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When: October 22nd, 9:30 am - 10:45 PM Mountain Brief Description of Webinar: A behavioral intervention gap exists, nationwide, in our schools. Indeed, surveys of schools nationwide indicate that they do not have enough professionals available to develop and implement essential social, emotional, and behavioral interventions. This is particularly compelling given the presence of many behaviorally challenging students—students who disrupt the academic climate of their classrooms, often are not academically successful, and who, many times, are early school drop-outs. This webinar discusses the need for schools to identify their behavioral intervention gaps, address them through systematic professional development programs, and implement strategic behavioral interventions so that challenging students receive the services they need and deserve. 

Students' ability to learn depends not just on the quality of their textbooks and teachers, but also on the comfort and safety they feel at school and the strength of their relationships with adults and peers there.

1.  If your child is exhibiting new behavioral problems that are interfering with their ability to access the curriculum; your school may need to implement a Behavior Support Plan to extinguish the negative or off task behavior. 2.  If your child is struggling academically in the first semester, don’t wait until second semester to address the problem.  If you have to request new assessments; keep in mind the timeline from the day you authorized the assessments.  The school has 60 days* in which to conduct the assessments and hold an IEP, so if you wait until second semester, the school year might be coming to an end; basically, your child has lost the entire year.  * Some States have different timelines so please check the timelines in your State. 3.  If your child will be attending Kindergarten, Middle School or High School the following year; you need to know all the areas of strengths and weaknesses to help them transition into the next phase of their education. 4.  If your child has been bullied in school, you need to make sure there is a safety plan implemented to protect your child from harm.  In addition, your child should know the name of the school personnel they can approach if the situation arises again; providing a safe place in the school environment. 5.  If your child’s placement is no longer working, do not wait to address this problem; otherwise, your child may lose an entire year of academics. 6.  If your child has been suspended repeatedly for behavioral problems, do not wait until the school is about to expel your child from the district.  Call an IEP to discuss changes in the Behavior Support Plan or ask for additional assessments immediately such as a Functional Behavior Assessment. 7.  If your child has been assigned an Aide that is not experienced enough to prevent your child from eloping, you need to call an IEP as soon as possible to request a BCBA (Board Certified Behavior Analyst) or additionally training for the Aide.  Remember, every time your child leaves the classroom they are not being educated! 8.  If your child is experiencing depression, lack of self-worth, anxiety…etc.  You should call an IEP and request a Social/Emotional Assessment for in-school counseling.  If your child already has in-school counseling and that’s not working then you need to request an Educationally Related Mental Health Assessment to address these issues before they escalate into more serious behavior. 9.  If the services you agreed to at your child’s last IEP meeting are not working, you need to call an IEP to ask your school to increase the amount of services, or file for Due Process if you feel it’s necessary to take the matter directly to the school district. 10. If the School has not been following your child’s IEP; therefore, is out of compliance, call an IEP right away to allow the school to remedy the situation.  If they are not willing to rectify the situation then you need to either file for Due Process or file a complaint with the State Department of Education.

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.

Although there are a variety of school-based services available for children with learning, emotional, and social disabilities, one critical need often goes unfulfilled: providing guidance and strategies that instill self-advocacy.       Most students have only a superficial notion of the reasons they receive these special accommodations, and many children are completely uninformed. Resource teachers and specialists do not generally have the authority to label and enlighten students about their disabilities, the foundation for building self-advocacy. If children are to learn how to become better consumers of educational resources, especially as they grow older, someone must take the lead.      Parents of children with disabilities can fill this role by doing the following: Introduce children’s diagnoses to them in elementary school so that they can make sense out of their struggles Use a matter-of-fact tone of voice when explaining to children that they learn/behave/relate differently from other students and, therefore, need extra help to ensure that they can succeed just like their classmates Don’t leave out the disability label—such as writing disability, ADHD, or Aspergers Syndrome—since labels are a reality of their educational life Emphasize that the teachers and special staff at school who help them will be aware of this label and prepared to help in certain ways to make school a fairer place for them to learn and grow      It’s important to review with children the ways in which their school must provide special help and services. Emphasize that these accommodations are rules the school must follow. “You have the responsibility to do your best job, and teachers must follow the learning/behavior/friendship helping rules that make things fair for you,” is one way to put it. Explain how extra time on assessments, decreased homework, or social skills groups are examples of the helping rules that schools must follow. Discuss how there is a written promise called the individualized education plan (IEP), which includes all the helping rules and makes all of this clear.      Find child-friendly resources—such as books, websites, and videos—that explain in detail their specific disability and the ways other children have learned to cope and achieve despite these limitations. Use these materials as a springboard for deeper discussion about past times when their disability created significant stress or barriers to success. Reassure them that this was before their problem was known and that there is so much that can be done to build a plan for success now that it has been identified.      Point out that one of their most important responsibilities is to be able to discuss their disability with teachers and ask for extra help and accommodation when struggles are too great. Make sure that these discussions take place before middle school, when developmental factors make it harder to get such discussions started. Ensure that they know what practical steps are in their IEP at each grade so that they can respectfully remind teaching staff if necessary.      Having a disability is like having to wear glasses; students with glasses have accepted this fact as necessary to seeing clearly.

Children with disabilities—such as physical, developmental, intellectual, emotional, and sensory disabilities—are at an increased risk of being bullied. Any number of factors— physical vulnerability, social skill challenges, or intolerant environments—may increase the risk. Research suggests that some children with disabilities may bully others as well.Kids with special health needs, such as epilepsy or food allergies, also may be at higher risk of being bullied. Bullying can include making fun of kids because of their allergies or exposing them to the things they are allergic to. In these cases, bullying is not just serious, it can mean life or death.

I started Hopeful Parents, a grassroots community where parents who understand what it's like having a child with special needs can connect. Consider it a pit-stop in the marathon -- where we can go for attention to our wounds, where we can re-energize our way back on track, where we can look right and look left to see others running too, where we can hear the roar of the crowds cheering us on. Hopeful Parents is a place of common ground. We'll introduce you to our diverse pool of talented, thoughtful writers who will share their stories, their feelings, their ups and their downs. You'll meet parents raising children with physical, psychological, emotional, neurological, sensory, behavioral, social, genetic, and developmental disabilities. Some parents are single, some are married. Some grieve the loss of their child; some grieve the loss of their spouse. You'll also meet healers -- the "medics" who help us through our run. People we can turn to in our pain; people who can help provide some relief.

The approach that parents take with their children who have developmental disabilities is directly tied to how cooperative and independent they become, new research suggests. In an analysis of existing studies looking at the influence of parenting on children with special needs, researchers found that when moms and dads employed so-called positive parenting, their kids exhibited greater independence, better language skills, stronger emotional expression and social interaction as well as improved temperament.

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.

The transition to kindergarten is most successful when it is carefully planned out over the entire pre-kindergarten year. Starting as early as the first day of preschool, it’s important to make sure that children are developing the academic skills that help form a foundation of strong pre-reading and pre-writing, as well as the social and emotional skills they’ll need in kindergarten.

In many states, determining whether or not an adult with a disability qualifies for significant assistance comes down to one factor: IQ score. Trouble is that IQ and ability don’t always match up. The conundrum is particularly pronounced among individuals with autism and mental illness who often have normal intellectual intelligence, but have significant social or emotional needs that prohibit them from living independently, advocates say.

Transitioning to Kindergarten: A Toolkit for Early Childhood EducatorsThe transition to kindergarten is most successful when it is carefully planned out over the entire pre-kindergarten year.  Starting as early as the first day of preschool, it’s important to make sure that children are developing the academic skills that help form a foundation of strong pre-reading and pre-writing, as well as the social and emotional skills they’ll need in kindergarten.