| | New This Week on NASET NASET HOW TO Series June 2013
How To Become Aware and Report Child Abuse and Neglect
According to the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect (2003), in 2000, three million referrals concerning the welfare of approximately five million children were made to CPS agencies throughout the United States. Of these, approximately two-thirds (62%) were screened in; one-third (38%) were screened out. Screened-in referrals alleging that a child was being abused or neglected received investigations or assessments to determine whether the allegations of maltreatment could be substantiated. Some of the screened-out reports were referred to the attention of other service agencies. Professionals, including professionals, law enforcement officers, social services workers, and physicians, made more than half (56%) of the screened-in reports. Others, including family members, neighbors, and other members of the community, made the remaining 44 percent of screened-in referrals. To read or download this issue - Click here (login required) ______________________________________________________ NASET HOW TO Series June 2013 How To Help Your Children with Homework SET UP A HOMEWORK SCHEDULE For some children, the responsibility of deciding when to sit down and do homework may be too difficult. Children may decide to do their homework after school or after dinner. This is a personal choice and has to do with learning style. However, once the time is determined, the schedule should be adhered to as closely as possible. To read or download this issue - Click here (login required) ______________________________________________________
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| | South Carolina Poised to Introduce Vouchers for Students with Special NeedsLawmakers in South Carolina have agreed to establish a tax-credit scholarship program for special-education students, the state's first foray into vouchers. The measure is part of the state's $6.7 billion budget passed by the House of Representatives and the state Senate this week. The plan has been sent to Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, for approval. She has until Tuesday to issue her line-item vetoes. Through the program proposed in the budget, the state will dole out up to $8 million in tax credits to people and businesses who donate to nonprofits that will distribute private-school scholarships for students with disabilities. To read more, click here |
| | Did You Know That....IDEIA requires the school system to notify parents in writing that it would like to evaluate their child (or that it is refusing to evaluate the child). This is called giving prior written notice. |
| | Braille Instruction Receives Boost From Education Department Addressing concerns that some blind and visually impaired youth aren't receiving Braille instruction when they need it, the Education Department released a "Dear Colleague" letter reiterating that Braille should be the default literacy medium unless a school team determines that it is inappropriate for a given student. The letter notes that a shortage of personnel trained in teaching Braille-an alphabet of raised dots that can be read with the fingertips-is not a reason to deny a child access to the instruction. To read more, click here |
| | Los Angeles Moves to 'Mainstream' Hundreds of Students First Illinois, now Los Angeles? Los Angeles is the latest mainstreaming effort to make the news. The 640,000-student district plans to move hundreds of students from separate schools for students with disabilities to neighborhood schools, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. The district says it is making the move in order to comply with federal and state regulations, in addition to a 1996 consent decree that requires the district to reduce the number of students in stand-alone centers. An independent monitor overseeing Los Angeles' efforts to comply with the decree maintains a website of the latest district moves. To read more, click here |
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|  NASET MEMBER'S BENEFIT - Board Certification in Special Education Available to NASET Members
Through an agreement with The American Academy of Special Education Professionals(AASEP), NASET members now have the opportunity to achieve AASEP Board Certification in Special Education - (B.C.S.E.) at a reduced fee. AASEP Board Certification in Special Education - (B.C.S.E.) is a voluntary choice on the part of the candidate. The candidate for Board Certification wishes to demonstrate a commitment to excellence to employers, peers, administrators, other professionals, and parents. From the standpoint of the Academy, board certification will demonstrate the highest professional competency in the area of special education. Board Certification in Special Educationestablishes a much needed standard for professionals, across disciplines, who work with exceptional children. For more information on Board Certification in Special Education, click here |
| | Justice Department Criticizes Rhode Island Sheltered Workshop The city of Providence, R.I., has shut down a program for teenagers with intellectual disabilities and adults after a U.S. Department of Justice investigation found that people in the program were working at manual labor for little or no pay. The Harold A. Birch Vocational School program currently has an enrollment of 85, which accounts for virtually all of the students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the 23,600-student district. WPRI, the CBS television affiliate serving Providence, has covered the issue extensively, and has a link to the 17-page letter from the Justice Department outlining the department's findings. To read more,click here |
| | Nonverbal 5-Year-Old Booted From Theater For Making Noise A girl with a disability was kicked out of a performance of the play "Beauty and the Beast" because she was giggling and humming along with the show, her mother says. Samantha Torres said she took her two kids and a nurse to see a production of the Disney classic earlier this month at a theater in Providence, R.I. During the show, Torres said her daughter, Nadia, 5, was "squealing and giggling and humming," noises that the girl who has a chromosomal abnormality and is nonverbal makes when she is happy. To read more, click here |
| | For Those With Autism, Sound Of Human Voice May Be Unpleasant New research may help explain why individuals with autism often fail to grasp the social and emotional elements of speech. Scientists say they've spotted a weak connection in children with autism between the area of the brain tasked with responding to voices and the brain structures that release dopamine in response to rewards. They also found a disconnect between the brain's voice processor and the area responsible for detecting emotional cues. As a result, the sound of the human voice may not be pleasurable to those with the developmental disorder, researchers report in a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To read more, click here |
| | Viral Photo Sparks Debate About InclusionA second grade class photo is stirring outrage online after a student who uses a wheelchair was depicted sitting apart from his peers. In the image, students from the Herbert Spencer Elementary in New Westminster, British Columbia are posed in three, neat rows with their teacher. Miles Ambridge, however, is seated in his wheelchair off to the side with a visible gap dividing him from his classmates. The boy who has spinal muscular atrophy - a genetic condition that weakens the muscles - is seen leaning toward the other children with a smile on his face. "He's ostracized. He wants to be part of the gang so much," Ambridge's mother told The Province about the photo, which has since gone viral online. To read more, click here |
| | Did You Know That....All written communication from the school about a request to evaluate a child must be in a form the general public can understand. It must be provided in parents' native language if they do not read English, or in the mode of communication they normally use (such as Braille or large print) unless it is clearly not feasible to do so. |
| | Mindfulness Can Increase Well-Being and Reduce Stress in School Children Mindfulness -- a mental training that develops sustained attention that can change the ways people think, act and feel -- could reduce symptoms of stress and depression and promote well-being among school children, according to a new study published online by the British Journal of Psychiatry. With the summer exam season in full swing, school children are currently experiencing higher levels of stress than at any other time of year. The research showed that interventions to reduce stress in children have the biggest impact at this time of year. There is growing evidence that mindfulness-based approaches for adults are effective at enhancing mental health and well-being. However, very few controlled trials have evaluated their effectiveness among young people. To read more, click here |
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| | TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEKGuess the answer to this week's trivia question and we'll recognize you in next week's Week in Review. Congratulations to: Jennifer Klump, Ope-Oluwa Olubela, Bev Taylor, Mike Namian, Pamela R. Downing-Hosten, Prahbhjot Malhi, Marilyn Haile, and Olumide Akerele who all knew the answer to last week's trivia question: During the test pilots, Ernie and Bert were the first two Muppets to appear on the TV show, Sesame Street. However, on the regular show when it debuted, they were not. Who were the first two Muppets to appear on the street scenes on the TV show,Sesame Street? ANSWER: BIG BIRD AND OSCAR THE GROUCH THIS WEEK'S TRIVIA QUESTION: What is the difference between an accommodation and a modification? If you know the answer, send an email to contactus@naset.org
All answers must be submitted no later than Monday, July 1, 2013 at 12:00 p.m. |
| | 54% of Pregnant Women Use Insecticides That Are Harmful to the Fetus, Spanish Study Shows Pregnancy and infancy are the periods of greatest vulnerability to the use of household insecticides. This is one of the findings of the first study of its kind to be carried out in Spain, which concludes that more than half of expectant mothers routinely use these chemical compounds. Spanish researchers have described the use of domestic pesticides during pregnancy and the first year of life in nearly 2,500 women and children in Sabadell, Guipúzcoa and various areas of Asturias and the Valencian Community. The study, published in Science of the Total Environment, also considers the socio-demographic and lifestyle factors most strongly linked to the use of these pesticides. To read more, click here |
| | Fiber-Optic Pen Helps See Inside Brains of Children With Learning Disabilities For less than $100, University of Washington researchers have designed a computer-interfaced drawing pad that helps scientists see inside the brains of children with learning disabilities while they read and write. The device and research using it to study the brain patterns of children will be presented June 18 at the Organization for Human Brain Mapping meeting in Seattle. A paper describing the tool, developed by the UW's Center on Human Development and Disability, was published this spring in Sensors, an online open-access journal. "Scientists needed a tool that allows them to see in real time what a person is writing while the scanning is going on in the brain," said Thomas Lewis, director of the center's Instrument Development Laboratory. "We knew that fiber optics were an appropriate tool. The question was, how can you use a fiber-optic device to track handwriting?" To read more, click here |
| NASET MEMBER'S BENEFIT - Board Certification in Special Education Available to NASET Members
Through an agreement with The American Academy of Special Education Professionals(AASEP), NASET members now have the opportunity to achieve AASEP Board Certification in Special Education - (B.C.S.E.) at a reduced fee. AASEP Board Certification in Special Education - (B.C.S.E.) is a voluntary choice on the part of the candidate. The candidate for Board Certification wishes to demonstrate a commitment to excellence to employers, peers, administrators, other professionals, and parents. From the standpoint of the Academy, board certification will demonstrate the highest professional competency in the area of special education. Board Certification in Special Educationestablishes a much needed standard for professionals, across disciplines, who work with exceptional children. For more information on Board Certification in Special Education, click here |
| | Deaf 3-Year-Old Grayson Clamp Hears Father's Voice For The First Time With Auditory Brain Implant Deaf from birth, Grayson Clamp's entry into the world was a quiet one. But after a new surgery that endowed him with an auditory implant in his brainstem, the three-year-old has begun the journey of gaining full use of his new sense: he heard his father tell him "Daddy loves you." Grayson's implant is not a cochlear implant. As he was born with no cochlear nerve, doctors found that an implant offered no stimulation. "We bypassed the area where there is no cochlear nerve, and we applied the electrodes directly to the brain stem," said Dr. Craig Buchman, an otolaryngologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. To read more, click here |
| | Prenatal Exposure To Air Pollution May Raise Child's Autism Risk: Science has long known about the precarious state of a developing baby, and the precautions expectant mothers must take to protect the baby's health. But a new nationwide study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) reveals the unprecedented concern of air pollution raising a child's risk of autism. HSPH's study is the first to link air pollution and autism across the United States, and it illuminates a startling set of risk factors that the study's researchers urge pregnant women and families everywhere to consider when choosing their place of residence. To read more, click here |
| NASET MEMBER'S BENEFIT - Group Savings Plus from Liberty Mutual As a member of NASET you qualify for a special group discount* on your auto, home, and renter's insurance through Group Savings Plus® from Liberty Mutual. This unique program allows you to purchase high-quality auto, home and renters insurance at low group rates. See for yourself how much money you could save with Liberty Mutual compared to your current insurance provider. For a free, no-obligation quote, call 800-524-9400 or visit www.libertymutual.com/naset, or visit your local sales office.
*Group discounts, other discounts, and credits are available where state laws and regulations allow, and may vary by state. Certain discounts apply to specific coverage only. To the extent permitted by law, applicants are individually underwritten; not all applicants may qualify. Coverage provided and underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and its affiliates, 175 Berkeley Street, Boston, MA. |
| | Fetal Exposure to Tobacco Smoke Tied to Hearing Loss in Teens Add another hazard to the long list of reasons not to smoke during pregnancy: Children exposed to tobacco smoke in the womb may be at higher risk for hearing loss. Researchers examined data from almost 1,000 children aged 12 to 15 who took part in the 2005 to 2006 U.S. National Health Examination Survey. They found that about 16 percent of them had been exposed to tobacco smoke while in the womb. These adolescents had evidence of some overall hearing loss and were nearly three times more likely to have one-sided, low-frequency hearing loss compared to youngsters without such exposures, according to the study published online June 20 in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology -- Head & Neck Surgery. To read more, click here |
| | Day Care May Help Kids of Mothers Who are DepressedYoung children of depressed mothers may develop fewer emotional problems if they spend time in some kind of day care, a new study suggests. The Canadian research doesn't definitively prove that kids gain benefits from getting care from people other than their troubled mothers, and it doesn't examine the potentially high costs of alternative types of care. Nor does the study look at the role of fathers in caring for the kids. However, experts said the study provides strong evidence of the value of day care when a mom is struggling with depression. To read more, click here |
| | Blood Test Might Predict Type 1 Diabetes in Children, Study Finds A diagnosis of type 1 diabetes often seems to come out of the blue. But German researchers say they can predict who will likely develop the chronic disease. Blood samples taken from children at increased genetic risk of type 1 diabetes reveal significant "preclinical" clues, the researchers found. The strongest predictor is the presence of two diabetes-related autoantibodies, they reported in the June 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "If you have two or more autoantibodies, it's nearly inevitable that you will develop the disease. Most people -- even physicians -- don't appreciate this risk," said Dr. Jay Skyler, deputy director for clinical research at the Diabetes Research Institute and a professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Skyler was not involved in the research. To read more, click here |
| | Did You Know That....If parents' native language or other mode of communication is not a written language, the school must take steps to ensure: that the notice is translated orally (or by other means) to parents in their native language or other mode of communication; that parents understand the content of the notice; and that there is written evidence that the above two requirements have been met. |
| | Sibling Bullying Can Lead to Depression, Anxiety in Victims Being picked on by your brother or sister may seem like a normal part of growing up, but for some kids the bullying may be a source of depression and anxiety, a new study suggests. Researchers found that among 3,600 kids in a U.S. survey, those who were pushed around by a sibling -- physically or verbally -- had higher scores on a measure of depression and anxiety symptoms. "Historically, sibling aggression has been dismissed as normal," said lead researcher Corinna Jenkins Tucker, an associate professor of family studies at the University of New Hampshire. "It's been seen as benign, or even good for kids because it teaches them something about dealing with the world." To read more, click here |
| Minority Children With Autism Less Likely to Use Specialty Services: Study Black and Hispanic children with autism are markedly less likely than children from white families to receive specialty care for complications tied to the disorder, a new study finds. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital for Children in Boston found that the rates at which minority children accessed specialists such as gastroenterologists, neurologists and psychiatrists, as well as the tests these specialists use, ran well below those of white children. "I was surprised not by the trends, but by how significant they were," said study author Dr. Sarabeth Broder-Fingert, a fellow in the department of pediatrics at MassGeneral and Harvard Medical School. "Based on my own clinical experience and some of the literature that exists on this, I thought we'd probably see some differences between white and non-white children in getting specialty care . . . but some of these differences were really large, especially gastrointestinal services." To read more, click here |
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