence often differs between the two places: some children do more at home where nobody hurries them, and some do more at school where nobody steps in. Compare notes without embarrassment on either side, and ask what help with toileting the family is comfortable with staff giving.
How are mealtimes, and is there anything about lunch at school I should know?
Why ask it
A short list of accepted foods, trouble chewing or a need to eat alone can turn the cafeteria into the worst half hour of the day. Allergies and anything about swallowing belong with the nurse or whoever keeps health plans at your school, so ask how that is recorded there.
How do they get on with brothers, sisters and other children outside school?
Why ask it
Play with a sibling or a neighbor shows what the child can do socially when the other person already knows them. If there is nobody, that changes what a friendship goal at school should aim for first.
What do they tell you about school, and how do you find out what really happened?
Why ask it
Many parents of children with limited speech learn about the day from a bruise, a mood or an uneaten lunch. If that is the case here, two lines home from you are their only reliable account of it.
Which routines or tools at home work well enough that we should copy them at school?
Why ask it
A picture schedule on the fridge, a kitchen timer or a particular phrase for 'nearly finished' has already been tested on this child. Using the same one in class means they have a single system to learn.
What does your family enjoy doing together, and what do you avoid because it is too hard?
Why ask it
The first half gives you things to ask the child about on a Monday. The second half, whether it is restaurants, haircuts or birthday parties, shows which everyday skills would open the most doors if school worked on them.
What support do you have around you: relatives, other parents, respite care, a group?
Why ask it
You are asking so that you do not assume a spare adult at home who is not there. If the answer is nobody, find out what your school is able to point families towards locally before you offer anything.
Goals
What progress in the last year are you proudest of, whether or not it shows up in the reports?
Why ask it
What a parent is proud of may be on no data sheet: sitting through a haircut, a first night at a grandparent's house. It shows what this family counts as progress, and that is the measure they will apply to this year too.
Which parts of the IEP matter most to you this year, if we could only get some of it right?
Why ask it
An IEP often holds more goals than a team can push hard on at once, and staff and families can quietly prioritize different ones. Getting the family's ranking on the record prevents an annual review where progress was real but on the wrong things.
When you picture the last week of this school year, what is different about your child?
Why ask it
Parents answer this in daily-life terms rather than in goal language: ordering their own food, riding the bus, having one friend to sit with. Those answers can usually be mapped back onto existing goals, and doing that in front of the parent shows the plan is theirs.
What does your child say they want from school, in words or in whatever way they show it?
Why ask it
A student's own goal is often smaller and more exact than the adults': to eat with a certain classmate, or to stop being taken out of art. Writing it into the plan beside the adult goals gives them a voice in a meeting they may not attend.
Which one skill, if it came together this year, would change the most at home?
Why ask it
The pick is often not academic at all: asking for a drink, sleeping through the night, waiting two minutes without distress. Check whether any goal in the current plan comes close to it.
What worries you most about this year?
Why ask it
The worry is often something the school does not consider its business, such as friendship, bullying, puberty, or the transition to the next building. Naming it lets you say honestly what you can and cannot affect.
How much of the day would you like your child to spend in general education classes, and what would make that time go well?
Why ask it
Families hold strong and different views here, from wanting full inclusion to fearing it. Placement is a team decision with its own rules where you work, so listen, record the view and be clear that you cannot promise an outcome across the table.
Does the support they get feel like too much, too little, or aimed at the wrong moments?
Why ask it
An aide sitting beside a child all day can become the barrier between them and the other children. Parents often see this before staff do, and they also know when help was taken away too early.
What would you like your child's friendships at school to look like, and how far off is that now?
Why ask it
Friendship is often high on a family's list and missing from the paperwork. A name the child mentions at home is something you can work with: a shared table, a paired job, a lunch club.
What do you want your child to be able to do on their own by the time they leave school?
Why ask it
Raise it years before any transition paperwork requires it, because the answer, whether it is a job, a bus route or managing their own medication, should be shaping goals now. The age at which formal transition planning starts depends on your country and state, so check how it works where you teach.
Working together
How do you want me to communicate, and how often is right for you?
Why ask it
There is a wide range between one family who wants a daily note and another for whom every message reads as bad news. Agreeing on channel, frequency, and format now avoids the pattern where the only contact from school is a problem.
What kind of news do you want a phone call for rather than an email?
Why ask it
The threshold varies more than people expect. Fixing it in advance stops the common failure where a parent learns about an injury, a restraint, or a suspension from their child or from another parent first. Some of those carry notification rules of their own where you work, so learn them and treat the parent's preference as an addition.
Who else should be getting my messages, and who makes the decisions about school?
Why ask it
Two households, a grandparent with day-to-day care or a foster placement all change the answer. Who is entitled to records and who signs consent is set by law and by your school's files, so confirm it with the office and do not rely on the conversation alone.
Who else works with your child outside school, and would you want us talking to each other?
Why ask it
Private therapists, medical specialists, and behavior consultants are often working on the same targets with different language. Sharing information normally needs the family's written permission, and the form and the rules depend on where you work, so raise it early and ask your school how a release is handled there.
Is there anything about your family's language, culture or faith that should shape how we work with your child?
Why ask it
Food rules, days the child will be away, who may help with personal care and how disability is spoken about among relatives can all bear on the school day. Put it to every family, so that nobody is singled out by being asked.
Where have you felt unheard in past meetings, and what would you want done differently?
Why ask it
Ask this even though it invites criticism, because the alternative is inheriting a distrust you never explained. Common answers include being outnumbered at the table, receiving documents at the meeting itself, and having decisions presented as already made.
What would make IEP meetings easier for you: drafts sent ahead, a different time of day, an interpreter, someone beside you?
Why ask it
Each option removes a specific disadvantage: reading under pressure, losing pay to attend, following a second language, sitting alone opposite six professionals. Offer only what your school can deliver, and find out what parents are entitled to bring or request where you are.
Which terms or parts of the paperwork has nobody ever properly explained to you?
Why ask it
Asking it this way puts the gap on the school and not on the parent. Expect service minutes, accommodations versus modifications and the meaning of the test scores to come up, and explain each with an example from this child's week.
What can we reasonably ask of you at home, and what would be too much on top of everything else?
Why ask it
A home program that assumes twenty free minutes a night fails quietly and leaves the parent feeling at fault. One thing done most days, chosen by the family, lasts longer than a folder of worksheets.
What have I not asked about that you were hoping I would?
Why ask it
Leave a real pause after it. This is where a parent mentions the custody hearing, the new baby or the trouble on the bus, and it is the natural last question whether you are their child's teacher or a student writing up the interview.
Talking with families of students on an IEP
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the conversation
- 1If you are on the child's team, read the full IEP and the last two progress reports first. Asking a parent to re-explain what is already in the file is a quick way to lose the room. A student interviewer will not have those records and should start from what the parent chooses to say.
- 2Find out who has attended past meetings and who has been doing the emailing. The parent who answers the phone is not always the one who tracks the plan.
- 3Ask how the family wants the child's name and diagnosis referred to, including whether they prefer identity-first or person-first language.
- 4Arrange the first contact so it is not about a problem. A call in the first two weeks that reports something the child did well changes every later call.
- 5Check whether an interpreter is needed for the conversation, not only for the formal meeting, and find out what interpreting your school or district provides before leaning on a bilingual relative or on the child.
Choosing what to ask
Take two groups, not the whole list
A first meeting with a new family has room for Your child and Working together, with one or two from Hard days if the parent raises them. Keep Goals for the weeks before the IEP meeting, when the answers can go straight into the draft. Nobody should sit through all 60 questions in one sitting.
If this is a parent interview for a course
Student teachers are often asked to interview the parent of a child with a disability. Their story and Goals carry most of what that assignment is after: how the family found out, what services and schools have been like, and what they hope for. Say at the start what the interview is for, who will read it and that names will be changed, and check your course's rules on consent and recording before you meet.
Let the parent set the depth
Questions about a diagnosis, a hard stretch or the effect on brothers and sisters can reach grief or anger quickly. Say that anything can be skipped, do not push past a short answer, and never ask a parent to justify a decision they made about treatment or schooling.
Send three or four ahead
A parent who sees a few of the questions a day or two early arrives with examples in place of first reactions. It also helps someone who is working in a second language, or who wants to talk an answer over with the child's other parent first.
Making the answers usable
Write down the parent's words, not your translation of them
If a parent says their child shuts down when the room gets loud, that sentence is more useful in a plan than a paraphrase about auditory sensitivity. Staff who did not attend the meeting can act on the concrete version.
Separate what you can change from what you can influence
Be specific about which requests you can act on yourself, which need the team, and which need the plan formally changed, a process with its own rules where you work. Vague agreement in the moment is the main source of the feeling that promises were broken.
Close the loop on anything you were told
Report back within two weeks on at least one thing the parent raised, even briefly. A family that sees a piece of their own information appear in practice will keep telling you things.
What damages the relationship
- Contact that only ever happens when something has gone wrong, so the school's number becomes a source of dread.
- Handing over documents at the start of the meeting and expecting the family to respond to them in real time.
- Explaining data at a level of jargon that makes disagreement difficult, then treating quiet as consent.
- Talking about the student in the third person while they are sitting at the table.
- Describing a parent as difficult in front of colleagues, which tends to shape how the next staff member approaches them before they have met.
- Assuming a parent who says little is disengaged. Some are managing work shifts, other children, or a history of meetings that went badly.