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News- Page 12
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Education : Be your child's advocate
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Posted by sylvia on Wednesday, March 02, 2005 (17:37:29)
Pantagraph.com 29/01/2005
By Phyllis Coulter
Vickie Henley cried after her first meeting with educators to create an individualized education plan for her daughter with special needs.
"I'm not smart enough. I can't be a parent of a special-needs child," she told her husband.
"You are the parent of a special needs child," her husband, Don, told her, reassuring her she would be strong enough.
Now 17 years later, Henley, who worked in banking at the time, is the parent of a 21-year-old daughter, Sara, whom she successfully helped through the special education system. Sara works in a flower shop, and Henley of Springfield now trains other parents how to get the most out of special education programs.
"I can share those hard stories about what we've been through," said Henley, now regional training coordinator for Family Matters Parent Training and Information Center.
Her agency is working with SPICE, an early childhood intervention program of Marc Center, to offer a program Monday on helping parents with special educational concerns. The event at the Marc Center also is open to teachers and others in related professions.
Parents are vital to the individualized education plan, and they have to be knowledgeable about the system and prepared to make the decisions about what is best for their children, she advised. The plan assesses a child's current performance, defines education goals and determines how to reach the goals.
Jennifer Wagher of Lexington agrees parents have to play their roles. She said parents need to listen to all the advice from the experts and consider what they say, but the experts don't know everything, she said.
"You know your child better than anyone," she said.
Henley recalls being the parent of a 3-year-old with a developmental disability entering the public school system.
"You feel like you're in a boat floundering with no shore in sight," she said.
Parents must learn federal and state laws to know what their rights are and understand legislation like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, she said.
School districts may be willing to help but they are only aware of their own responsibilities and might not know about other programs and opportunities available for a child, she said.
"The most successful meeting my husband and I had was when we developed Sara's program, which included (putting) her in regular education in the fourth grade," Henley said.
Until her daughter started regular education, the girl had a 30-mile bus trip to her special-education center each day. That isolated her from her own community, Henley said.
"Sara had never received an invitation to a birthday party before that," said Henley. That first party invitation was a victory for the whole family.
"We are that child's only best advocate," Henley said of parents.
Wagher will be attending the workshop to get ideas on how best to design the education plan for her 3-year-old son, Derek, who has hearing loss.
She has some experience because her son Dean, now 10 years old, has a hearing problem. He started at Thomas Metcalf School, an Illinois State University laboratory school, and learned some of the skills required for using a hearing aid, she said.
Wagher said the biggest mistake they made was moving him back to school in Lexington in the middle of kindergarten.
"It was a harder transition," she said. It would be better to wait until the end of the school year.
She said sometimes you can get too much information and feel overwhelmed. "You need to filter it out and decide what is important in your situation."
Wagher said her best advice is to listen to the experts and then "follow your heart."
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Education : Structured teaching approach pays off for students with autism
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Posted by sylvia on Wednesday, March 02, 2005 (17:21:22)
CBC.ca 28/01/2005
An elementary school in Cape Breton is helping to break down barriers for students with autism.
Teachers at St. Joseph Elementary in Sydney Mines, N.S., have earned an award from the provincial autism centre.
Each student is given his or her own personal agenda, and they follow a strict routine each day.
The classroom itself is structured, with a place for learning and a place for play. Dividing the room helps students understand what's expected of them at school and helps them to switch between activities.
"The students are calmer because when you know what's going to happen," said Louise Smith, a speech pathologist who helped to get the program started. "The structure is very visually based, which helps with the students learning as well."
Some of the teachers heard about the success of the approach, which was developed in the United States.
With the backing of their union and the district school board, the teachers went to North Carolina for training.
The teachers then turned to their community, where local service clubs and parents raised thousands of dollars to get the program going.
Lauren Boutilier is one of the students benefiting from the program. She has Rett Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder.
Lauren's parents say before the program, her frustrations often led to violent behaviour. With the more structured approach, she's doing better both at school and at home.
"We went for about about 13 years with very limited ability to communicate," said Lauren's mother, Annette Boutilier.
"She was very frustrated not being able to tell us what she needed and what she wanted. Now we are starting to get some of that out of her."
Although the students all follow the same basic routine, each one has their own specific learning program to learn at their own pace.
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Education : Mother spreads SPED awareness through schools
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Posted by sylvia on Sunday, January 23, 2005 (21:04:57)
Mansfield News 14/01/2005
By Deborah Knight Snyder
One mother's idea to explain her daughter's special needs to her kindergarten classmates has blossomed into an entire special needs awareness program at the Mansfield Public Schools.
The I CARE - Introducing Children to Acceptance through Reading and Education - program is in its second year at the elementary schools and the Roland Green preschool.
The program was started by Kimberly Piro, a mother of three who worked as a psychiatric social worker before becoming a full-time mother. Piro has an autistic daughter, Jamie, who is now in second grade.
When Jamie was in kindergarten, Piro volunteered in her classroom on a regular basis. While in the classroom, Piro noticed that the other kids in the class didn't seem to know how to interact with Jamie.
"They weren't cruel or mean. They just didn't approach her," Piro recalled. "I thought it was sad that the kids seemed interested in her but didn't know what to do."
Piro asked the teacher if she could read a book on autism to the class. She selected a story, "Captain Tommy," about kids at a camp learning how to interact with a little autistic boy.
On the day she read the book, Piro asked that Jamie be removed from the classroom so she wouldn't feel uncomfortable being the subject of the discussion.
After reading the book, Piro asked if there were any questions, and, she recalled, "twenty-four little hands went up.
"They asked me everything about her. Does she eat the same foods we do? They couldn't believe that she rode a scooter and ate ice cream.
"The next time I volunteered, I saw a big difference in the way they treated her. They had learned why she screamed, that she uses her voice differently. They accepted her. They couldn't wait to tell me that they were doing things with her. I think it gave them permission to make mistakes with her. They had been afraid to upset her," Piro said.
At the end of that school year, Piro shared her story at a special education PAC meeting at which Superintendent John Moretti was present. The other parents and Moretti "jumped on the idea" of recreating the situation in other classrooms. Piro met with Moretti several times that summer, and with the principals that fall.
The fall of 2003 was taken up with the planning process, and the actual program got off the ground, with Piro and 50 other volunteers visiting and reading to every elementary school classroom, in January of 2004.
Piro did the research and found books on a whole host of special needs, including autism, Down's Syndrome, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, kids in wheelchairs, and more. She is working on expanding the collection and is currently researching books on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), blindness, and physical deformities.
In obtaining the books, Piro visits hospitals, book stores, the Kennedy-Donovan early intervention center, and other places. Doctors who work with Jamie have recommended books as well.
The books are available in a special teachers' section at the school libraries. Piro, along with a volunteer who had been a teacher, prepared an index card for the back of each book with appropriate questions to stimulate discussion with the class after the book is read.
Those have been invaluable to the volunteers, who have reported that having the list of questions makes the process easy. First the volunteer reads the story to the class, then they go over the questions with the class so the kids can get answers to their own questions.
The seed money to purchase the books came from funds donated to the special education department by the Gallagher family. Since that time, Piro's neighbors held a fund-raiser - named the Jamie Fund - and raised $8,000 in just one year. That money, Piro said, has really freed her up to buy books whenever she can.
Piro had 50 volunteers last year and has about 50 this year, 30 of whom are returning volunteers. She welcomes volunteers and never turns anyone away, she said.
This year's I CARE reading started in the classrooms earlier this month. The schedule is to finish all the Robinson and Roland Green classrooms by February vacation, and to visit the Jordan/Jackson classrooms after vacation and into March.
Piro is hoping that, as I CARE progresses, it can expand from a reading program to include other awareness activities, perhaps role-playing, as well. She is also mulling ways to introduce the I CARE program into the middle and high schools. She said that perhaps Project Teammate, a program at the high school in which regular education students help special education students, may be a place to start.
She said she is "open to ideas" on how to proceed with the upper grades.
"We have to educate our kids on how to treat the special ed kids. We need to help them understand," she said.
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Education : Mother's plea to PM over son
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Posted by sylvia on Sunday, January 23, 2005 (20:56:21)
Peterborough Today 14/01/2005
A despairing mum has vowed to appeal to Tony Blair after her disabled son was refused a place at a special school.
Clare Sharp fears her son Callum, who has Asperger syndrome, will not cope if he is sent to a mainstream secondary school.
She has become so desperate she has decided to seek the support of the Prime Minister Education officials at Peterborough City Council have told Mrs Sharp that nine-year-old Callum is not eligible for a statement of special educational needs, which he needs in order to get a place at a special school and which would entitle him to help from the local authority.
Mrs Sharp (32), of Welland Close, Dogsthorpe, Peterborough, said she felt very angry after learning that officials had refused to grant Callum a statement.
She said: "I know he will not be able to cope with a mainstream secondary school, especially one as big as the new academy, which is the catchment area he will fall into.
"It's a ridiculous situation, because the only other option will be a school out of the catchment area, which he probably won't be able to get into without a statement.
"He's a very intelligent boy and he seems quite normal, but there are a lot of things he finds difficult.
"I don't feel that has been recognised."
Callum's disability means he cannot dress himself or use a knife and fork, he finds it difficult walking upstairs, has an aversion to crowds and loud noises such as buzzers and bells, and he does not adapt well to change.
As well as having Asperger syndrome, a form of autism which affects the way he communicates and relates to others, he also has dyspraxia, which affects his co-ordination and Attention Deficit Disorder, which means he has difficulty concentrating.
Angie Lee-Foster, of The National Autistic Society, said while the majority of children with Asperger syndrome are educated in mainstream schools, it is important for children to have specialist support in place and some children do need to be educated in a specialist environment.
She said: "Some children can fare well without the need for recourse to a statement of special educational needs because the school can provide for them, but many children will need to have a statement."
Jennie Kendall, media relations manager for Peterborough City Council, said: "We have worked very closely with Callum's parents for some time now.
"The majority of children with special needs are supported successfully in both primary and secondary mainstream schooling.
"Only those children with the most profound and complex difficulties may require special school provision.
"We have advised Mrs Sharp of her right to appeal against our decision to the Special Needs Tribunal – an independent panel who will carry out a full review of all the facts.
"We will continue to work with Callum's parents to ensure his educational needs are fully met."
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Education : Special schools face major shake-up
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Posted by sylvia on Thursday, January 20, 2005 (21:09:05)
IC Coventry 04/01/2005
Special schools in Coventry could close or merge in an attempt to get more children with special needs into mainstream schools.
Education experts at Coventry City Council propose a reorganisation of special education over the next 10 years. They want to get disabled and special needs children mixing with mainstream pupils and want to reduce special school places from 830 to about 600, a reduction of more than a quarter.
That could mean closing or merging special schools although they haven't yet named the schools likely to be affected. There could also be new special schools built alongside mainstream ones.
The drive will be aimed at pupils with physical disabilities and mild to moderate forms of conditions such as autism, learning difficulties, dyslexia and dyspraxia (a brain condition causing co-ordination problems). Children with severe conditions will stay in special schools.
Corley Coventry School, which is specialising in autism, will continue to serve those with the more severe forms of the condition.
Children classed as having behaviour problems will also stay in special schools. Dartmouth School, Wainbody Wood School and The Meadows School won't be affected by mergers or closures because they specialise in behaviour problems.
There are also plans to end the practice of sending some special needs pupils to boarding schools outside the city.
Coventry City Council's director of education Roger Edwardson said: "We want to reduce the number of pupils in special schools to be more inclusive. We want to educate children with their peers in their own community."
He said there would not be teacher redundancies as teachers would move to mainstream schools along with pupils. And he said the move was not about cutting costs.
Councillors will consider the proposals at a meeting next Tuesday. If they approve, education staff will collect views from parents and pupils before publishing detailed proposals naming schools to be affected.
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