The first step to effective advocacy is organization. You have to know a child - both objectively and subjectively- in order to develop a good plan for him or her. Parents are usually experts on subjective information - how they feel about a child's diagnosis and the impact of the diagnosis on learning, how a child is doing in school, generally speaking. However, when parents share those feelings, they are often undervalued by schools. That could be because the IEP must be developed to address objective areas of need. In today’s episode, we’ll talk about adding objectivity to your advocacy to be better understood.