The concerns I hear from parents are mostly about placement, goals, and least restrictive environment (LRE). Yet, when I review a child's most recent Individualized Education Plan (IEP), there is little helpful information under the Present Levels of Academic Performance and Functional Performance section. The few lines that are written in the Present Levels are not helpful to the IEP Team. Often, I can find no relationship at all between the "present levels" and the "needs" and the "goals." Mark Kamleiter, Florida parent attorney (St. Petersburg) says that parents and advocates often focus only on the "last pages" of the IEP. That is what I see, too. Most of the IEPs I review have, at most, three to four lines of Present Levels. (Rarely, do they have Functional Performance levels). Remember, schools still tell parents, "We do not have to do that because it is not related to academics." Parents have to learn now to design accurate and up-to-date present levels. Advocates have to learn how to do this to and teach parents how to do this. It is one of the easiest things for parents to do because they know their child best. Until the Present Levels are accurate, parents will never be able to get the program, placement, or education their child needs.

Introduction by Steve Silberman: Six years ago, the United Nations declared April 2 to be World Autism Awareness Day. For most of the 20th Century, autism was rarely talked about in public, because the psychiatric establishment — led by a psychologist and popular author named Bruno Bettelheim, considered the preeminent authority on the subject in the 1960s — blamed the condition on the emotional trauma of being raised by a cold, unloving mother. The “refrigerator mother” theory was utterly discredited long ago as an elaborate fraud, and autism is now understood to be a life-long disability caused by complex interactions between genes and the environment. Autistic people and their families are still subject to stigma, however, in part because many of the organizations that view Autism Awareness Day as a fundraising opportunity use fear-mongering language like Autism Speaks’ oft-repeated refrain that “more children are diagnosed with autism each year than with juvenile diabetes, AIDS or cancer, combined.”

Teenagers who have difficulty making and maintaining healthy friendships with peers at age 13 continue to struggle with relationships long after high school, according to a new University of Virginia longitudinal study. Early secondary school is well-known as the time social pecking orders are established, bullying and gossip proliferates, and kids start seriously thinking about jumping off that bridge if all their friends do. The study suggests that a student's ability to balance peer pressure with social desirability in early adolescence can predict how well they will handle social relationships in adulthood.

Despite concerns from some parents that the number of vaccines and the timing with which they are given to young children may contribute to autism risk, a new study backed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds otherwise.

This revised study finds that students who don’t read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave without a diploma than proficient readers. It is notable in breaking down for the first time the likelihood of graduation by different reading skill levels and poverty experiences. It also updates a 2011 research brief with new data on graduation rates for students living in concentrated poverty.

College remains a hurdle for many with disabilities. Now a new study offers insight on what separates individuals with special needs who are ultimately successful in higher education from those who are not. In interviews with recent graduates with disabilities, researchers found that students who earned degrees shared the ability to self-advocate and persevere. They also had good insight into their abilities and limitations and often cited a strong relationship with at least one faculty or staff member on campus.

In 2013, the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia celebrates its 10-year anniversary as the museum of “We the People.” The Center demonstrated its ability to live up to that title last year when it marked a major milestone: the acquisition of Justin Dart Jr.’s wheelchair, which he used while sitting alongside the Reverend Harold Wilke, Sandra Parrino, Evan Kemp and the Center’s former chairman, President George H.W. Bush, as the president signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law in 1990.

April 2, 2013 is the sixth annual World Autism Awareness Day. To be aware of autism, you have to know what it looks like first.

NEW! We are pleased to announce the launch of the Autism Speaks Employment Tool Kit! This kit was designed to help you research, find and keep employment in the current, competitive labor market. Stories, tips and resources were developed from a collaboration of people, including adults with autism, dedicated to increasing the employment participation of adults on the spectrum! Click here to learn more and to download the Employment Tool Kit!

A small change tucked inside a government spending bill this month may have big implications for special education. Lawmakers included language clarifying the penalties that states may face if they fail to adequately fund education programs for students with disabilities. The issue has become significant in recent years as states struggled financially in the recession and some sought to cut education spending.

Students should have ready and easy access to their resumes, career portfolios, videos of work experience, task sequencing and scheduling methods, communication, and more. Learn what handheld devices and apps are being utilized to assist students as they successfully move from school to work and community. Emphasis will be on built in features, and generic and specialized apps which promote independence, communication, productivity, and inclusion. Hear what Leaving School With 21st Century Technology projects are accomplishing and how Learning Cohorts are teaching each other and spreading the word. Marsha will share stories of how school programs and the employment agencies they interact with, are interfacing and providing seamless serve delivery, using handheld devices to leverage preferred employment outcomes, independent living, and community connection.

Camden, Maine (CNN) -- The young man tucks his violin under his chin and begins to play. A hush falls over the few spectators in the largely empty opera house, who turn toward the bare stage. As his lilting notes float through the room, other people trickle in from the lobby to listen. The young man sometimes closes his eyes as he plays, as if lost in the music. If his audience closed their eyes, too, they would never know the violinist standing before them has no right hand, only a stunted appendage with tiny stubs instead of fingers. Which is fitting, because Adrian Anantawan prefers to be judged for what people hear, not what they see. At 28, Anantawan is one of the world's most accomplished young violinists. He has performed at the White House, at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, for Pope John Paul II, for Christopher Reeve and most recently for the Dalai Lama during an event at MIT. Anantawan played a piece by Bach, and when he finished, the Tibetan Buddhist leader approached him.

What can teachers, family members, friends and employers do to prepare students for success in the adult world? Identifying students’ strengths and preferences is crucial to developing their skills. Cultivating support at school, on the job and in the community while increasing students’ social competence is also vital.

Carter and Hughes describe inclusive methods that treat people with disabilities as competent and increase their independence and self-determination in tandem with social support and acceptance among the general population. Students learn to make their own choices, set goals, speak up for themselves and carry out their own plans, a shift from now-disfavored programs that isolated adolescents and young adults with disabilities.

In my work helping to develop policies on accessible workplace technology, I have sometimes fallen into the trap of looking just at the “little picture.”  By that I mean that sometimes I’ve focused too much attention on making sure that information and communications technology is (ICT) is compatible, or interoperable, with assistive technology specifically screen readers.  I know I’m not the only one who has made this mistake, because I come across a lot of information suggesting that once a website is found to work with a screen reader or another type of assistive technology, the accessibility discussion can simply end there.  Millions of people around the world use assistive technology, so it is understandable that interoperability is a very important issue.  But it sometimes commands so much attention that we forget to look at the “big picture” of fully accessible ICT or the biggest picture of all, universal design.

Compared with youth with other disabilities, young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) face a disproportionately difficult time navigating work and educational opportunities after high school, finds a new study by Paul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Research studies have shown that co-teaching can be very effective for students with special needs, especially those with milder disabilities such as learning disabilities. When implemented correctly, co-teaching can be a very successful way to teach all students in a classroom setting. On the other hand, uninformed teachers can poorly implement this model which will not yield positive results for students.

The day I finally got an Individualized Education Program (IEP), I was in my junior year of high school. Now, I understand that when people think of a student who has an IEP, they usually think of a young child in elementary school. Unfortunately, for me, that wasn’t the case. For many years, my family and I tried to figure out my diagnosis and get me an IEP, but this process took longer than anyone could have imagined. After many visits to the neuropsychologist, I was finally diagnosed with dyslexia, AD/HD and auditory processing disorder.

The National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD) is positioned to effect change in health promotion/obesity management among people with disabilities through its existing 13-year history of providing advocacy, services and programs to numerous organizations and people throughout the country. The primary focus of the Center’s approach is to collaborate with the nation’s leading health advocacy and disability organizations in linking them to the hundreds of program initiatives ongoing across the nation, and using this framework to build inclusion and integration into these existing programs.

Assistive technology (AT) is any tool that helps students with disabilities do things more quickly, easily or independently. It can be elaborate and expensive or simple and low-cost. This site is dedicated to researching and organizing free or low cost assistive technologies that are applicable to college students.

People with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression can lose weight and keep it off through a modified lifestyle intervention program, a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded study reported online today in The New England Journal of Medicine. Over 80 percent of people with serious mental illnesses are overweight or obese, which contributes to them dying at three times the rate of the overall population. They succumb mostly to the same things the rest of the population experiences — cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer. Although antipsychotic medications increase appetite and cause weight gain in these patients, it is not the only culprit. Like the general population, sedentary lifestyle and poor diet also play a part. Lifestyle modifications such as diet and exercise should work for these patients, yet they are often left out of weight loss studies.