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Articles About Special Education « Special Education « Education

  • Accommodations, Modifications & Interventions
    Special education classroom strategies including accommodations, interventions and modifications. Best practice, accommodations, interventions and modifications for the inclusional classroom.
  • ACT Testing Accommodations – College Entrance Testing
    If your child will need ACT testing accommodations, it is important to begin as early as possible laying the documentation trail. Many college entrance exams require an application process that involves documentation of both a history of a disability and a history of accommodations in the classroom.
  • Act Immediately if you Think Your Child May Require Special Education (Special Needs Answers – 1/5/10)
    If your child is having trouble in school but has not yet been diagnosed with a learning disability, or if you think that your child's special needs may require help at school, it is never too early to request an evaluation to determine if the child is eligible for special education services provided by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
  • Back to School (Memoires From the Waiting Room – 8/12/10)
    Micah will be starting school for the first time at the end of the month and, while he really has no idea what’s coming, he will certainly feel the change when it comes. Micah, like many special needs children, does not do well with new people or extreme changes in routine/schedule. Obviously, I am a bit anxious for him and want to make this transition as easy for him as possible.
  • CEC Adopts New Policy on Physical Restraint and Seclusion
    The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), the leading association for special educators, has just released a policy on physical restraint and seclusion in school settings. In its policy, CEC states that while these procedures can be effective when dealing with children with behavioral issues, they should be implemented only as a last resort when a child or others are in immediate danger.
  • Center to Open for Inclusive Education (The Daily Orange – 10/27/09)
    Syracuse University received a $1.1 million gift …The money will go toward the Lawrence B. Taishoff Center for Inclusive Higher Education, in the School of Education for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The center will focus on research and training for teachers in inclusive education, said Wendy Harbour, an inclusive learning and teaching professor.
  • Charting a Course After High School (Education Week – 3/13/09)
    The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act calls for schools to help students develop a plan that will carry them to college or the workplace, but the requirement remains a challenge for familes and educators alike.
    Patti's Comment: This article frustrates me because it is so sad and so true. Schools still do a poor job of transition planning for students with disabilities.
  • College Savings for Students with Special Needs (Special Needs Answers – 1/5/10)
    Faced with the increasing cost of higher education, students and their families must begin saving for college from an early age — often from birth.
  • Crisis Management – Step by Step (WrightsLaw)
    Quality special education services are intensive, individualized and expensive. Because parents want quality services for their children, parent-school conflict is normal, predictable…and inevitable. In this article, you will learn how to manage a crisis with the school. We describe typical parent-school crises that cause parents to seek outside help. You will learn that a crisis has two sides: danger and opportunity. We will describe how to avoid common pitfalls and provide strategies you can use to weather a crisis.
  • Cyber Safety for Special Needs Students (MangoMom blog – 6/4/10)
    Here you will find a variety of resources you can use in your classroom or pass along to parents to teach and inform about online safety.
  • Differentiated Instruction is Key to Closing Acheivement Gaps (About.com – 11/27/10)
    In visiting schools that were effectively closing the achievement gap between children with and without disabilities, it became clear that their success required multiple types of interventions in their schools. Perhaps one of the most important pieces, however, was differentiated instruction.
  • Disabilities Fight Grows as Taxes Pay for Tuition (New York Times – Oct. 27, 2007)
    A case that became a flash point in special education, pitting parents against school systems that say they cannot afford to pay to privately educate disabled children whose parents reject their proposed placements.
  • How's Your Special Ed Vocabulary? (WrightsLaw)
    Review terms, take the quiz to check your skills, get answers and complete glossaries of terms.
  • Positive Behavior Support: Solution Board (Special Education Strategies – 8/16/10)
    The solution kit is a strategy that teaches young children the options they may try when a conflict or disagreement arises. It helps them to learn how to independently (or with less prompting) solve problems.
  • Feds Issue Swine Flu Guidelines for Special Education Students
    If schools must close due to swine flu, special education students will stay home just like their peers, but may qualify for extra assistance once school resumes, according to guidelines developed by the Department of Education.
  • Feds Say Chicago's Stimulus Spending Needs More Oversight (Catalyst Chicago – 3/2/10)
    A recent federal audit of stimulus spending in Illinois schools calls for improvement in state oversight, noting that two of the three districts examined by auditors—including Chicago—did not track any spending of so-called State Fiscal Stabilization Funds.
  • How Can I Get the School to Provide an Appropriate Program? (WrightsLaw)
    Unfortunately, school culture often prevents school staff from realizing that sometimes, parents really do know what their children need. Teachers who need training in research based programs often do not get support from their administrators so they do not get the training they need.
  • Office for Civil Rights Posts Agreements From Investigations (Education Week – 3-1-11)
    The U.S. Department of Education's office for civil rights is posting agreements online that are forged between the office and school districts resulting from compliance reviews or investigations of complaints.
  • Parenting Through Special Education (Forbes.com – 8/5/09)
    A special needs child adds a whole other layer to the familiar working mother balancing act.
  • Reasonable Accommodations in Testing (My Special Needs Network – 3/10/11)
    I so enjoyed my colleague Ilana Danneman's blog titled, Testing 123 Testing about a mother's perspective on children taking standardized tests. It's certainly stressful for all children, yet what about our students with special needs? There are many simple accommodations that can be made to help special-needs children have a successful testing experience. 
  • Recess Skills for Children with Special Needs (Bella Online)
    Many children on the playground do not know even how to get into a game, whether they have special needs or not. There is a certain etiquette that is often based on local or regional ways of doing things or may be unique to a certain age group or gender, whether it is waiting in line, 'do-overs' or 'start-overs' or what is considered good sportsmanship.
  • Special-Ed Funds Redirected (Wall Street Journal – 1/6/10)
    School districts shift millions of dollars to general needs after getting stimulas cash.
  • Special Education Law 101 – (Special Education Law Blog – 5/20/10)
    A series of five articles on the basics of special ed law: Part I – Part II – Part III – Part IV – Part V
  • Teaching Handwriting to Children (Bella Online)
    Children with special needs may struggle with learning handwriting because they have physical or neurological challenges, developmental delays or associated learning disabilities, lack of opportunities to learn or practice, or inadequate support, modifications and accommodations. Also see: Printing, Cursive Handwriting and Special Needs.
  • Teaching Math Skills (Bella Online)
    There are many types of teaching strategies for math as for other subjects – often children who have difficulty understanding math concepts at school are quite adept at understanding what they need to know at home and in the community.
  • The Day After Graduation (Special Ed Justice)
    At one moment, a child is learning to walk or talk. In the next moment, the child is about to graduate from high school. Because time flies so quickly, graduation occurs much sooner than parents expect. Unfortunately, many children with disabilities, particularly those with neurological and cognitive impairments, are not ready to graduate this year because they have not mastered basic life skills. Doubly unfortunate is the fact that hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of mentally impaired children have graduated from school without having mastered basic life skills.
  • Two Cities: Are Charters Opting Out of Special Ed? (NPR – 5/20/10)
    A look at what lessons Detroit Public Schools may be able to learn from New Orleans' schools. The majority of schools in New Orleans are charters, and a big criticism of charter schools is that they don't adequately serve special education students.
  • Using Learning Styles to Increase Effectiveness of AT (No Limits 2 Learning – 2/17-11)
    How do your students learn? Have you taken the time to analyze whether a student you are evaluating for AT is kinesthetic, auditory, tactile, visual, etc?
  • What Are Advocates and How Can They Help Me?
    Question: I’ve been told that I need an advocate at a meeting I have with my daughter’s school. I don’t really know what advocates do or how it would help to have an advocate at the meeting. Answer: The term “advocate” has many meanings and individual interpretations. Advocates can fill a spectrum of needs from providing appropriate self-advocacy information to zealously representing an individual client’s wishes in legal and quasi-legal processes.