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Today, the Department of Education announced new steps to help close the achievement gap for students with disabilities by moving away from a one-size-fits-all, compliance-focused approach to a more balanced system that looks at how well students are being educated in addition to continued efforts to protect their rights. While the Department has effectively ensured access to educational resources for students with disabilities, not enough attention has been paid to educational outcomes, which have not sufficiently improved. This is partly due to the fact that federal policy has focused more on procedural requirements and not enough on critical indicators like increasing academic performance or graduation rates for students with disabilities.

Today, the Department of Education announced new steps to help close the achievement gap for students with disabilities by moving away from a one-size-fits-all, compliance-focused approach to a more balanced system that looks at how well students are being educated in addition to continued efforts to protect their rights.

Since the current process of conducting on-site state compliance reviews has not focused enough on improving student outcomes, the Department will not be carrying out the visits scheduled for the 2012-13 school year to allow it time to develop a new and more effective system. However, the Department will continue to review annual performance reports as well as monitor state supervision systems.

As autism becomes the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States, doctors in a new documentary express concerns that that fathers of these children with special needs are sometimes reluctant to face the issue. NY1's Cheryl Wills filed the second part of this report. Emotions are raw and tears are flowing during a recent retreat for fathers of autistic children covered in a new documentary called "Autistic Like Me: A Father's Perspective."

The Butte school district has violated federal law and a special education student’s rights, according to a June 8 report in response to a complaint filed April 13 with the state Office of Public Instruction. The district failed to provide an administrator at the student’s Individual Education Plan meetings, which resulted in the student receiving inadequate services, the complaint states. Mary Boyle, of Butte, mother of the 6-year-old kindergarten student who has disabilities, said that the district failed to assign a one-on-one full-time paraprofessional for her daughter, which was required by her daughter’s Individual Education Plan, because no administrators capable of assigning the paraprofessional attended the IEP meetings.

The sheer number of people with disabilities makes them an important voting block, researchers say, but turnout among the group is severely lagging. In 2008, voter participation among people with disabilities was 11 percent lower than that of typically developing individuals, according to a new study. “Fully closing the disability gap would have led to 3 million more voters in 2008 and 3.2 million more voters in 2010, potentially affecting many races and subsequent public policies,” the report published in the journal Social Science Quarterly found.

The White House is warning that special education will face more than $1 billion in cuts and millions more will be trimmed from other federal programs for people with disabilities next year unless lawmakers act. In a report sent to Congress Friday, the Obama administration painted a stark picture of what’s to come, detailing the impact of more than $100 billion in automatic spending cuts that are scheduled to take effect Jan. 2.

An experimental device is letting paralysed people drive wheelchairs simply by flicking their tongue in the right direction. Key to this wireless system: Users get their tongue pierced with a magnetic stud that resembles jewellery and acts like a joystick, in hopes of offering them more mobility and independence. Researchers reported Wednesday that 11 people paralysed from the neck down rapidly learned to use the tongue device to pilot their wheelchairs through an obstacle course full of twists and turns, and to operate a computer, too.

Most of the children who would lose their autism diagnosis under the diagnostic criteria released last year will fall under the new category of social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SCD), reports a large study of Korean children. The study was published last week in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry1.

“Stigma, underachievement and misunderstanding of LD continue to be stubborn barriers for parents and children to overcome. The data in this 2014 report reveal that, left unaddressed, as many as 60 million individuals risk being left behind, burdened by low self-esteem, subjected to low expectations, and diminished in their ability to pursue their dreams.”

A training program designed to teach pediatricians to better identify kids with autism may be an effective way to decrease wait times and flag children with the developmental disorder at younger ages, researchers say. Currently many children suspected of having autism wait months to see diagnosticians for an evaluation, but researchers say that training community pediatricians to conduct assessments may allow kids to enter treatment programs more quickly. In a three-year study, researchers at Vanderbilt University trained 27 pediatric providers — including doctors and nurse practitioners — across the state of Tennessee to conduct brief evaluations in their practices of children who screened positive for autism. After participating in the two-day trainings, researchers found that the health care providers reached the same diagnostic conclusions as specialists 90 percent of the time. What’s more, providers reported making more autism diagnoses within their practices and said they were more comfortable discussing the developmental disorder. “The findings provide initial evidence suggesting early accurate diagnosis of autism may be possible and appropriate within many community pediatric practices,” said Amy Swanson of Vanderbilt who was the lead author of the study published online this month in the journal Autism. “Given the potentially harmful consequences of lengthy waits for comprehensive diagnostic evaluations, the potential impact of such training programs for advanced autism diagnosis within community practice settings could be quite powerful.”

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) of 2004 makes significant and controversial changes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Two very significant changes in this law are provisions that (a) allow school districts to spend up to 15% of their IDEA Part B funds on early intervening services in general education settings and (b) prohibit states from requiring that school districts use discrepancy formulas to determine if students are eligible for special education services in the category of learning disabilities. Additionally, Congress recommended that school districts use a response to intervention procedure in both early intervening services and for the identification of students with learning disabilities. In this article we first describe two significant reports that recommended that Congress abandon the current eligibility system in special education for students with high-incidence disabilities. Second we explain how Congress and the U.S. Department of Education changed the special education eligibility system for learning disabilities in the IDEIA and the regulations that implemented the IDEIA. Third we review due process hearings and court cases that have addressed response to intervention. Fourth we offer recommendations to teachers, administrators, and teacher trainers to ensure that they meet the letter and spirit of these new requirements of the IDEIA.

According to Gary Coody, R.Ph., FDA’s national health fraud coordinator, the agency has warned a number of companies that they are facing possible legal action if they continue to make false or misleading claims about products and therapies claiming to treat or cure autism. Some of these so-called therapies carry significant health risks and include:“Chelation Therapies.” These products claim to cleanse the body of toxic chemicals and heavy metals by binding to them and “removing” them from circulation. They come in a number of forms, including sprays, suppositories, capsules, liquid drops and clay baths. FDA-approved chelating agents are approved for specific uses, such as the treatment of lead poisoning and iron overload, and are available by prescription only. FDA-approved prescription chelation therapy products should only be used under medical supervision. Chelating important minerals needed by the body can lead to serious and life-threatening outcomes.Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. This involves breathing oxygen in a pressurized chamber and has been cleared by FDA for certain medical uses, such as treating decompression sickness suffered by divers. It has not been cleared for autism, among other conditions.Miracle Mineral Solution. Also known as Miracle Mineral Supplement and MMS, this product becomes a potent chemical that‘s used as bleach when mixed according to package directions. FDA has received reports of consumers who say they experienced nausea, severe vomiting and life-threatening low blood pressure after drinking the MMS and citrus juice mixture.Detoxifying Clay Baths. Added to bath water, these products claim to draw out chemical toxins, pollutants and heavy metals from the body, falsely offering “dramatic improvement” for autism symptoms.CocoKefir probiotics products. Product claims include being a “major key” to recovery from autism, but they are not proven safe and effective for this advertised use.Coody offers some quick tips to help you identify false or misleading claims.Be suspicious of products that claim to treat a wide range of diseases.Personal testimonials are no substitute for scientific evidence.Few diseases or conditions can be treated quickly, so be suspicious of any therapy claimed as a “quick fix.”So-called “miracle cures,” which claim scientific breakthroughs and secret ingredients, may be a hoax.The bottom line is this—if it’s an unproven or little known treatment, talk to your health care professional before buying or using these products.

An effort by the Obama administration to overhaul the troubled federal agency that is responsible for the education of tens of thousands of American Indian children is getting major pushback from some tribal leaders and educators, who see the plan as an infringement on their sovereignty and a one-size-fits-all approach that will fail to improve student achievement in Indian Country. As Barack Obama makes his first visit to Indian Country as president this week, the federal Bureau of Indian Education—which directly operates 57 schools for Native Americans and oversees 126 others run by tribes under contract with the agency—is moving ahead with plans to remake itself into an entity akin to a state department of education that would focus on improving services for tribally operated schools. A revamped BIE, as envisioned in the proposal, would eventually give up direct operations of schools and push for a menu of education reforms that is strikingly similar to some championed in initiatives such as Race to the Top, including competitive-grant funding to entice tribal schools to adopt teacher-evaluation systems that are linked to student performance. The proposed reorganization of the BIE comes after years of scathing reports from watchdog groups, including the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and chronic complaints from tribal educators about the agency’s financial and academic mismanagement and failure to advocate more effectively for the needs of schools that serve Native American students. It also comes a year after U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell called the federally funded Indian education system “an embarrassment.” The BIE is overseen by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is housed within the U.S. Interior Department. Pushback From Tribes The proposal, released in April, was drafted by a seven-person “study group” appointed jointly by Ms. Jewell and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Five of the panel’s members currently serve in the Obama administration. Some of the nation’s largest tribes, however, are staunchly opposed to the proposal, including the 16 tribes that make up the Great Plains Tribal Chairmans Association, which represents tribal leaders in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska. “It’s time for us to decide what our children will learn and how they will learn it because [BIE] has been a failure so far,” Bryan V. Brewer, the chairman of the 40,000-member Oglala Sioux tribe in Pine Ridge, S.D., said last month in a congressional hearing on the BIE. In the same hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Charles M. Roessel, the director of the BIE and a member of the panel that drafted the plan, said the agency’s reorganization “would allow the BIE to achieve improved results in the form of higher student scores, improved school operations, and increased tribal control over schools.” (Despite multiple requests from Education Week, the BIE did not make Mr. Roessel or any other agency official available for an interview.)

People with type 1 diabetes who used a bionic pancreas instead of manually monitoring glucose using fingerstick tests and delivering insulin using a pump were more likely to have blood glucose levels consistently within the normal range, with fewer dangerous lows or highs. The full report of the findings, funded by the National Institutes of Health, can be found online June 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine .

Last year, Bacher, a biomedical engineer and neuroscientist, founded SpeakYourMind Foundation Inc., a registered non-profit organization that grew out of the BrainGate lab at Brown University with a mission to "develop and support personalized assistive technologies for individuals with motor and speech disabilities."His latest invention is the 'eyeBucket.' Bacher and his associates design and help people with ALS and other paralyzing disabilities to use low-cost head trackers and eye trackers that allow them to control a computer with eye movements.A relentless innovator, Bacher, 29, managed to raise the bar when the worldwide ice water brigade came along.

A novel autism intervention program using theatre to teach reciprocal communication skills is improving social deficits in adolescents with the disorder that now affects an estimated one in 88 children, Vanderbilt University researchers released today in the journal Autism Research. The newly released study assessed the effectiveness of a two-week theatre camp on children with autism spectrum disorder and found significant improvements were made in social perception, social cognition and home living skills by the end of the camp. There were also positive changes in the participants’ physiological stress and reductions in self-reported parental stress. Called SENSE Theatre, the Social Emotional Neuroscience & Endocrinology (SENSE) program evaluates the social functioning of children with autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders.

Fathers who read to their infants with autism and take active roles in caregiving activities not only promote healthy development in their children, they boost moms' mental health too, new research suggests. Mothers of children with autism reported fewer depressive symptoms when their children were 4 years old if the child's father engaged in literacy and responsive caregiving activities - such as soothing children when they were upset or taking the child to the doctor - when the child was 9 months old, according to a new study conducted at the University of Illinois.

This knowledge path about child and adolescent health insurance and access to care has been compiled by the Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University. It offers a selection of current, high-quality resources that analyze data, describe effective programs, and report on policy and research aimed at advancing health coverage and improving health care access for children and adolescents. Emphasis is placed on Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Separate sections present resources for professionals (health professionals, program administrators, policymakers, and researchers) and for families. A special topics section presents resources that address health reform, outreach and enrollment, and school-based and school-linked care. This knowledge path will be updated periodically.