Louis Geigerman

This is a review about Louis Geigerman’s special education advocacy busines, not his insurance company. I know nothing of him as an insurance salesman. Note: the following review is from my friend, who wanted to use my account to review Louis. I have never personally met the man or even been in the same room as him:
To preface, I am a special education teacher and have had many special education («ARD») meetings with Mr. Geigerman. For a person who advertises himself as a special education advocate, he appears to have limited knowledge about special education or disabilities. Having seen his «Ben Geigerman Lecture Series» presentations, he lacks the knowledge and experience to advocate for anybody but himself and his own ego. His knowledge of ADHD, Autism, and Intellectual Disabilities is limited and outdated. For instance, he might make cookie-​cutter recommendations such as «Sensory Strategies» for every kid — it’s like he is grasping at straws because he has such limited knowledge.
His only real «strength» is in dragging out meetings so administrators just give in and offer haphazard, wasteful, irrelevant, and unnecessary services — the alternative being him wasting tax-​payer resources for legal fees. I’m not sure if gets paid by the hour, but that is my suspicion why he makes meetings last a real long time. These «services» he pushes for are often misguided. For instance, a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) is an assessment to figure out the function or the reason behind a behavior. To illustrate, little Johnny screams and throws a tantrum in the supermarket because when he does it, his mom gives him candy to quiet him. In this case, the «function» of the behavior is to gain access to candy. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, Louis will try to conflate this FBA by mixing it with other things, and he might even say he wants a Functional Behavior Assessment about «Language» or «to fix executive functions», and he will toss out terms just to confuse people. It’s hard to take this guy seriously, but when he and his minions (e.g., Lynn Akins) pushes for things like an «FBA about technology», it borders on the discredited and harmful Facilitated Communication of the 1980s and 90s.
My suspicion as to why he’s so popular and successful: First, he advertises extremely well and even has a podcast. He’s maybe the only advocate out there with a website with customer testimonials. He also has lots of connections to Houston area clinicians because he goes out of his way to present at conferences, advertises for them, and helps with their business. For instance, if the school does an evaluation (called a Full and Individual Evaluation [FIE]) for a student and there is disagreement with the evaluation, he will push for the school to pay for an independent evaluation (called an IEE) by his choice of clinicians. These clinicians in turn will recommend Mr. Geigerman. There is a big «you scratch my back I scratch yours». I also wonder what influence he had for his daughter (Kayla) to work for Fox News 26. Second, unlike medical doctors, teachers, occupational therapists, and speech therapists who practice within boundaries of ethics and formal training, Louis does not have such a governing body which would keep him in check. For instance, a speech therapist who recommends a student undergo chelation therapy or who advertises herself as an expert in neuropsychology would lose her license. Louis, however, has no such licensing agency or ethics board he has to answer to and thus he can say anything he wants and advertise himself as an expert in Neuropsychology.
He often goes unchallenged because if the school does not offer such services, he will push for parents to go for litigation. In the end, it actually costs the school district much less money to give in to pointless or harmful services and erroneous IEEs than to stand up for the student in court.
I hear he was not always a bad advocate. He was OK in the late 90s, but mostly because the field of special education was still changing and many teachers and administrators were uninformed. For instance, it was common back then for administrators to say things like «I don’t believe in Autism» or «ADHD just means you’re lazy». Nowadays, this is much better (but not perfect). The cynic in me thinks Louis just ran out of ways to contribute towards the field and just makes things up now to feed his own ego and make himself more relevant. But I think much of his aggression, anger, and misinformed judgment stems from the loss of his son, Ben, who committed suicide. Since, then, Mr. Geigerman has been trying to find something redeeming in his actions. Unfortunately, he channels this resentment and hostility towards school districts, and unfortunately, this ultimately hurts the children and families with whom he intends to help.
The only good advocate I’ve seen is Jackie Cross Ecford. She drags out meetings but she authentically cares