We hope that your summer is off to a great start! Even though school and the sunshine are out, research studies are in full swing at CAR. One of the most important things you can do to help CAR advance research into the causes of and treatments for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is to enroll in autismMatch; it only takes 20-30 minutes. Once enrolled, we will notify you about studies for which your family may be eligible. Summer is a great time to get involved! Participate in a research study. CAR is conducting research on treatment, diagnosis, genetics, and brain imaging, as well as studies focused on common co-occurring problems related to sleep and anxiety. Enroll in autismMatchto be connected to studies your family may be eligible for, email autism@email.chop.edu to express interest, or call 1-866-570-6524 to talk with a member of our team. Spread the word about CAR. Our research requires thousands of children and adults with or without ASD to participate in order to make discoveries that will help. Pass this email along to friends and family. Have a neighbor, a nephew, a nanny? Ask them to enroll in autismMatch too! Study Spotlight Children with our without ASD are currently needed for the following studies: The Study of Social Functioning and Genetics (ages 6-18): Our past research has discovered a genetic variant that appears to have an impact on social functioning in children with ASDs. We want to test the theory that children with this variant have poorer social skills than children without it. FaceStation Videogame Trial Intervention (ages 8-18): Participants will play video games designed to help them improve their ability to identify faces and recognize nonverbal communication. This study will measure changes in the brain following training with the video games. Read more about FaceStation on CAR’s Blog, Driven>> Refining Behavioral and Biomarkers for Use in Treatment Studies (ages 12-18): This study will attempt to identify a new quantitative measure for assessing ASD, independent of the typical behavioral scales, used in current practice. Potential markers examined include eye tracking, brain imaging and genetic markers. Infant Brain Imaging Study (enrollment age 6 months or younger): The purpose of this study is to identify very early brain features that may be characteristic of infants at risk for autism.

Families interested in participating are invited to enroll in autismMatch, email autism@email.chop.edu, or call 1-866-570-6524.

Thank you for being an important part of the CAR community!

All the Best,

 Julie Julie Mesaric

Autism Outreach Liaison 267-426-4903 autism@email.chop.edu

Morgaine Ford-Workman / Staff Graphic

Posted:  Sunday, July 17, 2011 12:00 am  |  Updated: 6:47 am, Sun Jul 17, 2011.

By Dan Dunkin 
Staff Writer  |  | 

Like many school districts in these turbulent economic times, Bristol Township has dealt with serious budget challenges.

Despite those hurdles, its special education program remains an uplifting comeback story, maximizing resources and improving the learning environment for students with disabilities.

“There’s been a whole shift of attitude in special education over the last 10 years, particularly in this district,” says James McAnulty, Bristol Township’s supervisor of secondary special education.

The primary change has been in how Bristol Township and other local districts prioritize the practice of inclusion — including special education students in regular education classrooms as much as possible, with learning supports.

“Now,” says McAnulty, “there’s been an acceptance that all students first belong in their neighborhood school and in a regular education class, and we take it from there.”

“It’s really creating that sense of belonging for all kids,” says Diane Paul, Pennsbury’s director of special education. “This district embraces it.”

“It used to be that once you were in special ed, you were out,” says Damon Smith, Bristol’s director of special education and pupil services. “But there’s been a push, and it’s almost the opposite now.”

Special turnaround

Meeting the ever-growing demands of special education can be a challenge. The increasing numbers of students with Individualized Education Programs across the nation, partly due to the rise in autism, are juxtaposed with increasing costs and static or dwindling federal and state funding. Pennsylvania’s commitment toward special education has been frozen at $1 billion for each of the last three years.

Meanwhile, federal mandates for inclusion and intensified monitoring by the Pennsylvania Department of Education compel school districts to fit most IEP students into the regular classroom for the majority of each school day. This often requires sweeping staff development and alternative instructional models, such as co-teaching.

Students with more severe disabilities and those with behavior issues sometimes aren’t suited for the regular classroom. Districts that aren’t large enough to create their own classes for those students then must pay a far steeper price to send them to special schools or county intermediate units.

Six years ago, Bristol Township was not in compliance with state inclusion standards. The district ranked fifth-worst in Pennsylvania with 34 percent of its IEP students excluded from regular education and the general curriculum for more than 60 percent of the school day.

“That was not good,” McAnulty said. “We went through a whole series of strategies and procedures to change that.”

Stacy Gerlach joined the township’s school board in 2004 to bring more awareness to students with disabilities. Her son, Billy, who is multi-handicapped, represents the low-incidence percentage of disabled students. But his mother thought he should be included in some general education classes, and he was — in art, music and physical education.

“I think the inclusion part is really important,” Gerlach said. “Back when we started, that wasn’t a big thing.

“But it’s not for all kids; all kids cannot be included.”

Gerlach was speaking about the behavior perspective; in middle school, she said, Billy was disruptive in class.

“I said, ‘Pull him out,’ ” Gerlach said. “And that’s where some kids don’t fit in. I don’t want to disrupt other kids.”

Bristol Township made it work better for Billy and many others with varying degrees of IEPs. At Armstrong Middle School, a class was created for Billy and others with similar special needs. He attended Harry S. Truman High School, participated in field trips, went to football games and, his mother notes proudly, did a senior project.

“We worked as a team,” Gerlach said of the district’s special ed department. “It worked out wonderfully.”

“We started thinking, ‘If we can do it for a student with multiple disabilities, why can’t we do it for others?’ ” said Lou deFonteny, supervisor of elementary special education at Bristol Township. “We started to get a groundswell.”

Bristol Township, with a high percentage of special education students — 20 percent, compared to the state average of 15.2 — has made big strides in inclusion over the last five years. The district was recognized by the state for dramatic improvement in 2009, and this past school year shot up to 68.1 percent of its IEP students being included in regular education classes 80 percent or more of the day — seven points higher than the state average.

For 2009-10, its IEP students met state targets for graduation, and among IEP students in statewide assessments the district met Annual Yearly Progress goals for elementary through high school. Also, Bristol Township’s percentage of IEP students scoring proficient in state assessments for reading and math — 40.8 percent and 52.3, respectively — was higher than the state averages (35.3 and 45.7).

An interesting IDEA

The 1991 Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, an outgrowth of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act passed by Congress in 1975, requires that children with disabilities be educated in the “least restrictive environment appropriate” wherever possible, meaning inclusion.

IEPs, mandated by IDEA, are designed for a child whose disability is adversely affecting his or her educational progress. Many special education students are on normal academic pace in some subjects while requiring special help in others. The vast majority of special education/IEP students in Bucks County have specific learning disabilities rather than more severe disabilities such as autism, mental retardation or speech/hearing impairments. It is the former group that comprises most of inclusion.

McAnulty’s biggest concern when he arrived at Bristol Township seven years ago was the large group of students “between regular education and the life skills program.”

“Twenty years ago,” McAnulty said, “students with minor disabilities weren’t in general ed classes; they were in special ed. Now every student is treated like everyone else first, and then services are provided as needed.”

In 2004, Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, which required every state to develop a State Performance Plan that included educating students in a least restrictive environment while monitoring student proficiency rates on statewide assessments. The 2005 settlement of a statewide class action lawsuit, Gaskin vs Pennsylvania Department of Education, committed the state to increased efforts in inclusion and in the monitoring of compliance. Those districts among the lowest-rated must provide corrective action plans.

“Probably in the last five years, in particular with the Gaskin settlement, it really has required all districts to try to maximize inclusive practices,” says Neshaminy Superintendent Louis Muenker. “With that comes a lot of challenges, with trying to develop IEPs that make sense for students; that you’re just not having inclusive practices to say you are.”

For the 2010-11 school year, Neshaminy’s 53.9 percent inclusion rate (IEP students in regular classrooms 80 percent or more of a school day) is about seven points below the state average of 61.0. Among the other districts interviewed for this story, Council Rock is at 65.0, Pennsbury 58.3 and Bristol Borough 50.

For 2009-10 — the most recent year available for comprehensive special education data from the state education department — all four districts, like Bristol Township, met AYP targets for grades three-12 IEP students on state assessments. Bristol Borough, however, did not reach SPP targets in graduation, and the district fell below the state rate for IEP students scoring proficient in reading and math state assessments.

“I think some of the movements in recent years have absolutely been in the right direction,” Muenker says. “Some are a little bit lofty. Unfortunately the state and federal government expect your special ed student to be on level with their grade-age peers, and that’s kind of counter-intuitive to the need for their extra support.”

Inclusion’s pros and cons

Advocates of inclusion say it benefits both special education and general education students. The former are surrounded by role models and develop relationships with non-disabled peers. Regular ed students learn to understand and accept people with disabilities.

Financially, more inclusion means school districts are saving some heavy expenses of sending a child to a special school for disabilities or a county IU.

Critics of inclusion say effectively delivering two or more instructional methods in the same classroom is difficult. Possible results: IEP students who need different instruction can fall further behind their peers, and the special needs of IEP students will impede the progress of regular ed children. The latter has been a common fear of parents.

Parents of special ed students sometimes don’t want schools to push their kids too much.

“There’s constantly pressure to move backwards — from principals, teachers and parents sometimes,” McAnulty says. “Some want to keep them in replacement programs.

“It’s understandable. We’re balancing it all the time.”

As Gerlach said, inclusion isn’t for everybody when behavior is a problem. IEP teams must go through a protocol to determine whether adjustments in the regular class will help the special ed student, or if a move to another room is better for everyone.

“I think behavior is one of the most challenging ones to deal with,” Paul says. “Because you don’t always pinpoint what the trigger is, to be able to prepare the environment, prepare the student.

“If it’s something we’re working on improving, the child still belongs in that environment. But we are sensitive to what is the impact on the other kids.”

“Behavior’s always a challenge,” Smith says. “When you exhaust all your resources, that’s when you typically look for an outside placement, a more supportive environment. This occurs all the time …. and my job is also to see if there are opportunities to bring these kids back.”

In inclusive settings, the co-teaching model — one instructor assisting IEP students in a class with the regular education teacher — is often employed by districts.

“Our (special ed) teachers became more consultative-type teachers in the regular class with the regular education teacher,” McAnulty said. “It’s very effective because what’s happening is all the kids are now getting the curriculum from highly qualified teachers at grade level. What’s happened is all the boats have risen with the tide.”

Pennsbury renewed its emphasis on inclusion by hiring inclusion specialist Lisa Oates, increasing training in special education instruction, and using an itinerant services support team.

“We have re-organized the delivery of our special education services they need in their home school,” says Paul. “We are engaged in a lot of professional development so that we can de-mystify special education.”

Cost

By federal mandate, the district where the special education child lives must pay for supports and services even when he or she has to go outside the district for them. While larger districts such as Bristol Township and Council Rock can create their own special classes, smaller ones like Bristol Borough often cannot, and the expenses can be enormous, eating up IDEA federal funds and state money. IUs can cost $35,000 and much higher, into six figures, per student per year.

At Bristol, approximately one in every five students has disabilities, and special education accounts for 20 percent of the budget. Business manager Joseph Roe explained that the state’s elimination of an excess cost reimbursement formula — giving the district back the difference between the cost of a special ed student and a regular ed student — has had a huge impact.

“It was costing them too much,” Roe said. “Special ed had had a higher impact since they did that, and it’s just gone downhill since then financially.”

One alternative: Bristol will sometimes partner tuition with districts that create special classes — Bristol Township and Pennsbury (both also have well-regarded life skills programs). Bristol has been able to start two autistic support classrooms.

“We’re constantly saying, can we bring kids back, make a class, save a hundred thousand dollars?” Smith says. “It just seems like there are more and more demands — testing, adhere to these timelines — but less and less money, with fewer resources. …. If a kid moves in and is going to cost $100,000 to educate, are we going to have to cut a teacher?”

Even at a large district like Neshaminy, which Muenker says relies heavily on IUs, the pinch is also felt. Muenker says educational costs per autistic child can run more than $40,000 a year.

“We don’t tend to get fairly compensated by the state or federal government to support the mandate that comes from them,” Muenker says, “so that’s been a level of frustration I probably share with a lot of my superintendent colleagues.”

Part of Bristol Township’s progress in special education was being able to bring students with severe disabilities, such as Billy Gerlach, back to its own schools. It now runs programs for autistic students at Clara Barton Elementary, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Middle School and Truman. Going forward, McAnulty says IDEA funds have been sufficient but the uncertainty of state assistance is a concern.

Council Rock also benefits from its size: Barely 1 percent of its special ed students go out of district. Goodnoe Elementary houses a class for autistic students.

The hit on tax dollars has been lessened, says Charles Lambert, director of pupil services at Council Rock, by the district’s pursuit of the ACCESS program. It allows Pennsylvania schools to receive federal Medicaid reimbursement for providing IEP health-related services to Medical Assistance-eligible children.

“One of the things with special education is that under almost all circumstances, money cannot be a reason why you don’t provide what is necessary with the IEP,” Lambert says.

Counters Smith from smaller Bristol Borough: “At some point I feel like something’s got to give. Somebody’s got to see that, wow, we keep doing more and more with less and less. It’s a true impact.”

Background
The 2011-2012 budget passed by the PA General Assembly and signed by the Governor included a presumption of savings that would be achieved from the Department of Public Welfare (DPW) budget from waste, fraud and abuse.  The Public Welfare Code bill adopted with the budget gives the Secretary of Public Welfare expanded powers for one year related to regulatory issues in order to achieve cost savings.  We do not believe this language was intended to authorize him to alter the funding appropriated by the General Assembly nor do we believe that it was the intent of the General Assembly to cut services needed by the most vulnerable individuals to achieve the anticipated savings – in fact, many applauded the budget as a fair compromise that would reduce fraud, waste and abuse while protecting services.
 
Advocates are hearing from multiple sources that the Department is considering cuts in a number of budget areas.  The information is compelling enough to sound the alarm that counties’ mental health base dollars will be cut by 10% to 12%.  While no final decisions have been made, OMHSAS has been given a savings target to meet.  Clearly the levels of funding for community mental health services included in the final budget are at risk.  It is essential that the administration immediately start hearing concerns over any potential plans to further reduce funding for services – funding reductions not approved by the General Assembly.
 
Action Needed
Contact your House and Senate members – http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/index.cfm?CFID=3713692&CFTOKEN=18543087 and request that they contact the Secretary of Public Welfare, their caucus leaders and the Governor’s Office to express concerns about potential additional budget cuts not authorized by the General Assembly that affect the availability of services to individuals in your area.
 
Talking Points

• The budget included a presumption of savings to be achieved by taking measures to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in DPW. Reliable sources indicate the Department is considering cuts that will reduce funding available for programs and services that support citizens in need of assistance, including mental health.  These have nothing to do with waste, fraud and abuse.

• The legislature adopted a budget less than a month ago.  While additional powers were granted to the Secretary of Public Welfare, efforts to change appropriations authorized by the General Assembly exceed the scope of those powers. The state constitution places appropriating powers solidly in the House and Senate.
   
• Throughout the budget process, legislators were involved in making many value decisions about funding levels for programs and services. Unilateral action to cut those same programs and services undermine the opportunity every legislator has during the budget process to speak out on behalf of their constituents.

• Although there was pressure to make cuts across the board, negotiators were thoughtful about how and where cuts and restorations were made.  This is illustrated by the various versions of the budget.  Governor Corbett proposed a budget that by and large honored his commitment to preserve core government services for our most vulnerable citizens.  Legislators heard from consumers, family members, advocates, providers and counties and fought for funding of core human services.   For example, the final budget restored mental health base funds to nearly the level proposed by Corbett after a significant cut in the version voted by the house.
   
• There is no budget deficit to address, and no apparent need to cut funding for program and services at this early point in the fiscal year.

• The process for achieving additional reductions in the DPW budget has not been open or transparent – no public hearings have been held, no stakeholder input has been gathered, and to our knowledge no legislative input has been sought.  Non-elected officials, who must implement budgets given to them, are making isolated decisions about budget reductions that will impact individuals.

In addition to contacting your legislators, we recommend that you share this information with local consumers, advocates, providers and county representatives and ask them to take action.  It is also critical that your local “coalition” begin to identify the costly impact on services and individuals as a result of a 10% to 12% funding reduction to county mental health base dollars.
 
Legislative oversight and stakeholder input into DPW decision making must be restored.

Sue Walther, Executive Director
Mental Health Association in Pennsylvania
1414 North Cameron Street
Harrisburg, PA 17103
717-346-0549 (v)
717-236-0192 (f)
swalther@mhapa.org
www.mhapa.org

There is no time left to wait! We are writing to urge you to act now to tell Congress and the President that significant cuts to Medicaid are unacceptable. Our Campaign Toolkit provides you with action steps, background information and talking points. Not sure how to have an impact? It doesn’t take much to make your voice heard!

If you have only one minute, send the President and Vice President a message.
If you have five minutes, call your Senators and Member of Congress.
If you have thirty minutes, write a letter to the editor of your newspaper. Sharing your personal story about how Medicaid is your lifeline to health care and long term services and supports will help people understand why we must maintain the program.
If you have two hours, make an appointment with your Member of Congress (or their staff) to discuss what Medicaid means to you. Tell the scheduler that you know that budget cuts could come up for a vote any day now, and you want your voice to be heard! The toolkit provides you with fact sheets and talking points to prepare for such a meeting.
Advocates cannot assume that any official is on our side on this issue – especially one this critical. We don’t want to be surprised after an important vote to discover that a Member did not make the connection to disability issues, or had another competing concern, which caused him/her to vote for cutting Medicaid for people with disabilities. The current threats to Medicaid are too important to count on past encounters or assumptions! You may be the constituent who opens up your legislator’s thinking and, if not fully change their mind, perhaps soften a previously hard line on this issue.

Thank you for all that you do to protect Medicaid and the people who rely on it!

Sincerely,
Dee Dee Eberle and Ralph Scott
The Arc of the United States
Lifeline@thearc.org

A well-known Baltimore County anchorwoman spends her days showcasing families’ solutions on a new website.

By Joanna Bell | Email the author | July 7, 2011 Fresh from a 21-year career in broadcasting, Mary Beth Marsden turned to what she knew best to help families like hers troubleshoot the challenges of autism: video. Her new website, Real Look Autism, showcases videos of local families’ solutions to the problems they face as they raise children with autism spectrum disorders. Marsden launched the website in early April by turning the camera on her 9-year-old daughter, Tess. “I’m all about the video,” said Marsden, who thinks video will speak more powerfully to an Internet audience than text. “Tess is our first video. Hers is called Anxiety in School. We edit them in such a way that the parents and therapists actually tell the narrative. You tell us what’s working for you, and we’ll shoot it, edit it and present it.” The article continues. Access the article in its entirity at http://dundalk.patch.com:80/articles/square-peg-kids-helping-children-with-autism-navigate-lifes-round-holes

  An IEP team convenes for the annual review for a special education student who attends private school. At the meeting, a district administrator begins by commenting that the team would be discussing the student’s transition back to public school. Is this predetermination? 
 
A federal judge believed that it was. A recent opinion from the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals highlights an example of predetermination based on the intent and statements of the IEP team members. The case is H. Berry v. Las Virgenes Unified School District (9th Cir., March 11, 2010) ____F.3d____(2010 WL 882866). 
 
School districts are not permitted to “predetermine” a placement for a special education student. When the district presents one placement option and is unwilling to consider other alternatives (such as other placements in the district or private agencies / schools), this can land the team in hot water. Although school districts do not have to consent to a parents’ preferred placement, the team must engage in a discussion that considers the request. 
 
This was the scenario faced by a school district in California. The team offered placement within the school district, which the parents rejected. They indicated that they wanted their child to remain in private school. The parents litigated the case. The court viewed the administrator’s statement about “transition back to public school” as a sign that the district was unwilling to give sincere consideration to other options. The judge also believed the mother’s courtroom testimony that her small contributions to the team discussion were futile. 
 
How can teams avoid a similar scenario? Team discussions about placement options must be held in good faith. What this means is that the team should have reasonable conversations designed to explore the request. Details about other placement options should be discussed fully. Give parents time to explain what they are seeking. Ask questions about the placement. Offer to reconvene a meeting so that the team members can research the facility or agency. School districts should reiterate that the district is willing to consider all options. If an option is rejected, the team should explain why, and school districts should always document in meeting minutes so that there is a written record of what was discussed.

By Jennifer Nelson, MOT, OTR/L

The Basic OT Dictionary Motor Skills
Traditional fine motor interventions sometimes fall short of correcting handwriting issues. Keyboarding skills, as taught through an assistive technology program, can help build written communication skills in young students.

The importance of handwriting
Of the skills a child acquires during the first years of school, handwriting is one of the most essential. Written communication is a necessary life skill for completing school assignments, writing a letter to a family member, filling out an application or simply writing down someone’s phone number. Failure to achieve handwriting success during the school-age years may have a negative impact on a child’s academic success, as well as his overall self-esteem.

School children demonstrate their knowledge in all academic areas through handwriting. Therefore, when handwriting is poor, a child may be misunderstood or even given a bad mark on school work. Jane Case-Smith, OT, in “Effectiveness of School-based Occupational Therapy Intervention on Handwriting,” The American Journal of Occupational Therapy 2002, emphasizes that students who have trouble with handwriting are so fo- cused on correctly forming letters that they may lose attention to the subject matter or to the instructor. The need for neat and legible handwriting only becomes more important as children progress through school. Therefore, early identification and intervention are crucial in order to decrease a child’s difficulties with handwriting.

How assistive technology can help
Due to each child’s unique circumstances, not all children have the same handwriting difficulties; therefore, an individualized plan of care should be considered. However, if problems with handwriting persist and the child’s academic performance is hindered, alternatives to handwriting should be explored. This is where assistive technology becomes important in a child’s academic setting. As defined by the Technology-Related Assistance for Individuals With Disabilities Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-407), assistive technology is “any item, piece of equipment or product system…that is used to increase, maintain or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.”

Assistive technology ranges from low-to high-tech. Low-tech is defined as tools that are inexpensive, involve a minimal amount of training and typically do not require batteries or electricity. Mid-tech options, typically portable word processors, are explored if low-tech options do not improve the child’s handwriting. High-tech options, like word prediction software, are necessary when a child’s needs are not met by other assistive technology options.

Low-, Mid- and High-Tech Tools

Keyboarding 101
It is imperative that a child learn how to competently use a keyboard in order to utilize assistive technology tools efficiently. Keyboarding can be introduced in occupational therapy, as well as at home or at school, in order to ensure a child will be proficient at word processing. There are essential fine motor skills necessary for keyboarding including the ability to use isolated finger movements and complex hand movements with the arms in a stable position, preferably with the elbows at the student’s sides. For keyboarding success, a child must be able to coordinate finger and arm movements to strike the keys and make the right key choices on the keyboard. Often these fine motor skills will improve after keyboarding instruction and keyboard use. Initially, the fo- cus should be on accuracy, and then speed, when teaching children how to keyboard. In order for touch typing to be functional, the child’s typing speed should be at least equivalent to his handwriting speed. Occupational therapists Janet Rogers and Jane Case-Smith, authors of “Rela- tionships Between Handwriting and Keyboarding Perfor- mance of Sixth-grade Students,” in The American Journal of Occupational Therapy believe a child often begins to learn how to type using the “hunt and peck” style of typing until he is familiar with the layout of the keyboard.

Good, solid typing instruction is important. When choosing a typing program, parents should look for a match between the child’s cognitive and developmental age and the software program’s features. Some features to look for are:

• Large, onscreen keyboards that show both the keys and the correct position of one’s fingers
• Programs where preferences, such as font size and color, can be changed to fit the needs of the child
• Programs that track changes and progress
• Programs that provide a multi-sensory approach combining both visual and auditory input

An excellent typing program will keep the child moti- vated to use the computer while teaching keyboarding skills. An assistive technology trained occupational therapist is a valuable resource for parents who are trying to find an effective instructional keyboarding program.

Web sites with free typing instruction:

www.sense-lang.org/typing
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing
www.typingsoft.com for an extended list of typing tutors on the web

Software programs providing typing instruction:

Name of Software / Supplier
Type to Learn 4 / Sunburst Company www.sunburst.com
Jump Start Typing / Available at Target or www.amazon.com
UltraKey 5 / www.bytesofl earning.com

Many respected occupational therapists believe that while the introduction of keyboarding has been recom- mended as early as first or second grade, it should not take over as the primary means of written communication until fourth grade. Once keyboarding skills are achieved, word processing can be used as a means of written communication.

The road block that children with handwriting difficulties face is not insurmountable. There is a way for these students to take part in written communication and find success in school. Parents can turn to assistive technology to help their children improve their written communication skills. Keyboarding and word processing ensure that a child’s written communication is legible for others to read. Typing allows for children to easily correct typing and spelling errors. Being able to use the keyboard also has been suggested to improve a child’s interest in schoolwork and the child’s attitude toward learning how to write. It’s exciting to have assistive technology options that will allow the child to feel a sense of achievement and pride in his written work.

Jennifer Nelson, MOT, OTR/L has worked with Atlanta families for five years and currently is a team member in the assis- tive technology department at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She can be reached at jen.nelson08@gmail.com or 404-785-3779.

Sources: The American Journal of Occupational Therapy AbilityNet website: www.abilitynet.org.uk. Physical and Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics GPAT: Georgia Project for Assistive Technology. www.gpat.org.

Does your child need an Aide during the school year? If so, will they be provided one at ESY?

View your ESY IEP to ensure that what you discussed with your district is actually documented.

Hope your child enjoys their ESY program.

There have been some discrepencies from their department as to who is in the MR system and who isn’t and what services they did or didn’t receive from Base Services.  If your child did receive Wraparound services and they don’t have a County MR coordinator they are eligible for services per their Grant Application.  Please read the fine print.

Any questions please let us know.

www.pdesas.org/main/fileview/SaS-Toolkit.pdf

Peer Supports in Inclusive Settings Inclusive Schools Network Tip of the Month | Prepared by: Stetson & Associates, Inc. June 2011 The current nationwide focus on inclusive supports challenges school systems to use all available resources to provide instruction in the general education setting. We are familiar with in-class supports provided by adults such as co-teaching and support facilitation. However, there are other strategies that are appropriate for students who do not require the level of adult intervention provided by co-teaching and support facilitation. Peer support is a strategy that involves placing students in pairs or small groups to participate in learning activities that support academic instruction and social skills. This instructional approach does not require additional staff or extra funding. It is a researchbased methodology that yields positive results related to student achievement over the course of time. Peer supports provide teachers with a learning tool to enhance instruction for students with disabilities. The information that follows details three innovative ways that peer supports can be used to meet the instructional and social needs of students with disabilities in the general education setting. There are several types of peer support that can be used to assist with instruction. The three that will be reviewed in this article are collaborative learning, cross-age supports, and peer modeling. Collaborative learning is an instructional strategy used to reinforce skills taught by the teacher. This teaching method allows time for practice, review, and opportunities for students to use higher-level thinking skills. When planning lessons, it is important to determine if the use of collaborative learning could assist in meeting your instructional goals. Teachers should ask themselves the following questions: • Would small group discussion be more effective than calling on individual students for answers? • Would participation in a small group activity involving listing attributes or identifying characteristics provide a better learning opportunity than individual students making their own lists? • Do collaborative groups provide additional opportunities to apply, analyze and evaluate concepts taught in a lesson? If you take time to answer these questions, it may become more apparent to you that collaborative activities do afford additional opportunities to check for understanding and reflect on the key concepts of a lesson. During the lesson planning process, teachers should determine their learning objectives and decide which collaborative activities could be used to assist with the learning process. The following form is a guide to assist teachers in considering appropriate collaborative activities to supplement and enhance classroom instruction. 2 Incorporating Peer Supports into Inclusive Instruction Collaborative Support Planning Checklist Lesson Objective(s) Key concepts: Would collaborative activities assist in meeting lesson objectives? Consider Different Types of Small Group Activities: • Think Pair/Square Share • Jigsaw • Four Corners • Team Problem Solving • Other Whole Group Instruction: Time Required ____ Skills Practice: Time Required ____ Students will practice _______________ skills: • Individually ____ • Individually ____ and Small Group ____ • Individually ____ and Paired or Square Share ____ • Small group ____ • Pair Share ____ • Square Share ____ • Other Extension of Activity: Time Required ____ Activity will be done: • Individually ____ • Individually ____ and Small Group ____ • Individually ____ and Paired or Square Share ____ • Small group ____ • Shared Pair ____ • Square Pair ____ • Other Monitoring and Support: • Teacher spends time with each group ____ • Teacher participates in whole class monitoring ____ • Other Assessment: Skills assessed ___ day of instruction • Quiz/Test • Collaborative Skills Rubric • Product/Project Review • Checklist • Essay • Other Adapted from The Workbook of Collaborative Strategies for the Inclusive Classroom by Stetson and Associates, Inc. 3 Cross-Age Peer Support is another strategy that assists with learning in the general education setting. This approach typically involves older students, usually high school age, who provide instructional support for elementary or middle school students. A new component of this strategy is the use of email communication in addition to face-to-face assistance. Programs such as Pals and Do It pair cross-age peers with students identified by the teacher as needing assistance. The cross-age peer tutors are selected and assigned based on a predetermined criterion that includes the peer mentor’s academic ability, personality traits, and communication skills. Peers are trained prior to beginning the mentoring process and receive on-going monitoring and support from the classroom teacher and/or program advisors. Their training includes the use of positive supports, effective questioning techniques, active listening, as well as using a simple step-by-step approach for tutoring. The incorporation of online communication with cross-age peer support allows the peer mentors additional opportunities to provide encouragement, check on the students’ progress, and help students formulate questions that they can later ask the teacher. Most school districts have computers available that can be used for online support. The Do It program uses online communication exclusively to support and reinforce social skills and assist with post-secondary planning. Cross-age peer tutors should complete a form like the one that follows to document their support sessions and provide the teacher with information about student participation in this instructional process. 4 Peer Tutor Weekly Log Tutor: ________________________________ Subject: ______________________ Student(s) Assisted: _________________________________ Week of: ______________________ © 2011, Stetson & Associates, Inc. Day Classroom Activity Lecture, Group, Individual, Tutorial Student’s Reaction To teacher, students, tutor, subject, activity Behavior Modifications Accommodations Tutor Comments Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 5 Peer modeling is another support that can be used to help students learn academic processes and classroom routines. It also provides the classroom teacher opportunities to use peers to assist with instruction, clarify directions and give social reminders with little or no disruption to the lesson cycle. It is also an excellent way for peers to provide appropriate behavioral models for students who need to improve their social skills. Students may also model steps in a process related to an academic task or teacher directions. One example might include using peer modeling to review directions for an assignment. In this example, students have been told to get their math worksheets and calculators and move to their assigned colorcoded table to begin work. A student is then called on to demonstrate how to follow the teacher’s directions. Another example of using peer modeling when teaching academic processes may include the teacher calling on a student to solve an algebraic equation on a white board using a math process previously taught to the class by the teacher. This approach allows the lesson to be extended in a real way that supplements the learning process and decreases the number of reminders that teachers may need to provide to students. Many teachers, of course, are already using some peer support during instruction. However, best practice tells us we should plan for and include these strategies when designing lessons. There should be a plan that includes selecting the right type of support to align with the lesson goals. Using the appropriate teaching strategy in the correct way at the right time is one of the primary goals of instruction. It is not always necessary to look for the newest idea on the horizon to meet our students’ educational needs. Teaching in the new millennium does not mean we need to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, we just need to tailor the lesson design to address the educational needs of our students in inclusive settings.

Implement these strategies at your school to promote social and emotional learning. by Diane Curtis

Max Seabaugh

Evidence is growing that students do better not only socially but also academically when they feel safe and regarded as important members of a learning community. In response, a number of reform efforts are focusing on creating small schools or schools within schools where students are known and valued as individuals by other students as well as by teachers and staff. Some schools have instituted practices such as looping (teachers stay with the same students for two or more years), multiage instruction, and block scheduling to connect students with their schools. Other schools or school districts have instituted character education, violence prevention, and empathy programs, such as the Developmental Studies Center’s Child Development Project, the Resolving Conflicts Creatively Program, Responsive Classroom, and Second Step. But even simple actions that cost little or no money can positively affect the school climate and create that all-important sense of belonging and safety that many researchers say makes the difference between thriving and floundering at school. Everyone Makes the Team The way Jerry Goldsberry, principal of Plainfield Community Middle School, in Plainfield, Illinois, sees it, middle school educators cause more harm than good when they require students to compete against each other to make the soccer team or the cheerleading squad or the school chorus. “What happens to those who are not selected for a program?” Goldsberry asks before answering his own question: Those kids say to themselves, “I’m not sure the coach likes me” or “They have favorites” or “I’m not as pretty, not as slender” as the students who did make the cheerleading squad. By turning kids down, educators create a problem where none existed. “Then you have to undo some of the perceptions that exist as a result of that process,” Goldsberry says. Plainview may have 56 wrestlers and more than 700 band and choir members, but unwieldy as those numbers sometimes might be, they represent students who feel they have a place at their school and know they are valued. No ‘Hey, You’ Walking down a corridor at Ohio’s Westerville South High School, Assistant Principal Mark Raiff calls out a student’s name. The student turns around, looking puzzled and a little nervous: It’s usually bad news when a school administrator knows you by name. “Nice volleyball game last night,” Raiff says. The quizzical look changes to a wide grin. “Thanks.” And then, obviously pleased, “How do you know my name?” “I do everything I possibly can to remember people’s names,” says Raiff, who, at the beginning of each school year, takes home student photos and starts memorizing names and faces. “It’s so much more effective when you call somebody by their first name.” Sophomore Nicole Richards couldn’t agree more. “It’s almost like I don’t think he’s a principal to 2,000 kids. I think he’s a principal to me,” says Richards, who felt overwhelmed and lonely when she arrived as a freshman but has since started a drug-free club and become a cheerleader. She credits Raiff with igniting her enthusiasm for the school and says he appears to be everywhere: in front of the building when the buses arrive in the morning, in the cafeteria for all three lunch periods, at football, basketball, volleyball, and other sports games, in the corridors between classes. In the early freshman days, when Richards didn’t even want to come to school, Raiff would stop her in the corridors and ask how she was doing. He encouraged her to start the drug-free club, something she had done in middle school, and he encouraged her to get involved in other school activities. “I don’t even know how he knew me or knew my name,” she says. “He makes me want to be more involved and makes me want to do better at my school. If all the teachers were like him, we’d probably have the best school.” Zero Policies Veteran school administrator Tony Bencivenga is not swayed by the current love affair with zero-tolerance policies. In fact, he finds that a no-policies-at-all philosophy adds up to a “win-win-win” situation. “A policy, whether it’s about bullying or wearing hats in school, or cafeteria behavior, always applies to someone else,” says Bencivenga, principal at Benjamin Franklin Middle School, in Ridgewood, New Jersey. “When something happens to someone’s child, the parents typically want a policy. But when their child is not the victim, but the instigator, it’s a different story. The student has a great record, why go hard with one mistake? She feels horrible about it; can’t we let it go with an apology?” Bencivenga also knows that miscreant behavior often has complicated roots. For example, after the Columbine school shooting, a girl at Ben Franklin compiled a hit list of students and teachers on her Web site. Parents wanted to know what Bencivenga was going to do. He suspended the girl for a day and placed her on home instruction for several weeks. The time “gave her an opportunity to regroup and provided a moment for everyone else to be reassured that no great threat existed,” Bencivenga says. It also allowed time for psychological evaluations and counseling. Evaluators determined that the girl wasn’t serious about hurting anyone, but she was troubled and needed help. In a characteristic effort to keep everything out in the open, Bencivenga also brought in the police. “If we learned anything from Columbine,” Bencivenga says, “it’s that the way to help children is not to isolate them, not to punish them because of some arbitrary policy.” Morning Meeting If the goings-on in a fifth-grade class in Skokie, Illinois, are any indication, we’d all be better workers if we smiled and shook hands with our colleagues each morning. At John Middleton Elementary School, students of teacher Eric Henry are better able to concentrate and work cooperatively after their daily 20-minute Morning Meeting. Using a structure created by the Responsive Classroom approach to teaching and learning, the first thing on the agenda is a greeting between students and students and students and teacher. It can be a high-five, a handshake, sign language, or any other fun and friendly hello. Next comes sharing, which may be a quick recounting of a weekend family expedition or a favorite out-of-school pastime. Then follows a group activity, which can be anything from a song to a group chant to a cooperative game, such as Rainstorm, in which students, with eyes closed, create noises that sound like rain. Finally comes news and announcements, which include a message from Henry (“I hope you enjoyed the chilly air and warm sunshine over the weekend”), a general outline of the academic plan for the day, a job board, and a question that students need to answer in writing, such as “What did you have for supper last night?” “At this point, I can’t see starting the classroom day any other way,” says Henry, an 11-year teaching veteran who has been holding Morning Meeting for seven years and likes it because it builds a sense of community and lets students know they’re important, which leads to trust and a sense of safety that promotes classroom success. “It lets kids really be known by their teacher.” Henry will ask about a camping trip or a favorite sibling. He’ll also be able to spot unusual behavior and track down a cause. “It speaks thousands of words to kids when you notice them,” he says. Character Athletics After every athletic competition — whether they’ve won, lost, or drawn — student athletes at Walnut Middle School, in Grand Island, Nebraska, take a vote. It’s not about most valuable player or most runs batted in or most three-pointers. It’s about character. The Walnut Wildcats determine the two players from the opposing team who they think have shown the greatest character, and then they award those players gleaming medallions. “It all boils down to living the Golden Rule and being respectful and being treated the way you want to be treated and doing the right thing,” says Walnut principal Vikki Deuel. “Respect and responsibility became the watchwords.” Athletic Director Larry Rutar says he has seen a difference in players’ actions — from both teams. And it’s not too difficult for his team members to find players from the opposing teams who have helped someone up or taken a bad call without an argument. If at first, the award was met with quizzical looks, now students, parents, and other sports fans sincerely appreciate it. “I was astonished to hear my number being called for the award,” wrote a student from a rival school. “The award you gave me was a great way to end my football season at Sunrise Middle School. Thanks once again. It will be something I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.” ‘Hi, My Name Is . . .’ On the first day of classes at Jefferson School, in Franklin, Massachusetts, Principal Jane Hyman hands out name tags. No one is exempt from wearing the marking-pen identifiers at the K-5 school, including Hyman herself, teachers, classroom aides, staff, janitors, and students. “People are looking at each other and instead of saying, ‘You, with the red sweater’ they call you by name,” Hyman says. “It becomes more personal. It’s like if an animal has no name, someone will kick it as a stray. When you call it Duke, it’s different.” Besides having the pleasure of being called by name, the 700 students and staff pretty much know each other by the time the two-week name tag session ends. By then, the students have gotten the motivating message that they are an important element of the school community. “Everybody feels like Jefferson School is made up of Jane, Linda, Barry,” Hyman says. The worth placed on the individual makes the students more interested in contributing to the entire school. For example, when recycling days come along, Hyman can be almost certain of schoolwide participation. Teacher Evaluations Because trust is such a big issue at the River School, a charter middle school in Napa, California, Principal Linda Inlay can count on her students to show maturity in what could be a disastrous assignment: student evaluations of teachers. “Because they know we take them seriously by listening to them, they become more and more articulate,” says Inlay. “They don’t become jaded. They don’t become blasé and have an attitude.” The listening comes in many ways, during class and in regular teacher-students meetings where more personal issues are discussed. Inlay says she wanted the 180 youngsters at the school for grades 7-8 to “have some say in the quality of teaching they get.” The evaluation letter to students from Inlay states that “the teachers and I are being evaluated, not for a grade, but for self-improvement. . . . Since you are the reason the school exists, we would like your feedback to help our teachers improve, so we ask you to do this teacher evaluation with honesty.” Some of the areas on which students are asked to comment are teacher preparation, knowledge of subject, organization and neatness, flexibility in accommodating individual student needs, and returning homework in a timely manner. Regarding core values, students are asked if the teacher follows through, understands the student’s point of view, is willing to learn from students, is fun to be with, and accepts responsibility for his or her own mistakes. “It definitely makes you aware of your teaching and your practice,” says teacher Mary Lynn. Lynn says she takes the evaluations “very seriously” and talks to the students about the evaluations to get more feedback and specifics. For example, if students say they’d like social studies to be more exciting, she asks them how. They’ll reply by saying they’d like to discuss more current topics or have a debate or a group test. “I listen and try to modify where I can,” Lynn says. Colleague Matt Denney says he also likes that the evaluations provide students a safe way to give feedback to teachers. “Now that we do the evaluations twice a year, students get to feel as though their feedback has a positive impact on the learning environment in the present year — not something that gets thrown out and does not affect them,” he says. “This gives them power in that their words are taken seriously.” Student-Led Parent-Teacher Conferences In Talent, Oregon, middle school students aren’t shunted aside to be talked about behind their backs when it’s time for those annual or biannual parent-teacher meetings. Instead, students are in charge. They lead the conference. They share information about what they believe are their strengths and weaknesses, what are their goals and how they’re going to achieve them, and how they have handled homework assignments. “The more connections you can build between school and home, the more students feel secure and safe in their schools,” says Talent Middle School principal Patti Kinney, coauthor of A School-wide Approach to Student-Led Conferences. Parent turnout for the conference is up from 45 percent to 90-95 percent since the student-led conferences began seven years ago, so the home-school connection is definitely increasing. And “it’s really powerful,” adds Kinney, to put the responsibility of assessing their own work and sharing that assessment on students. She says she believes students try harder both because their parents are more involved in school and because they’ve taken time to reflect on their own performance. In addition, the quality of the conversation with their parents about school is high, something that may not always happen at the dinner table. “When students are well prepared to tell their own story, they seem to experience a sense of responsibility, pride, and accomplishment,” says Kinney. The students also have a personal relationship over the three years of middle school with the same teacher or staff member, who is charged with helping them organize their presentation to teachers and parents. Listening Sessions In Anchorage, Alaska, the school district is having “listening sessions” with students. In groups of about 25 students, 200 teenagers are being asked for their opinions on their school experiences and what they expect from school and teachers. If their opinions filter down to the classroom level, which Wendy Constantine, the district’s Peaceable School coordinator, is hoping will happen, teachers will put a lot more focus on getting to know their young charges. “Absolutely hands-down every session, students wished that teachers would know their names and something about them,” Constantine says. “Kids have said that to us for years: ‘Know my name. I know you get 120 kids a year, but know my name, and say my name right. And know something about me.’” Some teachers do hear what the students are saying, Constantine says, and even at the high school level, where some teachers believe that their job is strictly to teach the content and that’s it, they are doing icebreaker activities in class that have nothing to do with subject-matter knowledge. “It’s hugely important,” says Constantine. “Clearly, the new brain research on emotional engagement demonstrates strongly that people’s brains are more receptive to learning if they have a relationship with the teacher.” 2 by 10 Just as he did for 26 years as a teacher and administrator, staff development specialist Dennis Loftus still makes time to connect with students in classrooms, in hallways, and in cafeterias in the Syracuse City School District, in Syracuse, New York. And one of his favorite ways to do that is through an activity called 2 by 10, used in a program called Discipline with Dignity. It amounts to choosing one or more students to talk to informally for two minutes, ten days in a row. “How are you doing?” “What are your concerns?” “How are your brothers and sisters?” Loftus will ask a student who has come to his attention, usually because the student is having academic or behavioral problems. “They’re often expressing need for attention in strange ways,” says Loftus. At first, the student may grunt an answer. But after a few days of chit-chat, the youngster is answering in complete sentences, and he or she is starting to get the idea that there’s an adult nearby who cares. Many of these kids have trouble with authority and get defensive when they’re admonished or punished, and so the problem just escalates, Loftus says. As someone who has established a relationship through the 2 by 10 plan, you can get through when problems arise. “If you get a kid who is not carrying out what he said he’d do, instead of chastising the kid, you want to keep a relationship,” Loftus says. “‘Did you do what you said you’d do? If not, what do you think caused you not to do it? Are you happy with that choice? Did it help you get where you want to go?’ You want to be able to teach the kids that life is a series of choices — some are successful, some are unsuccessful.” Like everyone else, students want to work hard or share with someone who likes and cares about them. “If teachers make comments to kids that are personally challenging or insulting to them as a person, the kids will never look at their own behavior.” The connected approach, on the other hand, has gotten positive results “hundreds of times,” Loftus says.

Diane Curtis is a veteran education writer and a former editor for The George Lucas Educational Foundation

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.

It’s as easy as wearing a purple ribbon.

Have you marked June 15 on your calendar and will you be wearing purple that day?

Join the National Guardianship Association in supporting World Elder Abuse Awareness Day to demonstrate that guardians, conservators and fiduciaries are among the leaders who want to bring recognition and ultimately an end to elder abuse and neglect around the world.

We are already getting reports from members who have planned special activities for WEAAD.

You can be part of this major effort in one very easy way…wear purple on June 15. 

Even the traditional purple ribbon will work.  When someone asks about the purple, you’ll have a perfect opening to talk about the problem of elder abuse and neglect in your own community and around the world.

It’s important to spread the word by telling people about your participation.

Personalize the attached news release and deliver directly to your local media to let them know that you are part of solving this international problem.

Time is short, but you can still implement one of these ideas.

ü  Blog, Tweet, or use your Facebook & LinkedIn pages to talk about your involvement.

ü  Put a message or a purple ribbon on your website.

ü  Write an article for your newsletter or the newsletter of a related organization.

ü  Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.

ü  Encourage your Board of Directors, employees, friends and relatives to wear purple.

ü  Give a talk anyplace and then publicize it afterward even if your audience is small.

ü  Set up an interview with a local reporter (We’ve got tips on talking with the media.)

ü  Notify your local TV station that June 15 is WEAAD. (They probably don’t know.)

ü  Get your mayor, county officials or other government body to sign a proclamation.

Your best resource for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day is www.inpea.net/weaad.html where you will find a community tool kit booklet, free logos, posters that you can print, and more details.

Be part of a powerful impact in communities across the nation when every NGA member takes this one day — June 15 — to share this important story. Remember that even if you just wear a purple ribbon, each person is an important cog in an international campaign.

What’s the role of occupational therapy (OT) in treating autism?

Occupational therapists study human growth and development. They are experts in social, emotional, and physiological effects of illness and injury. This knowledge helps them promote skills for independent living in people with autism.

Occupational therapists work as part of a team that includes parents, teachers, and other professionals. They help set specific goals for the person with autism. These goals often involve social interaction, behavior, and classroom performance.

Occupational therapists can help in two main ways: with evaluation and therapy.

How is occupational therapy useful for evaluation with autism?

The therapist observes children to see if they can do tasks they are expected to do at their ages. These might relate to certain self-help skills, such as getting dressed. Or they might involve knowing how to play a game. Sometimes, it helps to videotape a child during the normal course of the day. This will help the occupational therapist better assess what is needed for care. With the tape, the therapist might learn about the child’s reactions to the environment. For example the therapist might note any of the following:

• attention span and stamina
• transition to new activities
• play skills
• need for personal space
• responses to touch or other types of stimuli
• motor skills such as posture, balance, or manipulation of small objects
• aggression or other types of behaviors
• interactions between the child and caregivers

How does occupational therapy help a person with autism?

Once an occupational therapist has gathered information, he or she can develop a program for your child. There is no single ideal treatment program. But early, structured, individualized care has been shown to work best.

Occupational therapy may combine a variety of strategies. These can help your child respond better to his or her environment. These OT strategies include:

• physical activities, such as stringing beads or doing puzzles, to help a child develop coordination and body awareness
• play activities to help with interaction and communication
• developmental activities, such as brushing teeth and combing hair
• adaptive strategies, including coping with transitions

What are the benefits of occupational therapy for autism?

The overall goal of occupational therapy is to help the person with autism improve his or her quality of life. This includes life at home and at school. The therapist helps introduce, maintain, and improve skills. That way, people with autism can be as independent as possible.

These are some of the skills occupational therapy may foster:

• daily living skills, such as toilet training, dressing, brushing teeth, and other grooming skills
• fine motor skills required for holding objects while handwriting or cutting with scissors
• gross motor skills used for walking or riding a bike
• sitting, posture, or perceptual skills, such as telling the differences between colors, shapes, and sizes
• visual skills for reading and writing
• play, coping, self-help, problem solving, communication, and social skills

By working on these skills during occupational therapy, a child with autism may also do the following:

• develop peer and adult relationships
• learn how to focus on tasks
• learn how to delay gratification
• express feelings in more appropriate ways
• engage in play with peers
• learn how to self-regulate

May 31, 2011

Dear Friends in the Pennsylvania Autism Community:

The news about funding for autism programs and services in the state budget is concerning.   Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a budget that would make deep cuts in almost every part of the autism budget.

The battle is far from finished.   The budget talks move now to the Pennsylvania Senate and, after that, to negotiations among the House, the Senate and the Governor.

Our community must step up its efforts to be heard in the halls of the Capitol.   The next 30 days will be extraordinarily important in determining the future of autism programming in Pennsylvania.

Please contact your state senator and state representative again.   Tell them how important autism programs are to your family.   If you need the contact information, please go to http://www.legis.state.pa.us/ and use the search box in the top right corner of the screen.

We must urge our legislators to support Governor Corbett’s proposed budget for autism programming. We must remind our legislators that we understand that the state budget will be painful across the board but that the budget passed by the House would be devastating to Pennsylvanians with autism and those who love and support them.   Pennsylvania has just begun to build a system to help with the flood of children and adults with autism we’ll see in the next decade, and those efforts have shown real success.   It is no time to step backwards.

Please act now.   We can make a difference, but only if we work together to make our voices heard.

Thank you,

Your Colleagues in the Autism Community

                Parent Scholarship Application

National Autism Conference

August 1-4, 2011

Reimbursement for travel expenses will be available to a limited number of Pennsylvania parents attending the National Autism Conference , August 1-4, 2011. These funds will be provided through the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network (PaTTAN) ,  the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and the Pennsylvania Bureau of Special Education.   Parents may apply for the scholarship by filling out the form below. Please note, however, that parents employed in a professional capacity by a school entity should follow the attendance and reimbursement policy of the school entity.

Pennsylvania parents interested in attending any portion of the National Autism Conference have until July 10, 2011 to apply for scholarships for reimbursement of travel expenses by filling out the application below. Scholarships will be awarded on July 15^th.  Notification will also be sent to those applicants who are not awarded scholarships.

Hotel accommodations for scholarship recipients will be provided at The Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center. Meals will be provided as part of the National Autism Conference. Receipts for any additional approved expenses must be submitted for reimbursement. Scholarship funds are available for the child with a disability and his/her parents only.

Allowable expenses include:

•mileage to be reimbursed at $.50/mile.

•tolls

•meals that are NOT provided as part of the National Autism Conference

The application form below may be submitted via mail , fax, or email to Sonya Barksdale at

PaTTAN,  6340 Flank Drive, Harrisburg Pa 17112 fax # (717) 541-4968 or sbarksdale@pattan.net

For more information please contact Sonya at 1-800-360-7282 (Toll-free in PA only)

or (717) 541-4960 ext. 3322

Application Form for Parent Scholarship-National Autism Conference 2011

Name:__________________________________________________________________

Address:________________________________________________________________

Phone:__________________________________________________________________

Email:__________________________________________________________________

Please Check Days Attending :

Monday:_______________________________________________________________________

Tuesday:_______________________________________________________________________

Wednesday:_____________________________________________________________________

Thursday:_______________________________________________________________________

Family Members (Parents/Guardians and child with a disability) attending conference:

___________________ ___________________ ____________________

Please indicate your child’s primary disability to help us determine specific sponsorship for your

scholarship:_____________________________________ Date of Birth: _________________

http://www.rethinkautism.com/Community/news/Story.aspx?ID=616

Introduction

Over the last twelve months, the author has been collecting data from a sample of over 400 families whose children attend mainstream schools. Their experiences of inclusive education make fascinating reading and illustrate the point made in the Green Paper “Excellence for all children” that provision for children with very similar needs can vary widely from one area of the country to another. From the picture painted by the questionnaire responses, it is now possible to produce guidelines as to what successful inclusive practice should look like.

Models of support

Evidence suggests that a very significant proportion of children with Down syndrome could be placed successfully in a mainstream school. Research data, although still somewhat limited,^[1] indicates that such placements lead to academic as well as social gains and increase the chances of the child making local friendships that extend beyond the school day. These facts have lead increasing numbers of parents to seek an inclusive placement for their child.

In some parts of the country^[2] over 80% of primary and 50% of secondary aged children are already included, although the picture is very different elsewhere.^[3] In all too many Local Education Authorities, parents still have to put up a fight to secure an adequately funded place in their local school. From the current sample of 315 parents who have succeeded in gaining a mainstream place for their child, 29% report difficulties with either the Local Education Authority or the school itself.

While a majority of children with Down syndrome are able to take part in at least some activities with little additional support, maximum benefit will only be obtained if the child has access to a classroom assistant or support teacher for much of their time in school. Further, tasks will need to be modified and adapted to ensure that they are relevant and appropriate.^[4]

While there clearly are students for whom only minimal support is required throughout the day, the practice is not generally recommended. All children benefit from some time without direct supervision, enabling them to gain in independence and mix socially with their peer group. On the other hand, it is not possible for a busy class teacher to deliver an appropriately flexible and differentiated curriculum on their own, without disadvantaging the rest of the class.

A nationwide survey recently carried out by the author indicates that the majority of children with Down syndrome in mainstream schools are supported by a learning support assistant for between 20 and 27 hours a week (Fig.1). Of the children in the survey sample, 58% at primary and 61% at secondary level were largely unsupported at dinner time, at break times and during assembly. A further 25% at primary and 18% at secondary level took part in lessons such as physical education, drama and music without support. However, only 2-3% were unsupported in more academic lessons.

Survey data confirm the view expressed by many parents that the level of support offered by an Local Education Authority has more to do with local policy or the anxieties of schools than with the needs of the individual child. Far too many Local Education Authorities operate a blanket policy which results in all children with Down syndrome being offered a standard package of support. As a consequence, those with lesser needs are frequently over-supported and are, as a direct consequence, less likely to become independent learners. Conversely, those who need more support may have to be transferred to a more specialised setting, against parental wishes, when problems could have been overcome in situ.

What is surprising is that the picture of support at primary and at secondary level is so similar, despite the fact that in most parts of the country the populations differ significantly. Responses from parents suggest that most children with Down syndrome can now find a place in a mainstream primary, as long as the family are persistent and shop around local schools. On the other hand, in many Local Education Authorities, only the most able youngsters are gaining a secondary place.

Several parents in the survey have already accepted the inevitability of special schooling at 11, despite successful mainstream experience at primary level. Nevertheless, where less academically able students have transferred to the secondary sector, they appear to be doing just as well as those with more advanced levels of performance. What seems clear is that ‘cognitive ability’, whether measured by I.Q. tests or attainment, is a remarkably poor predictor of successful mainstream placement.

Working in a team

In organising support for the student with Down syndrome, the class teacher should aim to:

1. Keep withdrawal to a minimum and give the child access to as much of the normal curriculum as possible.
2. Encourage the child to become an independent learner.
3. Foster co-operative working with other children in the class.
4. Work directly with the children themselves, at least once a week, and ideally daily.

These objectives are best met where class teacher and support staff see themselves as a team,^[5] working flexibly to meet the needs of the whole class. As Lorenz notes,^[6] a learning support assistant who is always at hand and who prompts the child continually, or intervenes immediately the child is faced with a problem, will inhibit the development of independence.

Far better is a situation where the assistant offers support only when needed and works regularly with other students who require help. Although some parents become very agitated when they find some of their child’s hours being used to assist other children, this approach is likely to be far more beneficial in the long term than continual one to one support. It frees the class teacher to work directly with the child and gives the child opportunities to work with other people.

In some schools, particularly in the secondary sector, young people with Down syndrome are increasingly being supported by more than one assistant. This can work well where communication is good and support staff are placed in settings where their particular skills can be used to best effect. This approach, while still relatively uncommon, has several advantages:

1. it avoids the unnaturally close relationship which sometimes develops between child and assistant,
2. it allows cover to be arranged more readily if one assistant is ill or on a training course, and
3. it avoids the trauma caused to a child whose support assistant leaves.

In the author’s survey, virtually all primary aged pupils were being supported by one assistant. However, in the secondary sector, 32% had two or three assistants, while 19% were being supported by different assistants in different subject areas. Lee and Henkhuzens, in their study of ten inclusive secondary schools from five different Local Education Authorities,^[7] recommended the attachment of support assistants to subject departments as:

1. It enables learning support assistants to become familiar with the subject area and the way in which each topic will be approached.
2. It allows the assistants to feel more confident in their ability to support students appropriately, particularly where it is possible to place assistants in subject areas where they already have confidence, expertise or interest.
3. It increases opportunities for assistants and subject staff to work together to produce a bank of appropriate materials.

The role of support staff

When support staff are used, be they teachers or support assistants, it is important that all concerned are clear about their role ^[8]. They should be there, primarily, to assist the child, although they also have a part to play in supporting the class or subject teacher. Many of the roles can be carried out equally well by teachers or support assistants. However, schools must ensure that staff without teaching qualifications are not asked to plan work or teach students on a withdrawal basis unless they are under the direct supervision of the class teacher. On the other hand, using teachers for general in-class support may be a poor use of scarce resources.^[9]

One key aim of support, particularly at secondary level, must be to increase students’ independence and progressively reduce their need for adult assistance. An adult accompanying a primary aged child around the school building is accepted as fairly normal practice. However, adults do not generally follow secondary aged students from one class to the next. Where support is required, this is best provided by peers. By encouraging other students to become involved it may be possible to overcome some of the problems of social isolation experienced by many young people with Down syndrome as they approach adolescence.

Involving the class teacher

In primary schools where there is more than one child receiving support, changing the support assistant, as well as the teacher, when the child moves classes can be a useful strategy, although one that is rarely used. Not only does this encourage the new teacher to take a personal interest in the child with Down syndrome, instead of relying on the assistant who already knows the child, but it prevents assistant and child becoming too close.

Where a learning support assistant is able to remain with the same teacher, rather than the same child, joint working practices can be developed over time to the benefit of all. However, in many schools this is not possible as their funding only permits them to employ one support assistant. Nevertheless, there is still a lot that can be done to prevent difficulties, when a school is aware of the potential pitfalls of over-dependence.

An assistant who has worked almost exclusively with the same child for a long time may be reluctant to let go and may be unwilling to work with other children in the class, even if this is in the target child’s best interest. While parents and professionals should undoubtedly be fighting to maintain an adequate level of support for every child with Down syndrome, they should be equally vigilant and object just as strongly where children are being over-supported.

According to parents, in more than half of the schools sampled, the child’s support assistant sits next to them for most of the time, occasionally or never working with other children in the class (Fig.2). Survey data indicate that in 28% of cases, primary aged children with Down syndrome are taught by their class teacher less than once a week In the secondary sector this rises to 53%, with subject teachers all too often having little direct involvement in the child’s educational programme (Fig.3).

At primary level, almost all direct teaching is carried out by support assistants. Yet we know that over half the learning support assistants involved have no formal qualifications, nor have they received any training in the teaching of children with Down syndrome. At secondary level students are likely to be taught either by a support assistant or by a support teacher without particular subject expertise. Hopefully, as teachers get more confident in teaching students with Down syndrome and learn to work more flexibly with support staff, the picture will change.

Support for support staff

Most schools, quite rightly, emphasise the need to provide an adequate level of support for the child. However, they often fail to recognise or acknowledge the support needs of their staff. Questionnaire responses suggest that 69% of the primary and 81% of the secondary schools in the survey receive no input from an Local Education Authority advisory service. Of those that do, only 11% of primary and 7% of secondary schools see an advisory teacher more than once a term.

Even where outside help is available, parents and teachers should insist that time is provided for support assistants and teachers to plan their work. Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators, whose responsibility it is to manage the support staff, should ensure that they are given sufficient time away from their normal teaching duties to carry out this essential function.

Although non-contact time is provided in over half of secondary schools, when teachers and assistants can discuss their respective roles and responsibilities, only a third of primary support assistants are given paid planning time. Undoubtedly some will stay behind after school, or give up their lunch break, to discuss the needs of the children they support. However, it seems unreasonable for schools to take advantage of the goodwill of such poorly paid staff. The solution lies in the hands of Local Education Authorities who should recognise the importance of planning and build it into the provision on the child’s statement.

Accessing the curriculum

In the primary school, there is generally little choice for the class teacher, other than to involve the child in normal classroom activities or alternatively, to ask the support assistant to work with them individually or in a small group. At secondary level there are many more possible options. Survey findings suggest that most secondary aged students with Down syndrome are taught in mixed ability classes for at least part of the week, with or without additional support, and in lower sets or withdrawal groups for the remaining lessons.

Over a third of the students receive some additional in-class support from a learning support teacher in maths or English, while around half are withdrawn for individual or small group help at least once a week. Although most students with Down syndrome spend some time in bottom sets, one young man has been placed in the third of four sets, to avoid the disaffected and troublesome pupils often found in lower achieving groups. This is particularly pertinent for students with Down syndrome who frequently mimic the behaviour of their peers.

As Lee and Henkhuzens ^[7] note:

If you have a group of pupils with learning difficulties (and maybe associated behavioural difficulties) all together, there are no positive role models available, the teacher may be the only source of ideas and information, and the group may be perceived as difficult to teach.

At primary level most children take part in the same lessons as their peers. However, 60% are withdrawn on a regular basis by their support assistant, a speech therapist or a support teacher for individual or small group work This figure falls to 50% for students at secondary level, with more focussed help being offered in-class (Fig.4).

While anecdotal evidence indicates that children with Down syndrome experience considerably more difficulty in maths than in reading, more time appears to be devoted to literacy related withdrawal than to maths (Fig.5). Although more than three quarters of primary aged students are withdrawn for language related work, this falls to less than half in the secondary sector, with more emphasis being placed on social skills and independence training.

Support from speech and language therapy services is also reduced significantly at secondary transfer, with 68% of secondary students receiving no speech therapy input as compared with 33% of primary aged children. However, even at primary level, only 29% of children see a therapist more than once a term, despite the major language problems experienced by most children with Down syndrome and the acknowledged need for support staff to be trained and supported in their language development work.

None of the primary aged students in the study were disapplied from the National Curriculum, although a small percentage of those in secondary schools were disapplied from modern languages. In some schools, the provision of a Learning Support option at Key Stage 4, allows additional time to be given to basic skills or complementary studies. In others, students in their final years are provided with an individualised curriculum containing both academic and vocational elements.

Conclusions

Data from over 300 questionnaires, followed up by discussions with parents and teachers, show quite clearly that successful inclusive education for many children with Down syndrome is a reality both at primary and at secondary level. Yet for others, mainstream placement appears to be offering little in terms of skilled teaching or peer group interaction. While adequate levels of resourcing are clearly important, greater attention needs to be focussed on the way in which support is used.

The key factors for successful inclusion appear to be:

1. A positive attitude of the school as a whole to the disabled child.
2. A flexible approach to the use of support staff.
3. Ownership by the class teacher of the child’s learning programme.
4. Good communication between the school and the parents.
5. Support for the school from Local Education Authority services.

If these are in place, there is no reason why the majority of children with Down syndrome could not attend their local school and benefit both socially and academically from an inclusive placement both at primary and at secondary level.

References

1. Cunningham, C. et.al.(1998) Trends and outcomes in educational placements for children with Down syndrome. European Journal of Special Needs Education.13 (3), 225-237.
2. Lorenz, S. (1995) The placement of children with Down’s syndrome: a survey of one northern Local Education Authority. British Journal of Special Education.22(1), 16-20
3. Cuckle, P. (1997) School placement of pupils with Down’s syndrome in England and Wales. British Journal of Special Education 24(4), 175-80.
4. Lorenz, S (1998) Children with Down’s Syndrome.London. David Fulton, London, England.
5. Lorenz, S. (1998) The Support Assistant’s Survival Guide.Manchester Stephanie Lorenz.
6. Lorenz, S. (1996) Supporting Support Assistants.Manchester. Stephanie Lorenz.
7. Lee, B & Henkhuzens, Z. (1996) Integration in Progress.Slough, England. NFER.
8. Lorenz, S. (1998) Effective In-Class Support.London. David Fulton, London, England.
9. Margerison, A. (1997) Class teachers and the role of Classroom Assistants in the delivery of Special Educational Needs. Support for Learning. 12 (4) 166-70.

Further reading

Experiences of inclusion for Children with Down’s Syndrome, a report detailing the research upon which this article is based, is available from The Down’s Syndrome Association, 155 Mitcham Road, London, SW17 9PG, England

The author

Stephanie Lorenz is a freelance educational consultant and trainer and a lay member of the Special Educational Needs Tribunal. Stephanie was formerly a Senior Educational Psychologist for Leeds Local Education Authority and Special Needs Adviser for Bury Local Education Authority.

Correspondence

Stephanie Lorenz
26 Worsley Road, Worsley
Manchester, England

http://www.pattan.net/files/SpEd/Q&A-Volume7.pdf

An iPhone App Helps the Blind Identify Currency

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/an-iphone-app-helps-the-blind-identify-currency/?hp

If you’d like to complete a nomination form, please go to:

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/kyw-newsradios-2nd-annual-womens-achievement-awards/

They ask that you compose a brief write up as to why you think I should win (under 100 words.) Here are some of the entries sent in so far:

In life, there are people who touch your heart in amazing ways. Jill is one of these rare gems. Her pure selfless nature fills my heart with admiration and respect. Her work at ARC as an Advocate and Supports Coordinator for the mentally challenged and autistic clientele, allows her sincere compassion to shine through. Although the monetary compensation is not great, her rewards are assisting those in need. Life is richer knowing this special young woman.

Jill’s approach to work is filled with compassion, determination and inspiration. She is an Advocate and Supports Coordinator for ARC and assists developmentally disabled and autistic clients. She works tirelessly helping her clients through their challenges and always displaying sincere warmth and acceptance of their needs. Jill is a force to be recognized and will find a way to meet her clients needs. Her accomplishments and contributions in this field are many. She is dedicated to understanding and promoting an understanding of Autism. Jill is a rare and very special woman.

And here’s the one from my husband, who started this whole thing…
I’d love to nominate my successful wife, Jill. Not only is she the best wife in the world, she makes me a better person. She is an award-winning advocate for adults with developmental disabilities. I’m not going to say that they are people who can’t help themselves, they deserve more credit. She helps people who are often over-looked or misunderstood because of their mental or physical conditions. She has protected hundreds from abuse and neglect, dedicating her life to them. She loves the people she works with, and they love her back just as much.

Thank You so much for all your support!!!!!

Is It ADHD or Dyslexia – or Both?

It’s not always easy to tell whether ADHD or dyslexia is causing your child to be inattentive, distracted, and have difficulty with reading and writing or verbal instructions. In some cases, your child may have both conditions.

By Madeline Vann, MPH

Medically reviewed by Pat F. Bass III, MD, MPH

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For many children, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the learning disorder dyslexia go hand-in-hand. As many as one in four children with ADHD also have dyslexia, while between 15 and 40 percent of children with dyslexia have ADHD. In those cases, children and their families must work to manage both conditions.

Distinguishing between ADHD and dyslexia may at first seem difficult, especially for a parent who has no experience with either disorder. Is your child skipping words when reading because he cannot read them or because he is just speeding ahead? With ADHD making headlines, your first thought might go toward attention problems rather than reading difficulties. But it is important to look at the whole picture when assessing your child’s performance.

“With ADHD there are more behavioral kinds of problems,” says special education expert Nancy Mather, PhD, associate professor in the department of special education, rehabilitation, and school psychology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Dyslexia is limited to reading and writing.”

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Related: Is It ADHD — or Something Else?

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Despite these distinctions, experts have observed a link between ADHD and dyslexia. “Similar areas of the brain are involved in both disorders,” explains Mather. They both appear to lead to problems with executive function, memory, and processing symbols quickly. Another similarity is that children with these disorders often have normal to high intelligence and high creativity, but are frustrated academically. What’s different is how these disorders play out — with dyslexia, it’s in terms of reading and writing difficulties, and with ADHD, it involves behavior.

ADHD and Dyslexia: Reaching a Diagnosis

 

There’s more content below this advertisement. Jump to the content.

 

The process of finding out what is causing your child’s problems could be lengthy. Because girls with ADHD tend to quietly tune out rather than act out, figuring out your child’s learning challenges could be a bit more difficult with a daughter.

“You need neuropsychological testing to tease that out,” says ADHD specialist Eugene Arnold, MD, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the Ohio State University in Sunbury.

In order to figure out which disorder your child has — or if it’s both — you will need:

• Teacher input. Talking to teachersabout your child’s behavior in class and performance on schoolwork can be revealing. Children with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, remembering and following verbal directions, or sitting still, but if they don’t have dyslexia, their ability to read and write is often just fine — indeed, many children with ADHD are avid readers. As they get older, they tend to do better with written instructions than verbal ones. On the other hand, children with dyslexia may try to avoid reading and writing, or mix up letters when learning to write, but do well with oral testing and comprehension.
• A learning ability evaluation.If you suspect a learning disability such as dyslexia, you have the right to ask for an evaluation through your public school system. This is also true for homeschooled children, points out Mather. Testing can help identify dyslexia.
• ADHD evaluation. In order to get an ADHD diagnosis and begin treatment, you will need a psychiatric assessment from an ADHD expert.

Succeeding With ADHD and Dyslexia

Just as the conditions are related but different, so are the solutions. The first step is to work with your child’s school.

“A lot of information is collected by the team at the school,” says Mather. The team may include a special education teacher or counselor, your child’s teachers, and any experts you want to include. If you suspect dyslexia, Mather advises including a dyslexia expert in team meetings. Based on test results, you and the team can develop a plan, usually called an IEP (Individualized Education Plan), for helping your child succeed in school.

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Related: How Exercise Improves ADHD Symptoms

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Children with ADHD and dyslexia often require:

• ADHD medication. With the right medical treatment, children with ADHD learn better. This is especially true for children who also have dyslexia — they need to be able to focus in order to learn how to read and write in a more intensive way.
• Specialized reading and writing training. If your school system has teachers trained in dyslexia on staff, your child may be able to get this additional help during the school day. However, many families find that their child requires tutoring after school. For children with ADHD, this can be especially challenging after a long day when ADHD medication may be wearing off. Talk to your doctor about using additional smaller doses of medication to keep your child’s attention focused until dinner time.
• Classroom accommodations. When you put together the classroom plan for your child with ADHD, you may need to include such things as taking breaks during long work periods, being able to get up and move around the classroom frequently, or being seated away from distractions. Be cautious about being overly reliant on audiobooks or verbal instruction for children with dyslexia, however. Mather points out that learning to read and write is still essential. Specialized tutoring may be necessary.

Though challenges are ahead, there is also great potential. With hard work and structure, children with ADHD and dyslexia can be successful in school

May 12, 2011

TASH Offers Free Parent Guide on Restraint and Seclusion: ‘Shouldn’t School Be Safe?’

http://tash.org/tash-offers-free-parent-guide-on-restraint-and-seclusion-%e2%80%98shouldn%e2%80%99t-school-be-safe%e2%80%99/

What should I look for if I think my child has been abused at school?

Are there warning signs I should know about my child’s school?

If my child has been restrained or secluded – what do I do?

These are common questions we’ve been asked by parents over the years who are concerned about restraint, seclusion and other aversive interventions in schools. Often, the process of finding answers and navigating the patchwork of laws and regulations covering restraint and seclusion can be difficult and discouraging. That’s why TASH has released Shouldn’t School Be Safe?, a parent’s guide to restraint and seclusion – written for parents by parents.

Shouldn’t School Be Safe? is a free resource available for download here at TASH.org. We hope that you’ll help inform others about this guide so that all parents can be empowered to make the best decisions to protect their child.

View or Download ‘Shouldn’t School Be Safe?’

About ‘Shouldn’t School Be Safe?’

Shouldn’t School Be Safe? offers preventative steps parents can take to limit risk at school. The guide encourages parents to play an active role in decision-making, including the creation of an Individualized Education Plan and behavior plan. It also covers ways to build positive relationships and set the foundation for success within the school and community for their child. Shouldn’t School Be Safe? includes information and step-by-step actions for parents to take if they discover their child has been restrained or secluded in school. These practices can be traumatic for children and their parents. This guide outlines the immediate steps to be taken, and how to respond in the days and weeks following an incident of restraint, seclusion or other aversive practice.

View the press release

You may also be interested in TASH 2011 report on ‘The Cost of Waiting’

The Cost of Waiting documents restraint and seclusion through the lens of the media. Released one year after the passage of restraint and seclusion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives (that never reached the Senate floor), The Cost of Waiting shows the true implications of inaction and calls for renewed urgency to pass federal protections against restraint and seclusion in schools.

View or Download ‘The Cost of Waiting’

Posted in

• News
• Restraint & Seclusion

by Jonathan Riethmaier

“LeBron James should apologize immediately. No matter the context, this language is very offensive to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families, and an athlete admired by kids everywhere should recognize the power of his actions and words.”

LeBron James began his next press conference with an apology.

We want to hear your take on this issue – when sports figures or celebrities use language that some find offensive, do they have a responsibility to apologize?

But the mother of one autistic student, noting the handheld’s audio features, wanted the Palm T|X to literally speak to her son, a freshman who’d found shuttling between classes and teachers in a new building overwhelming. Parsons, who knew that the boy’s younger brother enjoyed making videos, suggested an alternative: Have the younger boy film and narrate a walk-through of his older sibling’s typical day. It worked. The freshman watched the video repeatedly, thus becoming comfortable with the new routine, and returned to school. “His mother told me, ‘You’re a genius,’” Parsons recalls. “I said, ‘I’m not a genius. This is just a video camera.’”

In special education parlance, assistive technology, or AT, is any piece of equipment used to improve a student’s functional capabilities; it could be as simple as a pencil with a rubber grip or as sophisticated as a computer enhanced for use by a quadriplegic. (See the Edutopia article, “Assistive Technology: Enhanced Learning for All.”) According to Parsons, whatever the tool, it has to be usefully integrated in a way that suits a student’s needs. In fact, many AT practitioners believe that the diagnostic label a special-needs student has is far less significant than the specific challenges he or she faces, which along the autism spectrum range in type and degree.

“The idea for all technology is to augment, to build on the knowledge and skills that students bring to each task,” explains Joy Zabala, a renowned AT specialist working with the Massachusetts-based Center for Applied Special Technology. She points out that the biggest challenges for autistic students relate to “communication, socialization, and task completion.”

Well-resourced public schools address all three these challenges in common ways with high tech AT. Voice-recognition software and assistive-writing devices, for example, help those with language or fine-motor deficits. Audio-text software and graphic organizers not only highlight sections of text, thus accommodating focused reading, they also help students write down notes and question prompts, which aids in organization and comprehension.

“These kinds of software that help students pay attention and do their work are huge,” observes Jeanne Dwyer, program coordinator for the Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education.

But if the aim is eventually to go beyond the curriculum to help autistic students become self-sufficient adults, then the use of handheld devices may become key. “AT has to be handheld, portable, and intuitive for student to use,” Dwyer says.

This idea has already taken hold at Birdville High School, part of a tech-friendly district in which all teachers get training in computer basics. Those who take extra classes receive Palm devices, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that when Parsons took over the social-skills program six years ago, handhelds were already in circulation among high-functioning autistic students.

Early on, the students used the “primitive” Palm m515 mostly for organization. Parsons notes that most autistic students have a structured mind-set: “You do schoolwork at school, not at home.” The Palm enabled them to keep track of assignments in both locations, with alarm settings serving as reminders. A couple of years later, an upgrade in equipment to the Palm T|X brought with it a color palette (good for the visually oriented, as autistic students often are) as well as picture taking and audio and video features.

Soon, it became a socialization tool. Students, for example, who’d never bothered to learn teachers’ or classmates’ names could now take photos and attach names to faces for memorization purposes. Students also program social cues into the Palms — everything from what to say to classmates during lunch (“How’s your day going?”) to proper etiquette at funerals, a place where “everything’s different socially from anything they’ve done before,” Parsons states.

Part of what is appealing about all handhelds — Palms, BlackBerrys, mp3 players — is the social cachet they bring with them. “As they take the handheld out and use it in class, other students ask them about it,” Parsons says, “so they’re considered cool for the first time in their lives.”

The Palm also offers a means of expression. Because it’s something of a personal repository — for lists, photos, favorite songs — the logical next step, when it’s connected to a keyboard, is to pour one’s thoughts into the device. “Kids I could barely get to write a couple of sentences will write a couple of pages,” Parsons reports. One student even wrote a novel.

Parsons, who has a master’s degree in integrating technology, doesn’t limit AT to handheld devices. She’s also used videos to teach social skills and says PowerPoint is a favorite among autistic students; they’ve used it in slide shows on interpreting facial expressions. Geocaching, the treasure-finding game that involves the use of a global-positioning system (GPS) device, is another big hit that not only demands collaboration but also requires following directions, which is a challenge for these kids, Parsons notes.

Parsons’s work is representative of what Joy Zabala believes all educators should do with assistive technology — lower barriers. She cautions, however, that no matter what the tool is, it should be something educators, parents, and students find useful. “Is the technology you’re using leading toward the goal you have, or is it just cool?” she asks.

Rich Shea is a freelance writer in Maryland.

6:00-9:00PM

Norristown Area

Senior High School Cafeteria

1900 Eagle Drive, Norristown, PA 19403

Join us for a

A Community Information & Resource Fair!

Beginning at 6PM:

Motivational Speaker: Chris Mielo from Pennsylvania Youth Leadership Network

Beginning at 6:30PM:

An overview of

How to Navigate Transition Resources at the Fair

Beginning at 7PM:

The Resource Fair

will be open from

7-9PM. Representatives from the following areas will be available to provide information and to answer

your questions.

Advocacy Groups

Community Resources

Postsecondary Education

Recreation and Leisure

Employment/Day Programming

Are there any replacement behaviors or solutions to this problem?

Thanks.

Go on a nature walk and talk about all the things you see outside. Make a list of things to find on walk and help child find them. Grab a bucket and collect things on your list (acorns, leaves, flowers, rocks, sticks, etc)… talk about the colors, shapes, size, and number and so on. Bring a camera, and take pictures of things that are familiar to your child or that your child can name. Consider trees, ponds, flowers, even houses of friends or pets in the neighborhood. Later, you can flip though the pictures on your computer and talk about your walk, mention some of the things you got to see.

Look for some good books about gardens and growing, e.g. “The Carrot Seed”, “Planting a Rainbow”, “Sunflower House” and one called “Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots” written for families with ideas for gardening with kids.

Tie the stems of clover blossoms together – wrap and tie stem around flower of next one to make a chain into a circle to make necklaces, hats, etc. – they can find more, tell you longer or done, decide what it will be, who gets it, etc.

Play hide and find with small dolls or animals – under, over, behind trees, rocks, bushes, swing-sets, and so on. Then let the dolls live or go camping somewhere outside to get some pretend play.

While outside playing with your children, listen to all the sounds outside (birds, animals, airplane, etc…)

Increase understanding of “Where” questions by asking “Where is the (tree, etc…)?” and having them point to the things named. Maybe they could have a picture of the object, like a flower, and then hunt for the object in their yard.

Have child point to different color flowers to help learn colors.

Have child help with gardening by letting him/her have own tools/materials for gardening and help plant a garden (1. Dig a hole, 2. Next plant seeds, 3. Cover seeds with soil, 4. Water). Name all gardening tools, label actions as you and narrate what you are doing. Give 2-step directions such as: put the seed in and cover it with the dirt. If you don’t want to do a whole garden then plant a seed or two in a paper cup (zinnias, sunflower, pumpkin, watermelon are good) then water, put it in a sunny window and watch it grow – a good way to talk about how things change, “sequencing” language (first/ then).If you have the space, a vegetable garden can be a good way to get kids interested in home grown foods, and getting them involved in the simple parts of garden care may inspire them to taste a few veggies. Your child can grow his/her own salad to serve to the family.

Parents could provide choices as well during gardening activities. Have a water bucket and a shovel and practice function by saying, “Which one gives the plant water?”

Nature magazines can be full or kid friendly pictures. Consider flipping through and cutting out pictures of animals or plants that your child might recognize. Use them to create collages, and use your imagination! Maybe a tiger needs your help drawing a jungle around it, and maybe the monkeys and the frogs are best friends and are going to have a picnic together, and you need to choose what foods to draw on the picnic table. And don’t forget all the fun animal sounds you can practice while you cut and your child glues.

For a fun Springtime activity, take a Styrofoam cup, glue eyes, nose, mouth, bunny ears and whiskers on the cup. Help your child fill the cup with potting soil and a handful of fast-growing grass seed. Add water daily and watch the bunny grow “grass hair” in about a week.

County Director of Advocacy

Supports Coordinator

Please contact me to review the job description and if interested to apply for this position.
.
County Director of Advocacy: Under the direction of the Executive Director of Arc Advocacy Services. Bachelor’s degree and experience working with individuals with a disability for a minimum of 4 years. Must present a clean PA Criminal background check, PA Child Abuse and FBI Criminal Record Check. The candidate must have work experience and have an understanding of local, state and the federal special education systems; Pennsylvania’s MH/MR service systems; current welfare, social security and other benefits systems. Has a working understanding of other agencies, community services and systems and their relationship to programs and families. Able to communicate and work effectively with all staff members, parents, referral sources, outside agencies and government representatives. Strong organizational skills are required. Send resume and letter of interest to HR@marcpa.org EOE/AA M/F/H/V.

Supports Coordinator: Under the direction of the Director of Supports Coordination Services: Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university which is supplemented by at least 12 college credits in sociology, social welfare, psychology, gerontology, criminal justice or other related social sciences. Must present a clean PA Criminal background check, PA Child Abuse and FBI Criminal Record Check. The position involves the location, coordination, and monitoring of needed services and supports for persons supported. Assists participants in obtaining and coordinating needed waiver and other State plan services. Send resume and letter of interest to HR@marcpa.org EOE/AA M/F/H/V.

On May 17th Arc Advocacy Services will be offering training by Judy Gran, Esq., a leading attorney in the field of special education rights on what criteria is used to determine if your child is eligible for tuition reimbursement in a preschool program. This training will be held at The Arc’s administrative offices at 3075 Ridge Pike, Eagleville, PA 19403 and will begin at 7 pm.

Some children are being reimbursed for tuition in the preschool programs. It is important if you wish to be reimbursed for preschool services that you are aware of the provisions in IDEA that affect reimbursement. It is Arc Advocacy’s belief that if your child receives early intervention preschool services, and if his individual education plan has socialization goals in it, your child is eligible for a free appropriate education in the least restrictive environment. For the vast majority of children who have social goals in their IEP this means reimbursement for preschool services. Judy will discuss court decisions and administrative rulings concerning reimbursement for preschool services in the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the Office of Dispute Resolution and the guidance those cases offer.

Please RSVP Charleen at 610-265-4700 x 217 or email you plan to attend to cmcgrath@marcpa.org

by Ruth Heitin, Ph.D., Educational Consultant

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Creating an IEP with a team of people who are all there to design a good educational program for one unique child can be a pleasure. It can also be very productive. When the whole team has the same level of understanding about IEPs, it is even better.  Sounds like crazy talk?  Just ask those who have seen it happen.  The big winner here is the child.

A Lesson in Writing IEP Goals

An IEP is good educational programming.  Good IEPs set the standard for good education.  Each part of the IEP addresses an important part of educational planning.  The IEP team focuses on the unique educational needs of an individual student.  The goals reflect the child’s needs.  Designing well-formed goals is an important part of writing an IEP.

“How do I find examples of good IEP goals?”

Marie, the mother who asked this question, had attended several IEP meetings for her child. She did not think the goals the IEP team proposed were good. Yet, she didn’t know what good IEP goals look like.

If you are a teacher, you may have the same questions. Good IEPs set the standard for good teaching. Each part of the IEP addresses an important part of educational planning.

IEP goals must be individualized. Rather than relying on sample goals, you need to learn how to write IEP goals that meet the unique needs of a particular child.

Goals

We all set goals for ourselves, whether we are aware of it or not. Our goals can be as simple as getting to work on time. They can be as complex as budgeting our expenses. We know what we need to do, and we set out to do it.

An IEP goal is not unlike a personal goal. With an IEP goal, we create an educational program for a child with special needs. An IEP goal describes what we hope the child will achieve, or the intended outcome of instruction.

The outcome is stated as an action we expect to see. Goals must be measured in an objective way. We have to be able to see the action or count it or score it. When we state goals clearly as actions, measuring progress comes naturally from the goal. A goal must establish a criterion for acceptable mastery.

In short, when we write instructional goals we have to know what the child needs to learn and what action we want to see. We have to measure progress toward the goal. Finally, we set a level of mastery that we expect.

We use standardized tests and informal assessments to measure a child’s progress toward the goals.  We can do tallies or checklists or give tests specific to the action we seek. Anyone who looks at the measurement should be able to understand it. And, all those who review the measurement should be able to come to the same conclusion.

Learning how to write individualized IEP goals is an important first step in developing your child’s IEP. IEP goals should also be SMART and based on good educational practice.

SMART IEP goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Use Action words
• Realistic
• Time-limited

Educational research will help you identify essential skills in the core academic subjects of reading, writing, and math. When you know the sequence of skills for a subject, you will know how skills build on each other. You can identify gaps in skills – skills that your child hasn’t mastered and needs to learn.

Think about how children learn math. A child learns how to add and subtract. Then he is ready to learn how to multiply and divide.

Before you can develop measurable IEP goals, the child’s skills must be measured objectively. Objective data about a child’s skills are the baselines for goals. This data also should show progress, or lack of it, when measured over time.

We tend to use the terms “goal” and “objective” to mean the same thing. In IEPs, there is a distinction between them. We write annual goals. Objectives are the short-term steps to reach
goals.

Reading

In 2000, the report of experts on the National Reading Panel explained the research in reading. This included more than 10,000 research studies.  All this information helped form a better understanding of reading and what works in teaching (see www.nationalreadingpanel.org/publications/researchread.htm).  The findings from the research changed reading instruction forever.  In 2001, Congress passed No Child Left Behind (see www.wrightslaw.com/nclb).  The results of the research were included there, too.

Reading instruction requires explicit, intensive, and systematic instruction in the five necessary components of reading instruction:

• Phonemic Awareness – the ability to hear and sequence sounds in spoken words.
• Phonics – the relationship between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language.
• Fluency – the ability to read text accurately and quickly.
• Vocabulary – the words students must know to communicate effectively.
• Comprehension – the ability to understand and gain meaning from what has been read.

Learning to read requires a child to learn specific skills in sequence. Children who have difficulty learning to read have deficiencies in phonemic awareness skills. A child with weak phonemic awareness skills will have difficulty learning phonics skills. This child will not be a fluent reader. If the child does not master phonics and fluency, he will not be able to master vocabulary and reading comprehension.

One young teacher made a banner to illustrate the sequence of reading skills.  This came from the specialized program she was using.  As students learned a skill, she would advance them down the banner.  This made it easy for her to write specific reading goals.

Math

After children master math operations skills (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing), they learn how to use reasoning to solve word problems.

One of my clients, Jane, had this math goal in her IEP:

Jane will use problem solving strategies to solve 2 step word problems with + and – (0 – 999) and x and division (0 – 12) on 3/4 trials.

This is NOT a good IEP goal. Why not?

The intended outcome might have been for Jane to solve two-part word problems. But this goal says she needs to learn to use problem-solving strategies. The goal does not state whether she will be able to solve problems. Worse, this goal includes all math operations (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing), making the goal overly broad.

Jane’s math goal is not SMART. It is not specific or measurable. It does not use action words, and is not realistic or time-limited.

How can we revise this goal to make it SMART?

According to Jane’s IEP, using objects helps her to solve problems. A better goal for Jane might be:

Using real money, Jane will be able to show how much money she has after she receives two weeks of allowance, and how much money she will have left after she buys one object, with 75 percent accuracy measured twice weekly each quarter.

Now, the goal meets the five criteria for a SMART IEP goal.

Writing

Achievement in written language requires many skills. Mechanics help make thoughts clear. Word usage and sentence structure help make the writing interesting. Good thought expression sends the desired message.

In Jane’s IEP, her writing goal read:

Jane needs to write a paragraph, with a topic sentence and at least 4 detail sentences, on one given topic using her editing checklist measured twice monthly.

So, if Jane writes that paragraph, has she achieved that goal?

By the way it was written, the intended outcome is that Jane only “needs” to write a paragraph to meet the goal.

A better writing goal for Jane is:

Jane will write and edit a five-sentence paragraph that addresses a given subject twice a month. Each paragraph will include a topic sentence, at least four details and a conclusion. She will earn a score of 75 percent or higher on a writing rubric for each writing assignment.  There will be at least four writing assignments per quarter.

Tip: Rubrics are useful scoring tools that measure a child’s progress. A writing rubric includes the criteria and standards used to assess a child’s performance on writing assignments.

The revised goal is specific and measurable. It uses action words, is realistic, and time-limited. The revised goal is SMART!

Programs Curriculum

 Teamwork Wins “After School” program collaborates -with Permacultivate Brian Twyman Community Outreach – www.permacultivate.org- www.renue.org

 Garden Initiatives: Teamwork Wins Ltd.

 What: Establish a working classroom garden to address social education, environmental interaction, and nutritional education, based on permacultural ideals. improving the quality of science, technology and mathematics education

 Some of the key objectives for the Garden Project are the following:

•             Establish a working classroom garden to address social education, environmental interaction, and nutritional education, based on permaculture ideals.

•             Establishment of an active composting area to demonstrate a variety of eco-concepts and provide an ongoing sources of nutrient-rich soil to replenish garden beds.

•             Demonstrate the concepts of soil and plant absorption of water and nutrients through the construction and utilization of self-watering planter design

•             Establishment of a native habitat or wildflower section of the garden

•             Implementation of simple and effective plant protection constructs (cold-frame, small hoop house) to demonstrate season extending techniques

•             Ongoing succession gardening to maximize yield from garden space

•             Participation in garden sustainability from all grade levels based on individual projects developed in accordance with the respective academic standards of each grade level relevant to the garden setting.

•             Planning for Continuous harvest of garden produce for education on in-season, garden-based nutrition.

Permacultivate Organization:

•             Will provide ongoing consultation and implementation of program.

•             Will educate staff as to the ongoing needs and maintenance of the garden and provide working curriculum to support the program.

Permacultivate will provide hands on implementation and consultation for each week of camp

•             Will provide ongoing consultation and implementation of program.

•             Will educate staff as to the ongoing needs and maintenance of the garden and provide working curriculum to support the program. 

Tools and Equipment:

Permacultivate will provide direction of the equipment and products for purchase by Teamwork Wins for the project.

TWW students and volunteers will participate in construction and ongoing maintenance of the site. Permacultivate representatives will provide ongoing supervision and consultation.

Educational Platforms:

Permacultivate teaches individuals and communities the importance of systems oriented design

based on sustainability and environmental awareness. Once individuals grasp this approach all educational processes become easy to incorporate.

•             Hands on and full body experience will be the main guidance for this program with The Teamwork wins program.

•             Touch, Sight , Smell , Sound, Taste will be among the most important lesson learned throughout the process.

•             Application of essential learning curriculum will be incorporated. Students will be exposed to Science, Math, Reading, Physics, Ecologic impact, to name a few.

 Teamwork Wins Ltd. – This educational program is for children who are perceptive and highly intelligent, often times labeled as having, Sensory Integration Disorder, AD/HD, Anxiety Disorder, Asperger’s and High Functioning Autism. Besides the garden project, we have turned our kitchen into a haven for young chefs where the harvests will be prepared by the students. Everyone who enters our garden and kitchen, from 5 yrs. old – 17 yrs. old,  will learn the joy of growing food and creating meals.  We will present easy-to-follow recipes, teach kitchen safety and other life practical skills to children with Invisible Challenges™. Then we will all gather to enjoy and celebrate the fruits of our labor. Afterwards, we will take the children for a nature walk and create a greater understanding of relationships with nature and our impact on the environment. Studies have shown the calming effects of nature on children with Invisible Challenges. They will enjoy a respite from their active days by learning to identify trees, exploring pond life, the geology of the area, watching birds butterflies and other wild life.

 Adele Saccarelli

Founder and Director

Teamwork Wins Ltd.

adele@teamworkwins.org

www.teamworkwins.org

215-680-2351

An ADHD diagnosis in children can be distressing for parents. And when you consider that many medical conditions are commonly confused with ADHD because of similar symptoms or that they can occur alongside ADHD, it can be even more distressing and confusing.

To the untrained eye, a whole host of medical conditions can look like ADHD, explains Edward Hallowell, MD, a board-certified child and adult psychiatrist and author of two books on ADHD, Driven to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction.

“Modern life itself, with its myriad distractions and interruptions, can resemble ADHD,” he says. “Certain medical conditions, like hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism, can resemble ADHD. If you do not get enough sleep, you can behave as if you have ADHD.”

To better understand ADHD, it helps to take a close look at childhood anxiety disorder and other ADHD-related conditions to see the differences.

Conditions Related to ADHD

When it comes to making an ADHD diagnosis in children, the common learning disability dyslexia is sometimes confused with ADHD, but Dr. Hallowell says that a good physician should be able to easily tell them apart. “Dyslexia refers to a reading problem, while ADHD refers to inconsistency of attention,” he says. “They are entirely different syndromes, but they may occur in the same person.”

Another common condition that sometimes gets confused with ADHD is a petit mal seizure. “The hallmark of petit mal is the presence of brief (a second or less) moments of complete absence of attention,” says Hallowell. “Hence they are often called ‘absence’ seizures.”

Bipolar disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and some autism disorders can also mimic ADHD symptoms at times.

Conditions That Accompany ADHD

In addition to conditions that have similar symptoms to ADHD, there are other conditions that often occur at the same time as ADHD. For example, it is not unusual to see childhood anxiety disorders appear in tandem with ADHD.

Related: Top 10 Myths About ADHD

“Anxiety and depression usually occur in the wake of ADHD,” says Hallowell. “It is depressing to underachieve and not know why, and it is anxiety-provoking not to know what mistake you’re about to make. Once ADHD gets treated, depression and anxiety usually abate.”

Making an Accurate ADHD Diagnosis in Children

Doctors use a whole host of tests to determine whether or not your child has ADHD. In many cases, an accurate, detailed medical history is the key to getting at the truth of what your child is experiencing, explains Hallowell. In other instances, more extensive medical testing may be needed. “For example, petit mal seizures are diagnosed through an EEG, a brain wave test,” says Hallowell.

Ultimately, Hallowell says it’s critical to find a doctor who is experienced in working with patients with ADHD. “In the hands of a well-trained doctor, it is not a difficult diagnosis to make,” he says. “The problem is, most doctors do not know enough about ADHD in children or in adults. Since we do not have a test for ADHD, we have to rely on the clinical acumen of the doctor.” For that reason, Hallowell says, it’s not only important to find a doctor whom you trust, but also to find one who has a lot of experience with ADHD.

On Friday, June 3, 2011
6:30pm – 8:30pm at
Lower Providence Park, Eagleville PA

Marc Children’s Services is celebrating all of the children that are moving on from our program in 2011

This event will be held at Lower Providence park at 100 Park Drive, Eagleville, PA on Friday, June 3, 2011 from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. We will have finger foods, music, a bubble machine, face painting and more. We will have the swearing in of the officers. Please join us for this fun and exciting event by returning the reply card or calling 610-382-5801.
Award Recipients
Vincent J. Fitzpatrick Humanitarian Senator Robert Tomlinson, Bucks County
Rose R. Rosa Advocacy Representative Kate Harper, Montgomery County
Public Service Award Gregory FCA
Children’s Champion Award Robin Tettlebaum

Staff Awards Presentations
5 years
Eric Barnett Dana Blazo Loretta Clift
Sam Georges Pat Leo Tonya MacCoy
Charleen McGrath Maria Ortiz Amy Overholtzer
Kavitha Patel Aviva Snyderman Nicole Steichen
Elizabeth Werkheiser Rebecca Westwood

10 years
Susan Pytel Wendy Sokolowski Kimberly Uhler-Ortiz

25 years
Paul Stengle, CEO

Friday evening, June 3, 2011 from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at Lower Providence Park, Eagleville, PA

I am hearing from parents more often than ever that they feel their child current educational placement is not providing a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) as required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). What are some of the options a parent has when this is the case: They can file a Due Process Complaint and wait for the outcome or they can place their child in a private school and try to get reimbursed for the cost of the tuition from the public School District. Parents who choose the latter do so at their own financial risk and must follow a specific method for withdrawing their child from public school. Whenever you file a Due Process complaint it is a good idea to consult with an experienced special education attorney but when you are trying to get reimbursed for Private School tuition it is even more important.

Some of the more important points to remember when you want to try and get reimbursed for private school tuition are:

1.You must be able to prove that your child DID NOT receive FAPE from the placement offered by the School District and that your placement DID provide FAPE;
2.You must either, a) disagree with the placement offer in the most recent IEP meeting stating you don’t think the offer provides FAPE and that you will be placing your child in a private school at public expense, or b) provide written notice to the School District ten business days prior to removing your child from public school that you will be placing your child in private school at public expense; and
3.You must allow the School to perform a new assessment if the School District provides you with Prior Written Notice of their intent to do so before you remove your child from public school.
Below is an excerpt from the U.S. Department of Education Procedural Safeguards model form regarding parental placement in a private school at public expense.

34 CFR 300.148

Part B of IDEA does not require a school district to pay for the cost of education, including special education and related services, of your child with a disability at a private school or facility if the school district made a free appropriate public education (FAPE) available to your child and you choose to place the child in a private school or facility. However, the school district where the private school is located must include your child in the population whose needs are addressed under the Part B provisions regarding children who have been placed by their parents in a private school under 34 CFR 300.131 through 300.144.

Reimbursement for private school placement
If your child previously received special education and related services under the authority of a school district, and you choose to enroll your child in a private preschool, elementary school, or secondary school without the consent of or referral by the school district, a court or a hearing officer may require the agency to reimburse you for the cost of that enrollment if the court or hearing officer finds that the agency had not made a free appropriate public education (FAPE) available to your child in a timely manner prior to that enrollment and that the private placement is appropriate. A hearing officer or court may find your placement to be appropriate, even if the placement does not meet the State standards that apply to education provided by the State Educational Agency and school districts.

Limitation on reimbursement
The cost of reimbursement described in the paragraph above may be reduced or denied:
1.If: (a) At the most recent individualized education program (IEP) meeting that you attended prior to your removal of your child from the public school, you did not inform the IEP Team that you were rejecting the placement proposed by the school district to provide FAPE to your child, including stating your concerns and your intent to enroll your child in a private school at public expense; or (b) At least 10 business days (including any holidays that occur on a business day) prior to your removal of your child from the public school, you did not give written notice to the school district of that information;
2.If, prior to your removal of your child from the public school, the school district provided prior written notice to you of its intent to evaluate your child (including a statement of the purpose of the evaluation that was appropriate and reasonable), but you did not make the child available for the evaluation; or
3.Upon a court’s finding that your actions were unreasonable.
However, the cost of reimbursement:
1.Must not be reduced or denied for failure to provide the notice if: (a) The school prevented you from providing the notice; (b) You had not received notice of your responsibility to provide the notice described above; or (c) Compliance with the requirements above would likely result in physical harm to your child; and
2.May, in the discretion of the court or a hearing officer, not be reduced or denied for your failure to provide the required notice if: (a) You are not literate or cannot write in English; or (b) Compliance with the above requirement would likely result in serious emotional harm to your child.

As you can see this is one of the more complicated issues in IDEA which is why it is important to consult with an experienced special education attorney prior to removing your child from the public school.

Autism NOW is a national initiative of The Arc funded by a grant from the Administration on Developmental Disabilities charged with becoming the nation’s source for resources and information on community-based solutions for individuals with autism, other developmental disabilities and their families. One of those topline resources is a series of webinars about autism spectrum disorders (ASD), early detection and intervention, and organizations and activities supporting acceptance and celebration.

Sign up for a free session held every Tuesday and Thursday from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (EST) throughout Autism Awareness Month. Designed for self-advocates, families, professionals, and the general public, these webinars encompass a wide variety of topics and practices in the area of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and developmental disabilities. Space is limited and we’re sure you won’t want to miss these opportunities.

Upcoming topics will focus on:

■An overview from National Disability Rights Network – what you need to know
■Health Insurance Options for Children with IDD or on the Spectrum
■An overview of legal advocacy at federal level based on state wide development disability Council expertise (NACDD)
■Learn about Rest Assured, a new assistive technology that can change the face of care and promote independent living
Check out the full list of available Webinars and sign up now at www.autismnow.org. While you’re there, take some time to explore the new website then spread some awareness to the rest of the world. You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, read our latest news and share our URL with everyone you know. Together we can raise awareness for autism for April and beyond!

What do you think? If you want to check out The Arc of US blog page go to http://blog.thearc.org

You are important to Pennsylvania’s disability community.  The Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation and the Pennsylvania Rehabilitation Council wants to know what you think.  We are looking for ways to improve how we assist those with disabilities.  We have created five quick surveys.  Please take a few minutes, choose the appropriate survey and follow the link.  Don’t worry — this survey is confidential and won’t affect any of your services.  The results will be available in March of 2012 and will help OVR determine future programming and funding.

Thank you for taking the time to help us out.  You make the difference! 

Customers of Disability Services

Public Sector Service Providers

Private Sector Service Providers and Vendors

Employers

Advocates

If you know of others, who have information that we need, please feel free to forward this email to them, or give them my contact information.  In the near future, we will be sponsoring focus groups on the things we talk about in the surveys.  If you’d like to join, e-mail Lori Ann Jenkins at ljenkins@state.pa.us.   Remember, you make the difference!

Three Reasons for Reading Failure

1. The program is not appropriate for the child.
2. There are too many students in the reading class.
3. The pace of the instruction is too rapid for children to achieve mastery of skills presented. Source: The Reading Foundation

Requirements for Research Based Reading Programs

Teachers who are trained in research based methods should use the programs as they are intended to be used – including the recommended hours per day and week, and the recommended teacher-student ratio.

I am not aware of any research showing that a research based program will work if it is used by a teacher who is not properly trained, if the teacher-student ratio is wrong, if the required hours per day and week are wrong, or if the program is wrong for the child’s stage of reading development.

If the reading program is not matched to the child’s stage of reading development and is not sufficiently intense to bring the child’s skills to where they need to be for his age and grade, it is worthless for that child.

Check your state grade level standards and the “average range” on test scores to document where your child needs to end up. Adjust the intensity of instruction so the child reaches this goal in two years or less.

Six Qualities of Effective Reading Programs

1. Effective programs are driven by reading research, not ideology.

2. Effective programs emphasize direct, systematic, intensive, and sustained reading.

3. Effective programs require school-wide buy-in before they are adopted.

4. Effective programs are supported by initial professional development and extended follow-up training throughout the school year.

5. When implementing an effective program, the school needs to be committed to the integrity of the program’s instructional approach and materials.

6. Effective programs make effective use of instructional time, provide multiple reading opportunities, and employ a variety of reading assessments.
Source: Considerations When Selecting a Reading Program from The Access Center.

Social & Emotional Problems When Children Do Not Learn to Read

For emotional reasons alone, two years of not knowing how to read is a long time for a child. Psychologist Michael Ryan describes the high price children pay when we fail to teach them to read in Social and Emotional Problems Related to Dyslexia

Is it reasonable that a school that teaches children to read is not teaching this child to read? It is reasonable to expect that “specialized instruction to meet the unique needs of the child with a disability” (the definition of “special education” in IDEA) will ensure that the child progresses to where he needs to be in a fairly short period of time?

If the child is not making this progress, is it reasonable to conclude that the special education program is not appropriate?

Model Reading Program

After you learn about the requirements for a research based reading program that will be effective for this child at his reading stage, look at the model reading program from the U. S. Department of Education.

This model calls for 90 minutes of instruction per day, 5 days a week, from kindergarten through grade 3. Children who are not making sufficient progress receive additional instruction. This model assumes that reading instruction takes place in general education classrooms. Children are not allowed to fall behind. They are given the instruction they need when they need it. National Research Council, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children

Question C-1 of Guidance for the Reading First program says:

“A high-quality reading program that is based on scientifically based research must include instructional content based on the five essential components of reading instruction integrated into a coherent instructional design.

“A coherent design includes explicit instructional strategies that address students’ specific strengths and weaknesses, coordinated instructional sequences, ample practice opportunities and aligned student materials, and may include the use of targeted, scientifically based instructional strategies as appropriate.

“The design should also consider the allocation of time, including a protected, uninterrupted block of time for reading instruction of more than 90 minutes per day.

“A high-quality reading program also includes assessment strategies for diagnosing student needs and measuring progress, as well as a professional development plan that ensures teachers have the skills and support necessary to implement the program effectively and to meet the reading needs of individual students.”

When children receive this type and intensity of instruction by well-trained teachers, many never need to be identified with a disability and never need to be placed in special education programs.

11 Questions to Ask About Your Child’s Reading Program

Here are some questions you need to ask about your child’s reading program:

1. What is the name of my child’s reading program?

2. Is the reading program researched-based? Does the program include the five essential elements identified by the National Reading Panel and required by No Child Left Behind?

3. How many children will be in my child’s reading group?

4. How have the children in this group been selected?

5. Has the teacher been trained in direct, systematic, multisensory reading instruction?

6. Is the teacher certified in this particular program?

7. Has the teacher completed a supervised practicum in this program?

8. How many hours of instruction per week will my child receive?

9. How will the pace of the instruction be determined?

10. What criteria will be used to determine mastery?

11. How will I be informed about my child’s progress?
Source: The Reading Foundation

More Info

Below are links to articles and publications that will help you learn about research based reading programs, appropriately trained teachers, stages of reading development, and model reading programs.

Stages of reading development – If the program is not appropriate for the child’s reading stage, it will be ineffective for him, even if it works for other children his age.

More about The Stages of Development, Stage 0 – Stage 5.

4 Great Definitions About Reading in NCLB – No Child Left Behind includes the legal definitions of reading, essential components of reading instruction, scientifically based reading research, and reading assessments. Does your child’s program have these “essential components”? Has the school given your child a diagnostic reading assessment? What did this assessment show?

How Can I Get a Trained, Certified Reading Teacher?

Research Based Reading Programs, Training, Contacts

Guidance for the Reading First Program – The purpose of Reading First is to ensure that all children are proficient readers by the end of third grade. This publication includes a description of a model program – 90 minutes of instruction per day, 5 days a week, with additional instruction for children who continue to struggle,

More Strategies

Join the International Dyslexia Association and the Learning Disabilities Association of America for one year. Immerse yourself in information about your child’s disability, research based instructional techniques, legal rights and responsibilities, and advocacy strategies.

Get help from other parents. Look for a support or study group in your community. Read Strategies to Find a Parent Group. Other parents can provide information, recommend experts, offer support, and alleviate that sinking feeling that you are fighting this battle alone.

Learn more about research based instruction (RBI).

Learn more about teaching children to read.

Learn more about effective advocacy.

Revised 03/07/11

Sue Whitney of Merrimack, New Hampshire, is the research editor for Wrightslaw.

Sue is the co-author of Wrightslaw: No Child Left Behind (ISBN: 1-892320-12-4) that is published by Harbor House Law Press.

In Doing Your Homework, she writes about reading, research based instruction, No Child Left Behind, and creative strategies for using federal education standards to advocate for children and to improve public schools. Her articles have been reprinted by SchwabLearning.org, EducationNews.org, Bridges4Kids.org, The Beacon: Journal of Special Education Law and Practice, the Schafer Autism Report, and have been used in CLE presentations to attorneys.

Sue Whitney’s is webmaster for the Special Education Resources for New Hampshire website. Sue has served on New Hampshire’s Special Education State Advisory Committee on the Education of Students/Children with Disabilities (SAC) and has been a volunteer educational surrogate parent. She currently works with families as a special education advocate (www.suewhitney.com).

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20049118-10391695.html

autism, vaccine, generic(Credit: CBS/istockphoto.com)

For all those who’ve declared the autism-vaccine debate over – a new scientific review begs to differ. It considers a host of peer-reviewed, published theories that show possible connections between vaccines and autism.

The article in the Journal of Immunotoxicology is entitled “Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes–A review. ” The author is Helen Ratajczak, surprisingly herself a former senior scientist at a pharmaceutical firm. Ratajczak did what nobody else apparently has bothered to do: she reviewed the body of published science since autism was first described in 1943. Not just one theory suggested by research such as the role of MMR shots, or the mercury preservative thimerosal; but all of them.

Ratajczak’s article states, in part, that “Documented causes of autism include genetic mutations and/or deletions, viral infections, and encephalitis [brain damage] following vaccination [emphasis added]. Therefore, autism is the result of genetic defects and/or inflammation of the brain.”

The article goes on to discuss many potential vaccine-related culprits, including the increasing number of vaccines given in a short period of time. “What I have published is highly concentrated on hypersensitivity, Ratajczak told us in an interview, “the body’s immune system being thrown out of balance.”

University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Brian Strom, who has served on Institute of Medicine panels advising the government on vaccine safety says the prevailing medical opinion is that vaccines are scientifically linked to encephalopathy (brain damage), but not scientifically linked to autism. As for Ratajczak’s review, he told us he doesn’t find it remarkable. “This is a review of theories. Science is based on facts. To draw conclusions on effects of an exposure on people, you need data on people. The data on people do not support that there is a relationship. As such, any speculation about an explanation for a (non-existing) relationship is irrelevant.”

Helen Ratajczak, author “Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes–A review.”

Ratajczak also looks at a factor that hasn’t been widely discussed: human DNA contained in vaccines. That’s right, human DNA. Ratajczak reports that about the same time vaccine makers took most thimerosal out of most vaccines (with the exception of flu shots which still widely contain thimerosal), they began making some vaccines using human tissue. Ratajczak says human tissue is currently used in 23 vaccines. She discusses the increase in autism incidences corresponding with the introduction of human DNA to MMR vaccine, and suggests the two could be linked. Ratajczak also says an additional increased spike in autism occurred in 1995 when chicken pox vaccine was grown in human fetal tissue.

Why could human DNA potentially cause brain damage? The way Ratajczak explained it to me: “Because it’s human DNA and recipients are humans, there’s homologous recombinaltion tiniker. That DNA is incorporated into the host DNA. Now it’s changed, altered self and body kills it. Where is this most expressed? The neurons of the brain. Now you have body killing the brain cells and it’s an ongoing inflammation. It doesn’t stop, it continues through the life of that individual.”

Dr. Strom said he was unaware that human DNA was contained in vaccines but told us, “It does not matter…Even if human DNA were then found in vaccines, it does not mean that they cause autism.” Ratajczak agrees that nobody has proven DNA causes autism; but argues nobody has shown the opposite, and scientifically, the case is still open.

A number of independent scientists have said they’ve been subjected to orchestrated campaigns to discredit them when their research exposed vaccine safety issues, especially if it veered into the topic of autism. We asked Ratajczak how she came to research the controversial topic. She told us that for years while working in the pharmaceutical industry, she was restricted as to what she was allowed to publish. “I’m retired now,” she told CBS News. “I can write what I want.”

We wanted to see if the CDC wished to challenge Ratajczak’s review, since many government officials and scientists have implied that theories linking vaccines to autism have been disproven, and Ratajczak states that research shows otherwise. CDC officials told us that “comprehensive review by CDC…would take quite a bit of time.” In the meantime, CDC provided these links:

Interagency Autism Coordination Committee: http://iacc.hhs.gov

Overview of all CDC surveillance and epi work: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/research.html

CDC study on risk factors and causes: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/seed.html Tags: sharyl attkisson , university of pennsylvania , cdc , vaccine , autism , vaccines , autism vaccine link , cbs news Topics: News

Survey to follow soon.

Take Survey of IDEA Advocacy Experiences, sponsored by National
Organizations

Please take part in the IDEA National Survey, a survey of whether the
rights of students with disabilities and their parents are protected. The
survey is sponsored by the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD),
National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS), Autism Society of America (ASA),
Autism National Committee (AutCom), and The Advocacy Institute (AI). Go to
_http://www.ideasurvey.org_ (http://www.ideasurvey.org/)
The survey topics include whether the rights of students with disabilities
and their parents protected throughout the special education process,
including IEP meetings and IEP issues, eligibility (child find), Due Process
hearings (impartial hearings), and other education issues. There is also a
questionnaire for parents whose children have been denied eligibility for
IDEA (denied an IEP).
All disabilities are welcome! We are studying these issues for all
students, regardless of their disability or special need. There are surveys for
all community members:
– Parents of children with disabilities
– Self-advocates (people with disabilities)
– Attorneys, advocates, and other professionals
The survey will run March-May 2011. The results will be compiled into a
report about experiences under the IDEA that will be published this summer.
You can take the survey and read more about it at
_http://www.ideasurvey.org_ (http://www.ideasurvey.org/)
PLEASE SHARE THIS NOTICE BROADLY AND PLEASE FORWARD.

Thank you,
Jessica Butler
Coordinator, IDEA National Survey Project
email: _jessica@jnba.net_ (mailto:jessica@jnba.net)
website: _www.ideasurvey.org_ (http://www.ideasurvey.org/)

http://specialchildren.about.com/od/specialeducation/qt/behaviorplan.htm

Autism NOW is a national initiative of The Arc funded by a grant from the Administration on Developmental Disabilities charged with becoming the nation’s source for resources and information on community-based solutions for individuals with autism, other developmental disabilities and their families. One of those topline resources is a series of webinars about autism spectrum disorders (ASD), early detection and intervention, and organizations and activities supporting acceptance and celebration.

Sign up for a free session held every Tuesday and Thursday from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. (EST) throughout Autism Awareness Month. Designed for self-advocates, families, professionals, and the general public, these webinars encompass a wide variety of topics and practices in the area of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and developmental disabilities. Space is limited and we’re sure you won’t want to miss these opportunities.

Upcoming topics will focus on:

■An overview from National Disability Rights Network – what you need to know
■Health Insurance Options for Children with IDD or on the Spectrum
■An overview of legal advocacy at federal level based on state wide development disability Council expertise (NACDD)
■Learn about Rest Assured, a new assistive technology that can change the face of care and promote independent living
Check out the full list of available Webinars and sign up now at www.autismnow.org. While you’re there, take some time to explore the new website then spread some awareness to the rest of the world. You can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, read our latest news and share our URL with everyone you know. Together we can raise awareness for autism for April and beyond!

Thanks

[http://www.cogmed.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/aboutworkingmemory.jpg\
]
Working memory is the search engine of the mind
Working memory is the cognitive function responsible for keeping
information online, manipulating it, and using it in your thinking. It
is the way that you delegate the things you encounter to the parts of
our brain that can take action. In this way, working memory is necessary
for staying focused on a task, blocking out distractions, and keeping
you updated and aware about what’s going on around you.

We use our working memory constantly in daily life helping us to perform
efficiently and effectively in academic, professional, and social
settings. Cogmed exists to help you improve your working memory to be
better equipped to meet your challenges.

The guide below provides examples of how the working memory works and
how a working memory deficit disrupts daily life at various age levels.

Age

Working memory is crucial for…

Indicators that a working memory needs exercise

Pre school

* Learning the alphabet
* Focusing on short instructions such as “Come brush your
teeth”
* Remaining seated to complete independent activities, such as
puzzles

* Seems unwilling or unable to learn alphabet, numbers
* Can’t focus long enough to grasp and follow instructions
* Flits from one thing to another

Elementary school

* Reading and understanding the content (reading comprehension)
* Mental arithmetic
* Interacting and responding appropriately in peer activities such as
playing on the school ground

* Reads (decodes) but does not understand or remember material read
* Problems memorizing math facts
* Difficulty participating in group activities (e.g. awaiting turn);
makes friends but cannot keep them

Middle school

* Doing homework independently
* Planning and packing for an activity
* Solving multi-step math problems, especially word problems
* Participating in team sports

* Does not begin or persist with homework without supervision
* Packs but forgets items essential for activity
* Reads the problem but can’t break it into understandable parts
* Problems grasping rules of a game, functioning as a “team
player”

High school

* Getting a driver’s license – and driving safely
* Understanding social cues, responding to demands of a social
situation
* Writing essays, reports

* Problems with spatial awareness, reading and following traffic cues
* Interrupts, talks excessively, doesn’t listen to others
* Essays and reports are short, sloppy, and disorganized

College

* Focusing on and following a conversation
* Making and adhering to work plans, such as studying for an exam
successfully
* Participating in group activities in school and socially
* Sustaining focus and interest throughout lectures

* Changes topics suddenly, makes irrelevant comments
* Procrastinates, then tries to “cram” the night before an
exam
* Doesn’t listen or participate during group activities
* Falls asleep or “zones out” during lectures

Adults

* Getting to work on time
* Meeting deadlines at work
* Prioritizing multiple activities
* Handling conflicts within the family

* Frequently late to work
* Often underestimates time required for a task
* Has problems breaking a project into manageable steps
* Often loses temper with children and spouse

Seniors

* Actively participate in group discussions
* Being able to perform what you are planning to do
* Organizing your materials and activities
* Managing important financial transactions

* Forgetfulness
* Distractability
* Losing track of the topic in a conversation
* Misplacing things like glasses, mobile phone, keys etc

Dear Friend & Advocate Over the years, you’ve offered advice about new features for the website. You’ve helped us make decisions about new programs and products. We need your help again.

We are working with Dr. Melissa Farrall on a new book – Wrightslaw: All About Tests and Evaluations. The book will include clear, concise answers to questions about tests and evaluations, including:

• What should be included in an evaluation
• Qualifications of evaluators
• Independent educational evaluations (IEE)
• Response to Intervention (RTI)
• Progress monitoring
• Accommodations & modifications
• Using tests to measure progress
• Cognitive evaluations
• Reading, Writing, Spelling, and Math Tests
• Speech & Language tests

Do you have a question about tests or evaluations?

If you have a question or a suggestion for Wrightslaw: All About Tests and Evaluations, please send them to aat@wrightslaw.com

In the Subject line of your email, please type “Questions for All About Tests”.

Wrightslaw doesn’t have a million dollar marketing campaign. We have something better – you.

When we need help, you always step up to the plate.

Thank you!
Pam & Pete Wright

Experts outline challenges facing math instruction

Students with disabilities and non-native English speakers need thoughtful guidance; technology can play a role

If you haven’t received an ESY IEP with the goals and objectives they will be working on and the NOREP for ESY call your district.

SOUDERTON – Middle school can be a lonely struggle for some kids.

Hoping to help with adolescent angst and give each student an adult who they’re comfortable talking to, Indian Crest and Indian Valley are gearing up to begin a program called Connections this fall.

Studies have shown that students who feel connected to school are more successful, said Katie McCoy, assistant principal at Indian Crest. The idea is “for all our students to have a safe place where they feel connected to adults,” McCoy said.

Two teachers or a teacher and an administrator will be together in homerooms dubbed “home bases.” The classes will be split into smaller group for activities led by staff members that are designed to foster rapport between the students and the adults.

Topics to be addressed include making the transition to middle school, getting along with others, bullying and making good choices. For eighth graders discussions about avoiding drugs and alcohol will be in the mix.

There will be 35 30-minute Connections meetings throughout the year, with more toward the beginning of the school year than the end. Connections will take place during  first period.

“We looked at other middle schools where they were successful and not successful,” said Indian Crest Principal Jeff Pammer, in devising the homegrown Connections program. School districts sometimes call similar programs “advisory,” Pammer said.

A committee of 14 staff members, seven from each school, worked on Connections, he said.

“It was their ingenuity that put this together,” he said.

“We went through the pros and cons. As Clint Eastwood would say, ‘the good, the bad and the ugly.’” Continued…

 He believes that Connections will also lead to more “cohesion” among teachers, who teach subjects but are not on a specific team.  A pilot program had been underway before being tabled by the teachers’ strike in 2008, he said.

Pammer was quick to say that no courses or clubs will be eliminated to make time for Connections.

“At the middle level relationships are key,” Pammer said. “If students don’t feel connected, they don’t want to participate. If they have that bond they tend to be more successful.”

After Connections is in place for awhile, Pammer said, students, teachers and parents will be asked for their assessments.

“You’ll be able to tell who they interact with and feel more comfortable with,” Pammer said. “The staff will be trained in ways to actively engage them.”

The Developmental Individual Difference Relationship-based model, or DIR, is the focus at Soaring Eagle Academy. It promotes social, emotional and intellectual abilities of children with autism.

Located in Burr Ridge, Soaring Eagle Academy only has 10 students.

“Our student’s have autism spectrum disorder and other related disorders and can be anywhere from moderate to profoundly impaired,” said Deanna Tyrpak, one of the school’s founders.

“The heart of the DIR model is what’s called floor-time and while many look at it as just simple play, it’s more than that,” said Tyrpak.

“It’s amazing process to watch as a parent or a teacher truly engages as a child and gets at their level and meets them where they are, following their lead and their interest while also challenging them and their emotional, their social and their intellectual capacities,” said Tyrpak.

“We have a multi-disciplinary team. It’s a comprehensive intensive approach. So, there’s a special education teacher in the classroom. Every child has a one-on-one assistant that is their floor-time player that engages them in interaction all through the day. Then, we have a host of speech therapists, occupational therapists, music therapists, art therapists, recreational therapists and consultants that support the team,” said Tyrpak.

Jennifer Horvath’s 7-year-old daughter, Rachel, is a student at Soaring Eagle Academy. The mother says within the few months, she see significant changes.

“Everything, I think most of all I guess, that she can she has a connection with everybody in her life now, and they have a connection with her,” said Horvath. “I mean, her brothers now, she plays with them all the time. But she never did before. No, she didn’t know how.”

Amanda Shadduck’ son, Adam, is 5 years old.

“I had a friend of mine who said you should try floor-time because the two components of Adam’s challenges are sensory processing and communications. So, Adam has a lot of issues with sensory things around him. He doesn’t have a filter like we can filter out things, where Adam’s can’t really do that. Things just sort of bombard him and he kind of doesn’t know how to handle his own body,” Shadduck said. “He’s doing really well.”

“He is engaging more with people around him. He’s definitely talking more. He’s developing his personality like things are coming out<” said Shadduck.

Currently, the school is only available for children from ages 5 to 13.

“We have a large building we want to expand,” Tyrpak said. “And we want to be able to expand to serve high school students.”

“You may find a child who is excited about lions, tigers. So, their math project is adding lions or reading books about lions. It’s all about following the child’s lead in their interest and trying to weave in Illinois learning standards in the process,” said Tyrpak.

The cost of education for children who attend Soaring Eagle Academy is paid by their children’s local school districts.

For more information, visit www.soaringeagleacademy.org.

Ortiz, a 10 year employee of the Arc of Montgomery, Berks and Bucks County and Fisher Pisa, employed at The Arc for 7 years were notified in January that they had been nominated and chosen for the awards.

Both women have experience in the field of disabilities by personal experience and through their employment with Marc Children’s services. Shelly Ortiz is the parent of two children with disabilities and Julie Fisher Pisa’s brother experiences congenital blindness in one eye.

Julie credits her experiences growing up with her brother and observing the many medical interventions and the adaptations her parents made for her brother while they were young with the success she has in working with families of young children with disabilities. She describes her role as an Occupational Therapist as “an honor- we are usually the first people to help a family in the process of helping their child with a disability to develop their potential.”

Shelly indicates she owes her success in part to The Arc’s flexibility in working with its employees, and her coworker’s willingness to share information and expertise. As a parent with a child with a seizure disorder there are often unexpected medical emergencies and changes to family life that weren’t in the plans. Her experiences have allowed her to offer practical solutions for families born out of experience and what she describes as a “grand understanding” of genuinely “walking in their shoes” by meeting her own children’s needs.

When asked about her initial reaction to the award announcement Julie says she was embarrassed at first. “It’s hard to accept attention for yourself. I was honored and touched that people notice that I try to do a good job at everything I do.”

Shelly’s response to the nomination was “it’s an honor and a recognition of the job you do. It’s nice that others notice that you are working very hard to do a good job.”

Currently the state funds pay for the following aspects of the program:

* Advisory committee meetings and member’s travel expenses

* Staff Travel for on-site monitoring visits

* The out of hospital hearing screening program, equipment, supplies and training and

site visits (4,000 infants every year are born in an out of hospital setting in PA)

* The hearing screening and metabolic screening data system

* Postage to mail letters to parents and physicians

* Printing for referral forms for hospital reporting

* Hospital grants for hearing screening equipment

You can view the budget at the following link, www.pa.gov/open , under the Health department. In the state funds allocation, you will notice newborn hearing screening has a zero balance. If you have concerns about the proposed budget you may wish to share your thoughts with your local representative.

At this point, it is up to us, our patients, our students, and their families to contact their local legislators to see if funding for the program can be restored. Please, please get the word out so that the newborn hearing screening program can continue to help children and families!

The budget hearings start next week, the Director of the Department of Health will be taking questions from the Senate Appropriations Committee next Wednesday and the House Committee on Thursday. It would be a great help for PSHA members who live in their home district to contact their legislators to ask how we will continue to screen out of hospital births, who will collect reports on screening results and coordinate efforts to minimize loss to follow up. See the PSHA website (www.psha.org) for more information from ASHA.

If you need more information, contact Jim Zeigler, Au.D., Chair of the Newborn Hearing Screening Advisory Committee ( jzeigler@liu18.org )

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=558090&mode=2

It took us several days to call the intake number, and we asked everyone we knew if they thought anything was wrong with Laney. We watched her and compared her to other children we knew. She did seem to get bored easily and moved from toy to toy quickly. She used “muh” and “dah” instead of Mom or Dad like some other children her age. We finally made the call.

The intake and evaluation happened quickly and we were assured that Laney’s delays would be easily addressed by her Teacher and Speech Therapist. They asked us what we wanted her to do and how to fit the program into our family life. The Marc team set up their meetings with Laney to fit her nap time and our schedule. On the first visit they asked me a lot of questions- which I thought was odd at first.

They helped us understand that their role was to help us make it easier for Laney to be part of our family routines, and not to provide direct therapy like a hospital. I wasn’t sure how this was going to work but they encouraged us to give the program a try and to see how we felt about her progress over the first few months.

Laney wasn’t interested at first and the first sessions were mostly working at keeping her in the room. We continued to work and little by little we saw Laney begin to pay more attention to toys and to her father and me. She began to use signs along with her sounds. I cried the first time she called me “Mom”- it sounded like music to me!

Laney’s third birthday is approaching and her services are coming to an end. We’ve reviewed all the milestones we’ve met with her team from Marc and we’re all celebrating the start of her new life. She is going to preschool and I know I will probably cry again on the first day I drop her off. I will also know she is ready to make new friends and that she is ready to learn about the world outside of our house. Her team has helped us think about what we want for her in a preschool and we have made a choice that will be a good “fit” for Laney.

It seems like years since our doctor asked us those questions about Laney and suggested she might have some delays in her development. We are grateful that we were able to get her the services she needed and that we had the Marc team to work with us to get her ready to start school.

Do you know what your rights are when the district has denied your request?

Tell us your situation and if you were able to resolve it.

 We are very excited about the scope and magnitude of this project which brings together a team of top autism researchers from institutions across the country.   It is our hope that the EARLI Study will ultimately provide answers to some of the questions we all have been asking for years.  For EARLI researchers to learn more about the causes and development of autism, we are asking for all eligible families to take part. It is so important to get the word about EARLI out to families.   Please don’t forget to alert the families that you service in our catchment areas to this incredible opportunity by giving them a brochure and referring them to our website at your visits with them.  

 Amy Kelly

EARLI Community Liaison/Outreach Coordinator

 Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics

School of Public Health, Mail Stop 1033

Bellet Building, 6th Floor

1505 Race Street

Philadelphia, PA 19102

TEL            215-762-2048

FAX           215-762-2325

MOBILE   215-432-9597

EMAIL      amykelly@drexel.edu

www.EARLIStudy.org