When I think about whether an IEP advocacy case has been successful, I'm not just thinking about what happened during the meeting.

Of course, I want students to receive the services and supports they need. I want teams to address parent concerns, make appropriate decisions, and follow through.

But I also pay attention to something else.

What does the parent understand now that they didn't understand before?

Do they understand why decisions were made? Do they know what progress should look like? Are they more comfortable asking questions?

Because advocacy isn't just about what happens in one IEP meeting.

(If you're a BCBA who supports families at the IEP table, my IEP Meetings Decoded training for behavior analysts is a good place to start.)

Advocacy develops over time

A 2025 study by DeMatthews and Means-Parker examined how parents of children with disabilities came to understand and navigate the IEP process across multiple meetings and years.

I think that's an important distinction.

Parents aren't necessarily going to understand the special education process after one meeting, one explanation of procedural safeguards, or one conversation with an advocate. They're learning to navigate a complicated system, often while managing significant concerns about their child's education.

We shouldn't expect advocacy knowledge and confidence to develop all at once.

Knowledge isn't the same as feeling prepared to use it

But knowledge isn't the only thing that matters. This is where another study caught my attention.

In 2025, Burke, Li, and Rossetti examined the relationships among special education knowledge, empowerment, and advocacy activities among 246 parents of individuals with disabilities.

One interesting finding was that empowerment had a stronger positive association with individual advocacy than special education knowledge alone.

This was correlational research, so we can't conclude that increasing empowerment automatically leads to more advocacy. But I think the distinction matters.

We can explain IDEA, review evaluations, and help parents understand their rights. All of that matters.

But understanding information and feeling prepared to use it aren't necessarily the same thing. A parent might know they can request an evaluation but still struggle to make that request when the team disagrees.

Our work as advocates should help families develop both the knowledge and the confidence to participate meaningfully in educational decisions.

And that doesn't mean shifting responsibility onto parents. Schools still have an obligation to ensure meaningful parent participation.

A parallel for BCBAs

I think there's a parallel here for BCBAs working in IEP advocacy.

BCBAs bring considerable expertise to the IEP process. We're trained to analyze complicated situations, evaluate evidence, identify meaningful outcomes, and make recommendations based on data. Those skills are incredibly valuable in advocacy.

But applying that expertise within the special education system introduces additional considerations.

It's one thing to identify a concern with a student's progress. It's another to understand how that concern fits within the requirements of IDEA, determine what information the team needs to consider, and communicate a recommendation in a way that moves the discussion forward.

And sometimes the challenge isn't identifying what should change. It's navigating disagreement about whether a change is necessary, how it should happen, or who is responsible for making it happen.

This is where advocacy becomes more than knowing the law or understanding the data. It involves professional judgment, communication, collaboration, and knowing when to push for something and when to gather more information.

These are skills that continue to develop through experience, reflection, and deliberate practice.

A 2020 study by Goldman and colleagues found improvements in special education knowledge, advocacy comfort, involvement, and empowerment among graduates of a special education advocacy training program.

What interests me about that research isn't simply that advocacy skills can be taught. It's that effective advocacy involves several interconnected areas of knowledge and skill. And I think that's particularly relevant to BCBAs, because we already have a substantial professional foundation to build on.

Holding your expertise without apologizing for it

One part of that development is learning to hold your professional expertise without apologizing for it.

That doesn't mean being confrontational or assuming your interpretation is always correct.

It means being able to communicate a well-supported professional opinion, ask difficult questions, and respectfully disagree without immediately backing away from your position.

Sometimes effective advocacy results in an immediate change to an IEP. Other times, the most important work happens through a series of conversations, data reviews, meetings, and decisions.

How we measure success

And that brings me back to how we measure success.

We can't confuse a successful IEP meeting with the entirety of successful advocacy.

We absolutely need to pay attention to what was decided during the meeting and whether those decisions result in meaningful improvements for the student. But we should also be paying attention to what happens beyond that meeting.

• Is the student making meaningful progress?
• Is the team following through?
• Does the parent have a better understanding of their child's educational program and a stronger voice in future decisions?

The goal isn't just to help a family get through their next IEP meeting. It's to help them become more informed, confident participants in their child's education while making sure the student actually receives the support they need.

And for those of us doing this work, effective advocacy is something we continue to refine, not something we master after a certain number of meetings.

Want to build your IEP advocacy skills as a BCBA? Learn more about Pivot Into IEP Advocacy.

References

Burke, M. M., Li, C., & Rossetti, Z. (2025). Examining the associations between motivation, knowledge, empowerment, advocacy, and civic engagement among parents of individuals with disabilities. The Journal of Special Education, 59(2), 113–122. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224669251317175

DeMatthews, D. E., & Means-Parker, J. (2025). "How the game works": Parent participation in the IEP process. Journal of Educational Change, 26, 657–689. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-025-09534-3