Special Education

That seems to be one of the hippest ways to engage a peer now a days, but certainly not a good way to address a police officer or your grandmother.  You and I know this, but a student with autism or Asperger's Syndrome may have figured, since he (or sometimes she) heard it on her favorite television show, it must be okay.  So many students with Autism Spectrum Disorders or other cognitive disabilities don't understand the "unwritten curriculum" at their middle school or high school.

Carol Gray, who created Social Stories (I call them Social Narratives, since Carol trademarked the name) also created Comic Strip Conversations, using a grid system, pictures and cartoon balloons.  I've given them a try, as a way to support the script writing and rehearsal that I have been pursuing with my guys in my social living class.   I love them.  They have proven to be a really effective way to write and rehearse social interaction.  I am calling mine Cartoon Strip Social Interactions, since I will be using them both to teach, practice and reinforce learning how to engage others.   As well as an article to explain how to use them, I also provide free printable pdf's of request comic strips, focusing on different audiences.  I plan to expand my offerings to include initiating interactions, greetings, entering conversations, small talk and negotiations.

I hope these will give those of you supporting students with social deficits a place to start.  Keep your eyes open, there will be more cartoon blanks coming your way to support your efforts to build your student's social skills.

I don't know about your students, but my guys really struggle with writing.  Sometimes it's short term memory challenges with spelling.  Often it's fine motor challenges that either make their writing unreadable, or leave their hands sore and stressed out.  I decided I needed some support.

It's been kind of hard to get hold of my assistive technology person:  my district is huge, the fifth largest in the United States. I took advantage of a workshop on assistive word processing resources so I could learn how to us Co-writer.  Boy, am I ever glad I did.  I share those resources with you in an article about Assistive Word Processing.

Ironically, the program I'm most excited about is  Pixwriter.  It uses a grid as a keyboard and you load words by typing them in.  I have a couple of students who know how to read words but haven't entirely figured out how to use language.  I am excited that I will be able to use vocabulary from the books I'm using from Reading A-Z.  I will also be using the words from the Dolch Lists that they will be learning.

I'm also going to be hunting up the AlphaSmarts at my school: They'll be great for my two reluctant writers, who love to use the computers.  It will free the computers up for the other boys, who I will be putting on RAZ kids pretty frequently.

All in all, a great opportunity, but also a reminder that I need to spend some time checking out assistive technology resources.  I checked what was already up, and found it wanting.  Many of the links are to manufacturers.  I plan to ask Sue Lucia, our Assistive Technology Director in Clark County to keep new product recommendations coming my way, so that you can benefit from her expertise.  I also plan to add some lesson plans and ideas for using these technologies in your setting.

It's hard to keep ahead of all of the needs I see among my colleagues.  I know that this is the time of the year when behavior is becoming a real challenge  Where I'm teaching, here in Las Vegas, I don't have to deal with the gray, wet and cold weather of the North East, North West and Midwest, but our kids still can give us a run for the money.  No question that we really need something to celebrate.

February can be a busy month.  I'm going to combine Black History Month with reading and some geography, connecting places and people.  Presidents' day also falls near the end of the month.  The one that students enjoy the most is Valentines Day.

I will be spending time on adding resources for social skills:  with middle school boys it's time to use their growing interest in girls to talk about how they initiate interactions with the opposite sex as well as how to choose appropriate topics of conversation.

In the mean time, I've gathered up a number of new and old Valentine resources:  They include Valentines Dot Marker Art and a new art project you can use.   Hope you enjoy using them!

Watching traffic to Specialed.about.com and listening to my colleagues, it seems halfway though the year is about the time when things start getting crazy.

We are starting to get students moved to our Middle School after they've been chucked out of another school and sent to a behavioral program.  Dread is rising.  Some of the classrooms in our building send out regular calls for assistance from the hall monitors, and I can only imagine, with the noise I hear from neighboring classrooms, that they represent only the tip of the iceberg.

On the other hand, I am tutoring in an ELL classroom, partnering with a reading teacher who also is supervising the ELL program.  I am having a blast, even though it's math which is not exactly my strength (okay, it's sixth grade math and I do know rational numbers.)   I also know that Amy Jo runs a tight ship, and students who come to work with me know that we're there to help them succeed, not goof off.  I have also seen other neighbors who regularly teach with their doors open, 30 students in their 6th and 7th grade classes, and not a peep.

All this focus on the behavioral problems made me consider how important having the right resources can be:  I put up another article about teaching students with Behavioral Disturbances:  this one about the Emotional Disturbance Classroom.  If you find yourself struggling with maintaining order, you will find some suggests that will work in most any middle school through high school classroom.  Most of those quiet classrooms in my school use the techniques I describe:  routines, clear expectations and not engaging students in power struggles.   I hope you'll also take a look at Positive Behavior Support resources at my site.  I hope these will help you get things under control and rediscover the joy I have found tutoring typical 6th graders in math.

There are several high frequency word lists, including the Fry and Dolch Lists.  The Fry list includes over a thousand words.  The Dolch list is far more manageable, and includes only 220 words.   Many of these words are not decodable using the rules of English phonics, and have to be learned through rote or context.

When I arrived as the new guide at About.com, (October, 2009) I was pleased to see my predecessor had put up some good resources for the sight vocabulary word.  Students with disabilities do need lots of extra practice.  As I have reviewed them, though, I have found them less than satisfactory.

I find that explicit teaching of the Dolch vocabulary helps build a sold foundation for future reading success.  I always do it alongside reading in context, especially with the Reading A-Z books (I use special education funds to buy a license.)  I like to write IEP goals that include recognition of the sight words, so I have added Dolch Data Sheets so you can a. Take a baseline and b. Use the data sheets for progress monitoring.   I also replaced the Dolch Flash Cards, making them 3 inches by 5 inches so you can store them in a card file, and so they are not so small as to end up wedged under the group rug or behind the reading corner bookshelf.

I've also started replacing the worksheets.  The first set of Pre-primer Worksheets went up this week.  I used rebuses with nouns:  otherwise all the words are from the pre-primer list.  There are 12 pages in all, and are designed to support instruction rather than just supplant it.  There is considerable overlap, since words are used in several sentences (especially words like a, the and we,) but the first words alphabetically will appear in the first few pages more frequently, and the later words will show up in the last pages.  Since this is meant to be a word recognition rather than a writing activity, I only ask your emerging readers and writers to circle the correct word in each cloze bracket.  I also made sure that the print is larger:  my wife (also my designer) and I like to use Century New Roman as our font:  It is a nice round san serif that is easy to read and goes well with the About.com logo.  Hope you find these new resources helpful!

The work I did on addressing the behavioral and emotional disabilities lead me to post a blog last weekend which dealt with the subject of Oppositional Defiance Disorder.   I questioned if it was real or a "social construct" created to shuffle kids off to the side.  I have to fess up:  in part I did it to get the conversation rolling, and it certainly did.

Whether Oppositional Defiant Disorder is an "inate" or "inherited" trait, or whether ODD is a constellation of "learned" traits, that we as educators may even contribute to, a child who has developed these behaviors can be a real challenge.  Some of my readers noted, correctly, that the real rub is whether we have effective strategies to help these students succeed both in establishing appropriate relationships with peers and adults, and whether they can learn to control their own behavior.

What I don't agree with is that children with ODD are necessarily making moral decisions that lead them to behave the way they do.  If anything, we should be offering these students a steady hand and creating the kind of environment that will help them succeed.  As I approached the challenge, I thought about the sorts of structure and support that are important to create a calm and safe environment where students can learn more appropriate "replacement" behaviors that will help them move on to appropriate and successful participation in the general education curriculum.

I hope that we can also, as special educators, help our general education peers provide the same sort of structured positive behavior support in their classrooms that will help these students succeed.   As some of my readers correctly pointed out, whether ODD is an organic disorder or a learned disorder, our responsibility is to provide teaching and behavior support that will help them succeed and create a safe and positive learning environment for all children.

This past week I began my first class for my BCBA (Board Certified Behavior Analyist,) Management and Modification of Children with Special Needs.   My instructor, Nancy Brown, comes from a career of teaching the emotionally challenged population in self contained programs.  I look forward to hearing and sharing the strategies my classmates, many of them special educators or teacher preparing to be counselors, have to share.

At the same time, half way through the year I'm finding a lot of people are looking for resources to help them deal with difficult children.  I took a look at the articles that are already here, and found them lacking.  My predecessor was Canadian, and seemed to work with middle class children, rather than the sort of severe or challenging children that many of us deal with daily.  That is especially true for teachers in inner city schools, or teachers in rural communities with low socio-economic status. I felt it was time to revisit and rewrite the article about Behavioral and Emotional Disabilities.

My first job was to go back to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) IV and actually look at the criterion for some of the behavioral disorders that qualify as "Emotional Disturbances" under IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.   As I read the criteria, I had to ask myself  "How much of this is conditioned by the environment?"  "How many of these behaviors may actually be appropriate survival mechanisms?"

The DSM IV TR begins the definition with:  "A pattern of negativist, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months . . ."

The behaviors they describe are:

1. Often loses temper
2. Often argues with adults
3. Often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult's requests or rules Read More...

The New York Times published a front page article "New Definition of Autism Will Exclude Many, Study Suggests" Thursday (January 19, 2012,) ABC News picked it up and it's been splashed all across the media.  Ironic, since I addressed the proposed changes in February of 2010, and our former Autism Guide, Lisa Jo Rudy, wrote an article about the changes last July.

The DSM V is the yet (2013) to be published Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the handbook for diagnosing psychiatric and psychological illness or disorders.  The latest iteration was the DSM IV TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Four, Text Revision) published in 2000.  Considered the "Bible" of diagnosis, a DSM diagnosis is required for medical reimbursement for services provided by insurance companies.  The DSM IV is also used Read More...

I spent two day last week with Dr. Ron Leaf, a co-director of the Autism Partnership, an international organization based in California that provides Applied Behavior Analysis services on both coasts and on several continents.  He spoke about and offered demonstrations of ABA both to manage and improve behavior and to support academic skills.

One of his hobby horses is function.  Do the things we teach children with disabilities improve function?   It's critical especially for children who will not have the ability to got to college.  Many children with disabilities can, but there is a larger group that will not.  Will the skills they learn help them function independently in the community?  Will it help them get to work, will it help them purchase the food they need to live on their own?   When there parents get too old to keep them at home, who will be responsible for these disabled adults?

I'm lucky:  I have a principal that understands that function is the most important for my students with Autism.   I have struggled to find a structured, visual way to help them learn to count money, tell time, and read a calendar.   Last week after two days with Dr. Leaf, I took my boys by public bus to the Museum of Natural History.  It was really about the bus trip and purchasing lunch at McDonald's.   My guys were stellar, but I also felt really great that the skills that we were learning and reinforcing would be generalized into a community setting.

So, to help my readers out, I have made the method I use to teach counting coins available to you.  I hope you find them helpful!

Here in the Clark County School District the secondary schools have semester finals on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, January 18-20.  Our first semester is winding down.  Half way is a good place not only to assess what our kids are learning, but also to assess how we are doing.

As the writer of this website, I have access to data telling me what kinds of resources those of you who regularly read the site are coming for.  You have come for free printable resources to help you in your classroom:  I hope you have accessed my new and approved Dolch Word flash cards and data sheets.  I use the Dolch lists to help my less verbal students build their vocabulary for reading (I use Reading A to Z with my lower functioning students on the Autism spectrum.)

I also see that a lot of you visit for the behavior and social skills materials.   I've been reviewing them, as well, and found that my predecessor Read More...