Some of the kids in the residential school where I teach have incredible behaviors.  They will kick, scream, throw themselves on the floor, bang their heads into the wall or the floor, and rip their clothing off.  Why?  Anger and frustration.

I really believe some of them feel powerless.  They may have little speech or difficulty with speech.  They may have little ability to express what they want.  Daily they are pushed, prodded, poked with needles and have medication shoved into their mouths.

Who wouldn't be frustrated?  Who wouldn't want to just rage?

At the same time I was thinking about the success that one of my students has been experiencing.  I realized that part of his success was he was getting to make some choices.  He was beginning to find the means to communicate what he wanted. I realized that for each of my students, I need to be thinking about how I build some choice into each kid's programs.

It also made me think about the premium that too many schools, especially public schools, put on compliance, quiet, straight lines and following directions.  How many of the behaviors exhibited by special education students are a protest against being, in their own way, pushed, prodded and poked into place without any choice, any sense of power over their own situation.

What kind of choices are you giving your students?  It may be choosing a preferred activity instead of the sticker.  It may be choosing to work on coins before addition.  It may even be to take a break.  After all, we have to start somewhere helping our students make choices for themselves.  Even severely disabled students will need to choose the strawberry shampoo or the lavender shampoo to take back to their group home.  We need to keep in mind that real success for disabled students is not just good data on our data sheets, but helping them realize their potential for independent living in our communities.

What do you do when a student dies?  I thought that question was moot, until I got a call at 5 a.m. telling me one of my kids died in an accident.  I just saw him the day before, happy and whole.  My first considerations were my own grief, and the grieving of my staff. Then it stuck me:  how do I help my class grieve?

Grief won't be strange to our kids.   We may imagine that our more severely disabled kids will be sheltered from grief, yet they might be the most likely to have a classmate or someone they know die.   Some disabled students students are also medically fragile, or their developmental differences make them more vulnerable to disease or accidents.  The fact that our students can't always express that grief doesn't make it less important to help them.  Perhaps the opposite is true. I remember when one of my autistic boys who went home each weekend lost a friend from his disabled Sunday School class.   He flipped out on his Mom on the ways home from church.   She believes it may have been a reaction to the loss.   I wonder if he would have done better if his Sunday School class would have spent time talking about it.

Too often we may ignore the needs of special education students to talk about the loss of a loved one or a friend.   When grandma or grandpa die, why pretend nothing happened?   If you can talk to your child lovingly and in a way that they can understand, and perhaps do an activity together that can help them process some of the really feelings, you will help them build resilience to deal with other losses.

To read more, visit Helping Special Ed Students with Grief.

Pulling the Food out From Under Disabled Children

First Lady  Michelle Obama is talking up nutrition as part of an effort to deal with the obesity epidemic hitting our children.  Certainly prevention is important for dealing with the ballooning cost of medical care.

There is growing pressure to be sure only healthy food makes its way past the lips of children in schools.  But the food Nazis may have gone a step or two further. School Dieticians and School Nurses are handing down new "Zero Tolerance" policies for calories.

Food is tough.  We have to eat food in order to live.  Food is also important to human social interactions.  We stop for a cup of coffee.  We gather as families around turkey and stuffing.  We celebrate birthdays with cake and ice cream.  Many children, especially children on the Autistic spectrum, have difficulty with social interactions and the traditions around food and eating are valuable props.

For children with more severe disabilities requiring hand over hand life skills training, or children with Autism, requiring massed trials, edible reinforcers can be the most powerful.  I don't think in most cases celery would work.

Learning disabled children need reinforcement that includes not only praise, prizes and rewards, but they also enjoy earning or winning lunch with the teacher.  No cake?  No soda?  Nothing special as a treat?

I certainly don't disagree that many families have adopted eating and feeding habits that are less than healthy.  I do wonder that the school dieticians and school nurses feel they are the appropriate people to remedy that single-handedly.  I was once formally reprimanded for ignoring the school "healthy food policy" for buying soda for my monthly "lunch with the learning support teacher" for children that earned 90 percent of their points.  They need to feel special, they need to feel that lunch was a treat.

I currently have a couple of children who will work for long periods  of massed trials for Skittles.  If they had been taught with massed trials when they were younger, I would use points, praise and privileges.  It has been a very effective way to meet IEP goals--goals which they have repeated over and over without much success, but are doing well with ABA.  Because of tightening "Healthy Food" requirements at my school, I will have to be sure that edible reinforcement is in their BIPS.

We need to find middle ground that permits special ed teachers to use every tool that is successful with children with disabilities. Can we talk? Can't we all get along?

What do you think?

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius revealed to the autism community that a pending report from the Centers from Disease Control sets the new prevalence of Autism at one in 100. Another report reviewed by the journal Pediatrics based on telephone interviews places the prevalence even higher, at one in 91.

The discussion now is whether there is really a surge in cases, or whether there is better reporting and a broader definition.

Both reports seem to indicate one thing: there are more cases of young children with Autism Spectrum Disorders than previously believed. Until these new numbers were released, the estimate was one for every 151 children.

The number will have some serious impacts on the profession of special education, on delivery of services to adults with intellectual and emotional disabilities, transition services, medical and independent living for this growing cohort of Americans with autism.