Fix the System, Not the Student: A Neuroaffirming Approach to IEPs

For generations, education has been built on the medical model of disability, a framework that sees difference as something to diagnose, treat, and normalize. Under this model, disability is defined as a defect within the individual, something to be corrected through therapy or intervention, so the student can function more like their peers. Professionals become the experts, and the child becomes the subject of their expertise.

The result is a system where IEPs often read like treatment plans. Students are described by what they cannot do, and their goals are framed around correction rather than access. This may appear caring or even supportive, but it keeps the focus on fixing children instead of fixing the conditions that exclude them.

From Diagnosis to Design

When a child’s ability to learn depends on whether they fit into a coded category, we are still operating within a medical model. Labels become the key to support, and students are sorted into hierarchies of eligibility. While diagnosis can open doors, it can also limit how a child is seen, reducing a complex human being to a list of deficits or accommodations.

The social model of disability offers another path. It shifts the question from “What is wrong with this student?” to “What barriers are standing in their way?”Those barriers might be physical (noise, lighting, classroom layout), structural (curriculum design, rigid schedules), or attitudinal (biases, low expectations). When we identify and remove these barriers, we move from intervention to inclusion.

This also requires a fundamental shift in language and perception—from believing that a student “has a disability” to understanding that they “are disabled” by the conditions around them. Disability is not something that lives inside the child but something that emerges when systems, environments, or expectations create barriers that restrict participation and potential. The question then becomes not how to change the student, but how to identify and dismantle the barriers society has placed in their path so that they can fully thrive.

The “Ramp” Analogy

A student who uses a wheelchair cannot enter a school without a ramp. The barrier is not the wheelchair; it is the stairs. The same logic applies to cognitive, sensory, and emotional differences. Students do not need to be carried into education through compliance plans or behavioral interventions. They need ramps, systemic, environmental, and relational supports that provide equitable access and preserve dignity.

When we build these ramps into the design of learning itself, students no longer have to rely on good intentions, or the discretion of individual educators. Accessibility becomes embedded, not optional.

Rethinking IEP Language

Many IEPs reinforce the medical model not just through their goals, but through their language. “I can” statements are often written about the student rather than by them, creating the illusion of student ownership while maintaining professional control over the narrative. These statements, while seemingly empowering, can quietly reinforce compliance by measuring success through a child’s ability to meet externally imposed expectations rather than through meaningful access or self-determination.

Even strength-based IEPs can fall into this trap when they use positive language to soften or conceal systemic responsibility. Framing barriers as “growth areas” or “learning opportunities” can make plans sound affirming, yet it shifts attention away from the legal and ethical obligations of the school to remove those barriers. When accountability is hidden behind optimistic phrasing, the result is often performative inclusion without structural change.

The underlying issue is not simply the wording of goals but what they represent. Too many IEPs still prioritize compliance and the normalization of behavior. Students are encouraged to adapt, mask, and conform to environments that were never designed with them in mind. Masking, which involves suppressing natural behaviors, sensory needs, or communication styles to appear “appropriate,” is often mistaken for progress. In reality, it is a form of self-protection born out of systems that value comfort and control over authenticity and well-being.

Moving away from compliance-based goals means recognizing that students should not have to perform “normalcy” to be accepted. The purpose of an IEP is not to make students easier to teach but to make learning environments capable of meeting diverse needs.

Beyond Awareness: Toward Accountability

Moving from the medical to the social model requires more than awareness or empathy. It requires systemic accountability. Awareness without change keeps inequities intact.

A social-model IEP:

• Embeds neuroaffirming and rights-based language.

• Treats accommodations as legal obligations, not goodwill gestures.

• Places responsibility on the system to adapt, not on the student to comply.

• Makes belonging a shared responsibility rather than an individual achievement.

  
  

When schools see accessibility as a legal and moral duty, not an act of generosity, inclusion moves from charity to justice.

The Way Forward

Every IEP should reflect a child’s right to belong, not a plan for them to fit in. True inclusion is not about making students easier to teach, it is about making schools capable of teaching everyone. Inclusion is a shared responsibility that extends beyond the classroom. It requires community care plans that hold the system and every member within it accountable for creating environments where all students can learn, participate, and thrive.

The medical model tells us to fix the child. The social model reminds us to fix the system.

It is time to design IEPs that build ramps instead of walls.