Handling Inclusion Students

A good inclusion teacher will do his/her best to motivate his or her students, especially the ones who are struggling or who refuse to do the work regularly. Sometimes, a non-disabled teen will reject the help, it has happened to me, believing erroneously that I am not their teacher or that it would place them in the same category as the special education classmates. Yes, there is a certain stigma attached to the label "inclusion student"; the perception is probably due to the lack of comprehension by both regular students and classroom teachers. The question I am asked most often is "What exactly does Learning Disability mean?" I try to clarify the best way possible to my teaching colleagues that these students do not perceive stimuli normally, even though their intelligence level is average-normal. It would take a trained psychologist to give all the details, I am not, but the tool we use to detect such learning disability (LD) is a series of tests which show severe discrepancies between the potential and the actual academic performance. For example, if a child's verbal ability is calculated at 100 and he/she performs at 85, we call that a learning disability in Reading Comprehension.

Advocating For Your Child

An advocate is someone who speaks for another person. Typically, adults speak for their children and hopefully want the best for their child. But what is the best way to be an advocate for your child?

Parents need to learn what their rights are. Any school can give parents a copy of their rights (usually available from special education personnel). Parents must learn to advocate for their children, not blindly accept what school officials or teachers say or deny what their child can and cannot do. This means they need to stand up and say what they want to happen, the way they want it to happen and what results they expect for their child's behavior and academic progress.

Will parents always get what they want? Maybe, maybe not. Parents and schools often must compromise because of the limitations of time, money and personnel resources. Requests and/or expectations must be reasonable and stated in ways that are accommodating to everyone involved. 

The Benefits of Inclusion Strategy

They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Placing disabled kids in inclusion classes allows them to mingle with their non-disabled peers, a practice that benefits both as the first enjoy a boost in self-esteem while the second learn tolerance toward physical and mental differences. The classroom teacher, however, struggles to adapt his/her lesson plan to address the varied needs of all students. The addition of another teacher, a professional in special education, reduces the strain of differentiated teaching if both instructors mesh in harmony.

Success or Failure
At least two key factors will determine the success or failure of the inclusion students: class size and the relation between the two teachers. I have seen huge classes, between 30 and 40 students, and I have worked with ideal class sizes, between 18 and 25 learners. The number of special education kids also intervenes; it should never be more than 25% of the total number of students. 

Top Special Educational Advocacy Tips for Parents

Most parents who have a child with special needs want to home school their child. They choose to do so in order to keep their child safe from peer pressure and close to themselves, for their child's safety. This can be a daunting process, if you choose to educate your child yourself. However, it is not insurmountable. Check out the following steps that can make the process easier:

1. Know what suits your child best
You as a parent know the best for your child. If you feel that your child has a certain disability, you can help them cope with it. You understand your child best so you decide better what can help them learn. You can use different visuals, cues and other fun learning ways to educate your child.

2. Use letters to communicate important matters
Communication through email or telephone doesn't work really well. Letters help you keep track of the entire history of communication. You may need to look back at your child's documents later in case you fall into a disagreement with the educational advocate. You may create "minutes of the meeting" and send a copy to the personnel later, in case you have a face-to-face conversation.

Gesture Recognition Software Is a Godsend for Special Education

Indeed, I've always said that the answer to solving the challenges and cost problems with special education is to leverage our technology to the maximum. It will be the only way that we will be able to have one-on-one communication in the classroom for teaching and learning in special ed. Each year, there are more and more high-tech tools changing the landscape in this sector of education, and it's good to see we are solving all of the challenges in short order. If you have a few moments, I would like to talk to you about all this for a moment.

You see, not long ago, on March 17, 2012 there was an interesting article the Wall Street Journal by Christopher Shea. The article was titled; "Really Talking with Your Hands - Oh Yeah," and the article stated that; "The deaf and people who have lost their voices may someday have a new way to speak, thanks to Digital Ventriloquist or DiVA," and the article explained how the software works which allowed folks with "high-tech gloves equipped with sensors and tracked their movements in three-dimensional space," to use hand signals, or sign language recognition and then put those words into documents, e-mails, or even text messages.

Tips For Parents of Specials Needs Children

You can get a very good, quality education for your special needs child within the school system. You do need to take heed of some important aspects when dealing with disabilities and the school district.

Educate yourself before you go into a meeting with the professionals in the school district:

* Learn all you can about your child's specific disability (classification)
* Learn your rights & responsibilities (for you & your child)
* Learn the rights & responsibilities of the school district
* Find an advocate through the state dept. of education
* Find a support group or start one of your own
* Find online support groups- they have a wealth of information that you may need.

You will never learn all the laws of special education as there are several notebooks (about 4 inches thick) filled with these laws. You can, however, learn the laws that pertain to your child and their specific needs.

Is Modern Technology Bad for Learning? Tips for the User of Modern Technology

Recently I went to my beauty salon to get my hair cut. They were running a special - "Hair Cuts for $7.00 after 7:00 pm on Tuesday evenings." There were more people than usual in the waiting area because of the special as many of us are looking for ways to save money. Most of us who were waiting were visually occupying ourselves while we waited. There were five to six people using hand-held electronic devices - phones, iPads etc. Two people were reading magazines and two of us were reading books. I do not know specifically what the owners of the electronic devices were doing - there are many ways to use these devices including talking, texting, listening to music, playing games, surfing the web and reading. It appeared that most of the users were visually occupied.

Since we see such great technological advancement in our day, we may think that we have increased in our intelligence. Sadly, our education system seems to be floundering. Some would have us think that our forefathers were widely illiterate. 

Can An ADHD Child Really Benefit From Attending A Specialty ADHD School?

As countless parents around the world can attest to, a child with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) can be quite a handful, and many parents actually get to a stage where they literally become desperate. If parents of ADHD children feel this way, just try to imagine how teachers must feel if some of their students have ADHD. Not only is it a huge challenge trying to work with these kids, but they can also make it very difficult for a teacher to focus on other kids in the class.

With the number of ADHD kids rising year on year, we're seeing the arrival of more and more specialty schools which focus solely on providing high quality education to children with behavioral disorders such as ADD and ADHD. This is achieved by allowing children with these types of disorders to be taught in an environment which is specific to the special needs of these kids.

One of the most common behavioral traits of ADHD children is inattentiveness. This is not to say these children cannot pay attention to what's being taught in class, but they certainly have great difficulty staying focused on a particular subject or project for any length of time.