Monthly Archive for September, 2005

IDEA requires what?

Published
by
JohnL
on 29 September 2005
in ADHD and News
. 0 Comments

Here’s a snippet from a story in the Navasota Examiner & Grimes County Review (TX, US). Under the headline, “Area agencies receive over $8 million in grants,” these are the first two paragraphs (the remainder is a list of other funded activities):

Navasota ISD and Brazos, Montgomery and Waller counties will be receiveing funds from the state following Gov. Rick Perry’s announcement of the release of more than $8 million to Texas counties for more crime-fighting, drug treatment courts and juvenile justice programs.

Awarded under the State Criminal Justice Planning Fund and distributed by the Governor’s Criminal Justice Division was $37,125 to Navasota ISD for a special teacher and teacher’s aide to assist students with emotional disturbance, ADHD or other special needs with education planning as well as provide life-skills training classes, counseling services and tutoring services.

It’s great that there will be another teacher and an aide, but does anyone wonder why those positions didn’t already exist? I do. I was under the impression that if there were students identified as needing special education, the local education agency was required to provide the needed services? This story leaves me with the impression that the funding of services is based on grants from the state education association. There must be more to it….

Link to the story.

Sphere: Related Content

Teaching recommendations

Published
by
JohnL
on 24 September 2005
in News
. 0 Comments

The Association of Texas Professional Educators maintains a Web site that includes a section called “Teachers’ Toolbag” and among the articles there is one about teaching students who have emotional and behavioral disorders. The author, Andrea Ogonosky (a Ph.D. school psychologist who routinely advocates for curriculum-based assessment [hooray!]), provides a brief list of sensible suggestions:

  • Get to know your students
  • Develop classroom rules
  • Watch out for triggers
  • Be positive
  • Lean on your team

There is good description accompanying each of these items. Although they surely are not an exhaustive list of important concepts (given her advocacy elsewhere for CBA, I’m surprised that she omitted using behavioral data to monitor progress), they provide worthwhile direction. Others are welcome to discuss these and other recommendations.

Link to Ms. Ogonosky’s article.

Sphere: Related Content

New teacher

Published
by
JohnL
on 18 September 2005
in News
. 0 Comments

In her blog called “bex in the city,” Rebecca sometimes reports about her experiences as a teacher. She is new to the role, having only last May signed on for the New York City Teaching Fellows. In posts over the summer she reported on the preparation she recieved for her new career. Apparently at the last minute this school year, she took a position as a teacher in a middle school.

Over the past couple of weeks, she’s posted about how spent she feels, how grueling the position has been. Yesterday (17 September) she let the cat out of the bag:

I suppose I should take some time and tell you a little more about my class, as you will be hearing about it a lot over the next nine months. I can’t remember if I’d mentioned it or not, but I’m teaching Special Ed. But my kids aren’t autistic or retarded or anything like that, they have severe behavioral problems, emotional disturbances, and a few have learning disabilities. In District 75 (the citywide Special Ed district that I teach in), these kids are usually in a 12:1:1 class. That means 12 kids, 1 teacher, 1 paraprofessional (assistant), a pretty restrictive environment. However, my class is 8:1:1, because these kids are so bad that they need an even more restrictive environment. Through some kink in the system, I ended up with 9 kids. Not only that, but two of my kids have their own 1:1 paras, supposedly for their behavior problems. So my class has 9 disruptive kids, and 4 adults. Not all of my kids are that bad, a few of them just have sever learning disabilities. On top of that, my class ranges in ability from kindergarten to 9th grade. Technically I teach 6th, 7th and 8th. Same kids, all day. It makes no sense to have all of these kids learning in the same room from the same teacher.

Rebecca goes on to describe each student in her class and promises to discuss the paraprofessionals. Her descriptions are subjective and she bars no holds. Even though it is difficult to get a behavioral fix on what she needs to teach each student, it’s clear that she has a challenging group.

Middle-school, special-education teacher…I can think of no more difficult row to hoe. I wonder how often first-year teachers are put in this sort of position.

Link to the entry in Rebecca’s blog about her class. (Note: There’s much more than teaching here; Rebecca posts about her personal life, including relationships, running, drinking, and more.) Link for those who want to learn more about NYC’s Teaching Fellows program (WARNING: Windows-centric Web design).

Sphere: Related Content

More soapywater

Published
by
JohnL
on 17 September 2005
in News
. 0 Comments

Over on Soapywater, Molly_g continues to report about her efforts to seek appropriate services for her young son. A couple of weeks ago, I noted that she was getting the all-too-common run-around: Wait a while. Well, it sounds like things are happening, but the progress is painstakingly slow, at least in my eyes.

Molly_g has posts about

The stories sound all too familiar. If you teach students with disabilities, Molly_g provides a valuable peek into the perspective of parents. If you teach people who will teach students with disabilities, her observations should be required reading for them. Without a doubt, a reader can spin Molly_g’s reports lots of ways, and I’m obviously giving my own take, but one cannot overlook their potential for helping educators gain perspective.

Sphere: Related Content

History of EBD

Published
by
JohnL
on 17 September 2005
in News
. 0 Comments

Last night I spent hours reading a new book. It’s the first time I’ve done that in a long time. What would cause me to do this? Children and Youth with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: A History of Their Education by none other than Jim Kauffman and Tim Landrum. It is worth the read, folks. Here’s a link to learn more about the book and to order your own copy.

Sphere: Related Content

CDC on ADHD

Published
by
JohnL
on 12 September 2005
in ADHD and News
. 0 Comments

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a report on the “Prevalence of Diagnosed and Medicated Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: United States, 2003” that is well worth review. Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most rapidly growing behavior problems in the US. Children with ADHD who need special education services are most often identified under the category “Other Health Impaired”; US definitions of disability under IDEA Part B regulations include “attention deficit disorder” (ADD) and “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” (ADHD) among the conditions that make a child eligible for services under the “other health impairment” (OHI) category.

Although there is the potential for bias in the data (parents’ reports in telephone surveys may not be accurate), the methods are very good and the results are quite informative. Here’s one item that stuck out for me. The figure shows by state the percentage of children who have, sometime during their lives, been diagnosed with ADHD (longer light-colored bars) and those who are currently taking medication for ADHD. (The small image at the right is linked to the full-sized figure in the CDC report.)

Why does the percentage vary so much? This is the same question that people have asked about other categories of disability (e.g., Learning Disabilities). The report offers a note about this question: “Certain state variation in ADHD diagnosis might be attributed to underlying state differences in diagnostic practice, sociodemographic characteristics, or both.” When I get a chance, I’ll run a couple of correlations.

Link to the Web site on ADHD of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.

Sphere: Related Content

Bad Behavior has blocked 529 access attempts in the last 7 days.