More than 132,000 students with multiple disabilities receive special education and related services in our public schools. Is there a child with multiple disabilities in your class? He or she clearly has special learning needs, so how is teaching this student different than teaching a student with just one disability? How can you address the student’s learning needs in positive and effective ways that will help the student learn? If you are looking for ideas on how to address these questions and others, this blog is for you!

The Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) was released in May 2013, bringing with it several revisions to the criteria for the diagnosis and classification of mental disorders. One important change was for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) classifications. Under the new DSM-5 criteria, clinicians will diagnosis individuals with a single umbrella diagnosis of ASD, rather than the four separate disorders that could be diagnosed under the DSM-IV: autistic disorder, Asperger's disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified.

In my first post, Instilling “Stick-to-itiveness”: Teacher Tips on Perseverance and Goal Setting With LD, I talked about the growing understanding of the importance of instilling perseverance in kids with LD for lifelong success. I shared how teachers from The Shadow Project use a personal goal setting technique to encourage perseverance in students with LD.

A parent must request, in writing, that their child be assessed by their school district. Assessment areas include social/emotional, academic, occupational, recreational and physical therapy, speech and language, physical education, vision, and hearing. Assessments are determined by the unique needs of each child. The district must provide an assessment plan within 15 days of this request. The district has 60 days from receipt of the signed assessment plan to conduct the assessments and hold a meeting. After the district has completed its assessments, and if a child qualifies, an Individual Education Plan is developed at a meeting with the district assessors and parents. The types of areas discussed at an IEP meeting include results from the assessments, eligibility, goals, related services and placement.

Roughly 25 percent of people with autism speak few or no words. A generation ago, that figure was closer to 50 percent. Most researchers agree that the decline is due to the recognition of more people with milder forms of autism, as well as to the advent of early intervention programs  that have helped more children develop language than in the past.

There seem to be two major fears that parents of special education students have: That a child will fall behind in school because they didn’t receive the appropriate interventions – and be ridiculed for an academic delay; or that a child will be ridiculed for being in special ed – so they don’t place them in sped and let the child fall further behind.

The Affordable Care Act will help make health insurance coverage more affordable and accessible for millions of Americans.  For American Indians and Alaska Natives, the law will address inequities and increase access to quality, affordable health coverage, invest in prevention and wellness, and give First American individuals and families more control over their care. 

At its core, the American educational system is about democratization of knowledge for all students, regardless of their circumstances. In 2011, 22 percent of non-institutionalized adults with disabilities had less than a high school education. If this statistic was applied to the general population, my suspicion is that there would be an outcry to reform K-12 education to have better graduation results. But for students with disabilities, there is no shock or outrage and that is something that has to change. The key to improving the educational experience for students with disabilities is better accommodations in schools and continued improvements in assistive technology.

Special Education AT Applications and assessment for disabilities - Autism    The webinar will cover the background and problem identification related to the individual, the environment and the technology. The Child’s abilities and needs will be thoroughly presented and clearly linked to impairment, functional goal/IEP and environment. A feature match will provide evidence that several options are considered. Selected technologies will be listed with justification as to why the technology is best for the student. Documentation will be provided to describe optimization for the devices and training for child and support team. Future needs will also be addressed for follow-up and future anticipated needs will be listed.

At my son’s last IEP, he was invited to participate by presenting a slideshow titled “All About Me.” In the slideshow, he had prepared answers to his teacher’s questions about his needs. My son added photographs from our family albums to illustrate his answers.

Autism is a complex brain disorder that first appears during early childhood. It affects how a person behaves and interacts with others. People with autism might not look you in the eye when talking. They may spend a lot of time lining up toys or other objects. Or they may say the same sentence over and over. The disorder is so variable—affecting each person in very different ways—that it can be difficult to diagnose and treat. This variability is why autism is called a “spectrum” disorder. It spans the spectrum from mild to severe and includes a wide range of symptoms.

The 13-year-old author of The Reason I Jump invites you, his reader, to imagine a daily life in which your faculty of speech is taken away. Explaining that you’re hungry, or tired, or in pain, is now as beyond your powers as a chat with a friend. I’d like to push the thought-experiment a little further. Now imagine that after you lose your ability to communicate, the editor-in-residence who orders your thoughts walks out without notice. The chances are that you never knew this mind-editor existed, but now that he or she has gone, you realize too late how the editor allowed your mind to function for all these years. A dam-burst of ideas, memories, impulses, and thoughts is cascading over you, unstoppably. Your editor controlled this flow, diverting the vast majority away, and recommending just a tiny number for your conscious consideration. But now you’re on your own.

A documentary following a special-education teacher as she prepares her students with autism to leave high school and enter adult life is set for its national television debut. The film “Best Kept Secret” examines the transition process through the eyes of teacher Janet Mino and her six students at John F. Kennedy High School in Newark, N.J. over the year-and-a-half prior to their graduation in the spring of 2012.

The hardest part about dyslexia is the loneliness. The same is true if you’re the parent of a dyslexic child. Feeling cut off from your friends, your school or, worse, your child, is tremendously painful.People tend to focus on the functional challenges: spelling tests, chapter books, standardized tests. But it’s the secret fears about how dyslexia will play out that hold us back the most. In writing my book, a plan to help parents of dyslexic kids avoid some of the pitfalls that my parents and I faced, I documented and debunked some of the most common fears. Talking about them with a community you can trust is like putting sunlight on a muddy road. With enough time, the fear will evaporate like the water in the mud and you can begin focusing on how to move forward.

FAPE is the acronym for a Free and Appropriate Public Education. It is one of the most misunderstood concepts of the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA). And it often causes the greatest conflict between parents and schools. A required component of IDEA, FAPE mandates that school districts provide access to general education and specialized educational services. It also requires that children with disabilities receive support free of charge as is provided to non-disabled students. It also provides access to general education services for children with disabilities by encouraging that support and related services be provided to children in their general education settings as much as possible.

Is LD a prescription for failure? Absolutely not. Can individuals who have LD achieve success? Absolutely yes. Here’s where it gets tricky: What specific types of intervention and therapy could help to overcome or compensate for LD-related difficulties? Are these treatments quick fixes, or will they have lasting results? Are they based on strong scientific evidence or wishful thinking? Read on so that you can make informed decisions.

As a parent to a child with special needs one of the best things you can do for yourself and your child is to join a support group.  Support groups can be rich in information that can be helpful for you while raising a child with special needs.  You can learn from the experiences of parents who have been there before.  There are opportunities for emotional and social support for you and your child.

To that end, today, ED’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) issued guidance to educators and stakeholders on the matter of bullying of students with disabilities. This guidance provides an overview of school districts’ responsibilities to ensure that students with disabilities who are subject to bullying continue to receive free appropriate public education (FAPE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Under IDEA, States and school districts are obligated to ensure that students with disabilities receive FAPE in the least restrictive environment (LRE). This guidance explains that any bullying of a student with disabilities which results in the student not receiving meaningful educational benefit is considered a denial of FAPE. Furthermore, this letter notes that certain changes to an educational program of a student with a disability (e.g., placement in a more restricted “protected” setting to avoid bullying behavior) may constitute a denial of FAPE in the LRE.

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The U.S. Department of Education today announced the award of more than $28.8 million in grants to 42 states to cover a portion of the fees charged to low-income students for taking advanced placement (AP) tests.

MT Montana Office of Public Instruction $44,452