Team 9 final upload

Editor's Notes

• #5: ----- Meeting Notes (12/8/14 18:16) ----- Now we are going to look at some key components of speical educaiton -IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act) was enacted in 1975 and reauthorized in 2004. Congress created this act in order to ensure that students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. The law applies to infants at birth through adults age 21. The needs of individuals from birth to age 2 are different than those ages 3 and older so IDEA law splits up into different parts. For infants to age 3, IDEA benefits a child who needs early intervention services because of developmental delays in the areas of physical, cognitive, communication, social or emotional, and adaptive development. It also benefits children who have a diagnosed physical or mental condition that have a high change of resulting in a developmental delay. The IDEA categories for eligibility of students ages 3-21 are Specific Learning Disability, speech or language impairment, intellectual disability, emotional disorder, multiple disabilities, hearing impairments, other health impairments, autism, visual impairments and traumatic brain injury. IDEA has 6 principles it must follow. -Zero Reject, a rule against exclusion of students with disabilities from a free and appropriate education. -Nondiscriminatory evaluation, a rule of fair assessments -Appropriate Education in which all students should have an individualized education plan, also known as an IEP for students age 3-21 and an individualized family services plan (IFSP) for children from age birth to 2 years old. -Least restrictive environment- Students will be educated with their non-disabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate. -Procedural Due Process- makes both parents the school accountable to each other for carrying out the student’s rights under IDEA. - Parent and Student Participation is a rule of shared decision
• #6: ----- Meeting Notes (12/8/14 18:28) ----- IDEA has 6 principles it must follow. -Zero Reject, a rule against exclusion of students with disabilities from a free and appropriate education. -Nondiscriminatory evaluation, a rule of fair assessments -Appropriate Education in which all students should have an individualized education plan, also known as an IEP for students age 3-21 and an individualized family services plan (IFSP) for children from age birth to 2 years old. -Least restrictive environment- Students will be educated with their non-disabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate. -Procedural Due Process- makes both parents the school accountable to each other for carrying out the student’s rights under IDEA. - Parent and Student Participation is a rule of shared decision
• #9: Research tells of the benefits of including students with disabilities in the general experiences of the school, classroom, and instruction. Benefits of inclusion include: Access to the general curriculum Greater opportunity to interact Higher expectations Peer role models Greater acceptance of differences Respect and understanding Shared resources . I’ve also shared a video I found on youtube that highlghts the importance of inclusion in schools across America. It is a father who speaks of how far we’ve come with including students with disabilities in our school system, and how far we still have to go. I really found this video to be inspirational and touching, and hope you all have the same experience.
• #16: ----- Meeting Notes (12/8/14 18:42) ----- Autism is a developmental disorder that affects an individual’s verbal and non-verbal communication, social interaction, and academic performance. Autism is typically expressed in individuals by the age of 3. Individuals with autism often have portray repetitive behaviors, stereotyped movements, behavioral challenges, a need for predictability, rare responsiveness to sensory stimulation and different intellectual ability levels. The disability is caused by biological and environmental factors such as genes, brain over-growth, neural pathways and exposure to toxins prenatally. Students with autism have a wide range of language abilities, ranging from non-verbal to complex communication skills. Individuals often have characteristics such as; interruptions while others are talking, focusing attention on one topic, limiting conversations to a couple of topics, reversing pronouns and repeating or echoing the language of others. Individuals with Autism also often have delays in appropriate social interactions and skills. Individuals often have impaired use of nonverbal behavior, lack of peer relationships, failure to spontaneously share enjoyment, interests and achievements with others and lack of mutual exchange with others. The repetitive behaviors of Autistic individuals involve repeated movements and verbalizations. These include hand and finger mannerisms or motor movements such as hand flapping, repeating the same phrase over and over, focused attention on parts of a larger object, and the need to strictly follow routine. Students diagnosed with Autism also have problematic behaviors in the categories of self-injurious behavior, aggression, tantrums and or property destruction. Another element of the disability is experience with sensory disorder related to selection of foods, sleeping habits, toe walking, visual and auditory sensitivity, and sensitivity related to touch. As mentioned previously, students with autism can also have very different levels of intellectual functioning. Some individuals also display savant syndrome, which is an extraordinary talent in areas such as, math, music, calculations, memorization and mechanical skills.
• #17: ----- Meeting Notes (12/8/14 19:39) ----- •Students with Autism have a unique learning style. General Education teachers can support these students by incorporating their strengths and needs when planning for class activities and instruction. When teachers put thought to this area, it will help to maximize the students potential and ability to contribute to the class •Other important things to remember when teaching students with autism are that they are visual and literal learners. Teachers can do this by showing the students the information for them to better understand and explicitly stating expectations, directions and feedback. Students with autism also need a well-structured and predictable environment and schedule throughout the day provided by the teacher. •Another strategy that we will use to allow the student to perform well academically is priming. The teacher could provide the student with some of the course material or assignments before they actually teach it to the whole class. This allows the student to become familiar with the topics beforehand in order to reduce stress and help with the predictability aspect of Autism •Having a home base is another support strategy often used in classrooms with students with Autism. Our teachers can provide a space for the student to go to when he/she is feeling high levels of stress. The student will be able to take a sensory or work break in this area so that the rest of the class is not disrupted. •The teacher can also provide visual supports for the student. The more visuals in the classroom the better off the student will be. We will provide the student with their own printed schedule and other labels that will help the student to stay organized. The teacher will also have a visual schedule placed in the front of the classroom http://csesa.fpg.unc.edu/sites/csesa.fpg.unc.edu/files/UnderstandingAutismSecondaryTeachersGuide.pdf Based on the severity of the students Autism diagnosis, we will offer a wide variety of accommodations and modifications that will help with the students needs. Some of these accommodations include: visual or written schedules, classroom aide, provide directions written and orally, extra time to get started or complete tasks, repeat or rephrase questions, model assignments, minimize distractions, student use of stress-ball, alternate testing areas and allowing the student to pair up with another student.
• #18: ----- Meeting Notes (12/8/14 19:23) ----- Students with Autism often have behavioral challenges. In order to reduce or eliminate those behaviors, we will use a Functional Behavior Assessment. An FBA will identify relationships between a student’s behavior and the situations that trigger those behaviors. We want to focus especially on the behaviors that are affecting the student’s ability to learn. When creating an FBA, we want to make sure that we gather information from teachers, social services, family members, the student or any others that know the student well. It is important to have the students input because we want to have them work towards rewards that are of interest to them and worth working for. After creating the FBA, we will then create a Behavior Intervention Plan. The BIP will give a clear description of the individual’s behaviors and how the classroom teacher can deal with them accordingly. It was also list rewards and reinforcement strategies specific to the student. We will also recommend that the student receive social work minutes on their IEP from the school social worker. The social worker can focus in the area of social skills and appropriate communication. Areas can include interruptions, focusing attention, social hidden curriculum, etc. We will also increase the social skills of the student through a literacy based behavioral intervention. Literacy based behavioral intervention is used to increase positive social skills by creating social stories and narratives that relate to different social situations (Francis, McMullen, Blue-Banning & Haines, 2013). We will also provide the student with a peer buddy. This would be someone that would be a good role model socially and academically for the student. The student can use this individual as an extra support. We want to also always be in contact with the student’s parents. It is important to have them involved in their student’s academic career. They can be a good source of what types of rewards; reinforcement and consequences work with their child outside of school that may be beneficial in school as well.