NASET

WEEK IN REVIEW

National Association of Special Education Teachers

February 12, 2021                 Vol 17 Issue #7

Dear NASET Members and Guests,

Welcome to NASET's WEEK in REVIEW.  Here, we provide you with the latest publications fromNASET to read and or download, as well as some of the most interesting articles that have happened this week in the field of special education. We hope you enjoy this publication.  Feel free to send us articles for this publication or let us know your thoughts about the WEEK in REVIEW at news@naset.org. Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Read More

Beyond the Classroom: Providing Virtual Services to Students with Special Needs

Learning differences and ADHD play a big role in children being able to understand and finish their school assignments. This means teachers and parents have to stay on top of their students progress and keep them caught up to succeed in school.  Allie who is a freshman, and Zoe a 6th grade student with a speech and language delay. Sheila Myers and her daughter Zoe. Despite hybrid classes being an option, Myers is keeping her children in remote learning to protect them from the virus. Another reason is she believes the one-on-one help is better serving Zoe. Now, we're digging deeper into other obligations that schools must uphold. Special education students in Illinois are given an Individualized Education Program also known as an IEP. It outlines the support and services each student with a disability is legally entitled to receive. Read More

"Sometimes It's Overwhelmin": Coping With Autism During the Pandemic

Driving Hazards Differ for Teens with Autism

Getting a driver's license is an important milestone for many teens and young adults, including those with autism. But all beginner drivers face hazards on the road. New research analyzing motor vehicle crashes shows that teens with autism are half as likely to crash due to speeding as their peers, but three times more likely to crash when making a left turn or U-turn. Those findings suggest drivers with autism may benefit from tailored training, according to researchers from the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) and the Center for Autism Research (CAR) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Read More

Physical Discipline and Cognitive Deprivation Associated with Specific Types of Developmental Delay

A study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), published by Elsevier, reports that in a diverse, cross-national sample of youth, physical discipline and cognitive deprivation had distinct associations with specific domains of developmental delay. The findings are based on the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, which is an ongoing, international household survey initiative coordinated and assisted by the United Nations agency, UNICEF. "Physical discipline and cognitive deprivation are well-established risks to child development. However, it is rare that these experiences are examined in relation to each other," said lead author Carmel Salhi, ScD, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA. "Our study allowed us to explore how these experiences co-occur in childhood internationally and whether they relate to different aspects of child development. Read More

Many Doctors have Negative Perceptions of Patients with Disabilities — and that Impacts Quality of Care, Study Finds

More than 82% of American doctors say they believe patients with significant disabilities have a worse quality of life than people who don't have disabilities, according to a new study. Those negative perceptions can have big impacts on the quality of care patients with disabilities receive. Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital found that negative perceptions of patients with disabilities are widespread among physicians -- to a degree they say is "disturbing."  Just 56.5% of doctors strongly agreed that they welcomed patients with disabilities into their practices, and only 40.7% of doctors surveyed reported feeling very confident about their ability to provide the same quality of care to patients with disabilities. Read More

5 Ways Schools Hope to Fight Covid-19 Learning Loss

A deluge of data released late last year confirmed what has long been suspected: The coronavirus pandemic caused widespread learning loss while also amplifying gaps across racial and socioeconomic lines.  The situation is especially concerning among younger children: one analysis of reading level data by Amplify Education, Inc., which creates curriculum, assessment and intervention products, found children in first and second grade experienced the most dramatic drops in grade level reading scores compared to previous years. This year, 40 percent of first grade students and 35 percent of second grade students are “significantly at risk” of needing intensive intervention compared to 27 percent and 29 percent last year. Larry Berger, chief executive officer at Amplify, said the data reflect how the pandemic has interrupted schooling at a critical time for young children when they are learning basic reading skills and making rapid progress in the foundations of reading. For first graders especially, the kindergarten year was “seriously disrupted,” Berger said. “It would make sense that there would be a lot of kids who are just missing a bunch of those basic reading skills that are typically developed in kindergarten.” Read More

Children's Books That Feature Characters with Disabilities

It’s important for children to feel represented in the books they read. It’s also important for books to expose children to the beautiful diversity of our world. This includes the varying abilities and disabilities around the globe. To promote inclusivity and representation, we’ve rounded up 53 books featuring characters with disabilities. In these books, either the main character or a secondary character has a disability. Many of the books feature disability as the main storyline, but it’s not central to the plot in others. Read More

A Year into the Pandemic, Thousands of Students Still Can't Get Reliable WiFi for School. The Digital Divide Remains Worse than Ever.

In Los Angeles, special education teacher Jaime Lozano strives to keep the attention of his elementary students during online classes. But no matter the charisma he brings to the screen, it's no match for glitchy internet connections. Every day, about a third of his students experience an outage that cuts into their learning time, Lozano said. Nearly all of his students are from low-income families, and many can't afford wired, broadband service. "The system goes down, or someone is working on a tower, or there's too many people on the Wi-Fi hotspot and it cuts out," Lozano said. Since schools shut down in the spring, districts have scrambled to distribute laptops and internet so students can engage in schooling from home. But almost a year later, with no end in sight for virtual learning, millions of students still lack reliably fast internet or a working computer – the basic tools to participate in live lessons from home. Read More

Child Psychiatrists Warn that the Pandemic May Be Driving Up Kids' Suicide Risk

Anthony Orr was almost done with his high school coursework when the governor of Nevada ordered a statewide shutdown of nonessential businesses on March 17, 2020. "He was looking forward to all of the senior activities, prom and graduation," says his mother, Pamela Orr. But all he got was a "mini [graduation] ceremony," with only a handful of students walking, wearing masks and at a distance from each other. "That was the most we could do because of COVID," she says. Anthony graduated with honors as he had planned to, wearing a white robe and cap and an advanced honors sash, says Pamela. But he decided against going to college. "Right now ... it's all online, and you just lose the whole college experience," she says. Read More

State-Funded Pre-K May Enhance Math Achievement

In the first longitudinal study to follow Georgia pre-K students through middle school, Stacey Neuharth-Pritchett, associate dean for academic programs and professor in UGA's Mary Frances Early College of Education, found that participating in pre-K programs positively predicted mathematical achievement in students through seventh grade. "Students who participated in the study were twice as likely to meet the state standards in their mathematics achievement," said Neuharth-Pritchett. "School becomes more challenging as one progresses through the grades, and so if in middle school, students are still twice as likely to meet the state standards, it's clear that something that happened early on was influencing their trajectory." Read More

Brain-Related Visual Problems May Affect One in 30 Primary School Children

A brain-related visual impairment, which until recently was thought to be rare, may affect one in every 30 children according to new research investigating the prevalence of Cerebral Visual Impairment [CVI]. The University of Bristol-led findings published today [3 February] in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, aim to raise awareness of CVI among parents and teachers to help them identify signs of the condition earlier. The brain is just as important as the eyes when it comes to seeing, and many vision problems are caused by areas of the brain that are needed for sight not working properly and cannot be resolved by wearing glasses. Brain-related vision problems include difficulties with moving the eyes, seeing things in the space around (visual field) and recognizing objects accurately and quickly. Read More

Teaching Pupils Empathy Measurably Improves their Creative Abilities

Teaching children in a way that encourages them to empathize with others measurably improves their creativity, and could potentially lead to several other beneficial learning outcomes, new research suggests. The findings are from a year-long University of Cambridge study with Design and Technology (D&T) year 9 pupils (ages 13 to 14) at two inner London schools. Pupils at one school spent the year following curriculum-prescribed lessons, while the other group's D&T lessons used a set of engineering design thinking tools which aim to foster students' ability to think creatively and to engender empathy, while solving real-world problems. Both sets of pupils were assessed for creativity at both the start and end of the school year using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking: a well-established psychometric test. Read More

Youth with Autism See Sharp Decline in Physical Activity Between Ages 9-13, Study Finds

A recent study from Oregon State University has found that to best help kids with autism maintain healthy rates of physical activity, interventions should be targeted during the ages of 9 to 13, as that's when kids show the biggest drop in active time. The study is one of the first to look at this issue on a longitudinal scale. It relied on a dataset of families in Ireland spanning three in-depth interviews between 2007 and 2016. Kids in the survey had their first interview at age 9, the second at 13 and the third at 17 or 18. The OSU study compared 88 children with autism to 88 children without autism over the nine-year survey period to gauge both how physical activity changed over time, and how much screen time -- spent on TV, movies, videos and computer and video games -- children reported over time. Read More

Congratulations to: Diane Campbell-Mitchell, Wanda Routier, Betsy Mandel, Karen Franyz-Fry, Helma Wardenaar, Courtney Toledo, Cheryl Mitchell, Olumide Akerele, Stephanie Jenkins, Wendy Stein, Cindi Maurice, and Angela Fernandez

who all knew the answer to last week's trivia question:

Which type of co-teaching model refers to two teachers teaching the same content simultaneously in one classroom? (Note: The purpose of this model is to lower the student to teacher ratio while delivering the same content).

Answer: PARALLEL TEACHING

This Week's Trivia Question: The United States Department of Agriculture identifies a group of "big eight" foods. They are milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, fish, and shellfish. What percentage of food allergies do the “big eight” cause?

If you know the answer to this week's trivia questions, email it to us at contactus@naset.org by February 15, 2021. If you are correct, you will be acknowledged in next week's NASET's Week in Review

A Problem That Can’t be Ignored: Online Learning Hurts Students with Special Needs  

When the coronavirus pandemic first hit, the U.S. Department of Education stressed that all public schools that would be providing virtual or online education during the pandemic must also continue to serve their students with disabilities. However, these services are not necessarily transferable to distance learning nor is in-person learning easily delivered due to social distancing. When we consider the learning loss students are experiencing due to the move to virtual learning during the pandemic, we must take into account the additional challenges faced by special education students, especially those who are low-income students of color. Under IDEA, which was passed in 1975, school districts are required to provide free appropriate public education to children with disabilities in the least restrictive environment. Disabled children are legally entitled to free educational services that are tailored to their individual needs, from physical therapy to speech therapy to an in-class aide or assistant. But this one-to-one support simply cannot be provided at a distance. Home confinement, for example, limits certain kinds of professional contacts such as physical or occupational therapists. Read More

Proposed Bill Would Require Texas High School Students to Take a Mental Health Class

Alamo Heights student who took his life after being cyberbullied in 2016. David’s Law, which was named after David Molak, was passed into law in 2017 with the help of the District 26 senator. “What we learned during the passage of David’s Law is that many of the kids who were exposed to bullying, they didn’t know what to do or who to turn to,” Menéndez said. The three new bills drafted are: SB 405 would require students to take one mental health class in high school; SB 406 would require school board and trustee members to take a course on trauma-informed school care; SB 407 would ensure schools and school districts track bullying and cyberbullying incidents. Read More

JOB POSTINGS

* [2021-2022] Middle School Science Teacher - Through our commitment to rigorous academics, social-emotional learning, deep family and community engagement, and health and wellness, we create lifelong learners who are equipped to fulfill their vision of success in and out of the classroom. We dream big, as well, with an aggressive five-year plan to expand to serve 3,500 students across seven schools—growing our organization's impact and leveling the playing field for all children. To learn more - Click here

* SETSS (Special Education Teacher Support Services) Teacher - At Zeta, we pursue an unprecedented combination of high academic achievement and social-emotional development. We insist that every child receives a world-class education while fostering a love for learning. We are changing the public education landscape for all of New York City’s children, and we are uncompromising in our mission. To learn more - Click here

* Special Education Teacher - $60,000/school year (185 days), summers off with year-round pay and year round appreciation. Special Education Teachers needed in Arizona (Phoenix and surrounding cities). Needs are in the self-contained and resource settings serving students with emotional disabilities (ED), Autism (A), Severe/Profound (S/P), and Intellectual Disabilities (ID). STARS is the largest school contract agency in AZ. You will be an employee and receive full benefits. To learn more - Click here

* Special Education Director - 15,000 student school district is looking for special education leader. 27J Schools is one of the fastest growing school districts in Colorado and located in the North Denver Metro Area - 30 minutes from Denver and Boulder and adjacent to Denver International Airport. The Director of Special Education is responsible for the leadership, supervision, guidance and support for all school support staff providing services to students with disabilities across special populations, including preschool. To learn more - Click here

* Special Education Teachers - All areas - We are looking for highly motivated and skilled talent to join our team at District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). We seek individuals who are passionate about transforming the DC school system and making a signi?cant di?erence in the lives of public school students, parents, principals, teachers, and central o?ce employees. To learn more - Click here

If you are an Employer looking for excellent special education staff - Click here for more information

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Many lives are wasted by just waiting for something good to come from the horizon instead of going to the horizon and finding something good over there

Mehmet Murat ildan