Week in Review - January 22, 2021

Continuing_Ed


NASET

WEEK IN REVIEW

National Association of Special Education Teachers

January 22, 2021                 Vol 17 Issue #4



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,

 


WHATS NEW AT NASET

NASET’s Classroom Management series

Research and Interventions for Practitioners: Evidence-Based Best Practices

By Marissa Desiree Pardo

This issues of NASET’s Classroom Management series was written by Marissa Desiree Pardo. Since the creation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, students with disabilities have been legally provided access to appropriate education and related services free of cost to their parents. These supports are offered by their school to provide them with equal opportunities to succeed in an educational setting that is appropriate for them. With more opportunities than ever for a SWD to be able to succeed academically in school and acquire functional daily living skills, SWDs would be receiving everything they can possibly require to achieve success for their future. Unfortunately, there are many factors that make this goal difficult to reach. For students with behavioral disabilities, key issues that prevent teachers from providing the right supports include inadequate training, lack of collaboration between the school and families, the use of traditional disciplinary methods, immediately reacting to problem behavior without a plan, and lack of knowledge of available behavioral plans. Some successful interventions and practices for SWDs with pervasive behavioral challenges include a school-wide approach to discipline, the involvement of families in meaningful ways, the use of innovative prevention methods rather than traditional discipline methods, positive and negative reinforcement towards inappropriate student behavior, and the use of a positive behavior plan. For students with academic disabilities, key issues that prevent teachers from providing the right supports include a “one size fits all” method of teaching, a hesitancy to teach SWDs in a general education setting, a growing and diverse student population, a lack of training for teachers, and a lack of resources. Some successful interventions and practices for SWDs with pervasive academic challenges include differentiated instruction, a multi-tiered system of supports, a universal design for learning, a school-wide approach to academic supports, and the use of progress monitoring.

Read More

 

 

Millions of Americans with Intellectual Disabilities, at 'Particularly High Risk' for COVID-19, are Still Waiting for Vaccinations

Allen Lesser missed out on the trip he's taken to Florida every January for decades. Elise Kellman had to cut back on her work hours at Walgreens. Her best friend, Christine Buda, has to take her beloved art classes online instead of in person, and she hasn't been able to see her 87-year-old dad in nearly a year. All three miss being able to go out in the Manhattan neighborhood where they live together in a group home called Schafler House. "They are bored and want their life back," said Roseanne Giannotta, residential coordinator for Schafler and another program for medically fragile people with intellectual disabilities in New York City, both run by YAI, a service organization for people with these disabilities. Read More

One in Four Women with ADHD Attempts Suicide

Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD) have higher rates of suicide attempts than the general population, according to a study published online Dec. 21 in the Archives of Suicide Research. Esme Fuller-Thomson, Ph.D., from University of Toronto, and colleagues used data from the Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health to identify 21,744 adults (including 529 with ADHD). The researchers found that adults with ADHD were much more likely to have attempted suicide than those without ADHD (14 versus 2.7 percent). Among women, one in four with ADHD reported attempting suicide. When lifetime history of depression and anxiety disorders was taken into account, 60 percent of the association between ADHD and attempted suicide was attenuated. Independent correlates of lifetime suicide attempts among those with ADHD included female gender, lower education attainment, substance abuse, lifetime history of depression, and childhood exposure to chronic parental domestic violence. Read More

US Department of Education Investigating Indiana's Special Education Services During COVID

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating the Indiana Department of Education over what it called, in a letter sent Tuesday to Education Secretary Katie Jenner, “disturbing reports” that the state denied students with disabilities equal access to education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under federal law, schools are required to provide a "free appropriate public education" to each qualified student with a disability. In its letter, OCR said it was concerned that Indiana had failed to do so and was “particularly troubled” by reports that parents of disabled students in Indiana schools have filed multiple complaints with IDOE alleging that students were forced by local school districts into “one size fits all” remote learning programs, instead of individualized programs designed to meet the need laid out in their Individualized Education Plans or 504 Plans. Qualifying students with disabilities are guaranteed services, spelled out in their IEP or 504 Plan, to meet their unique needs and ensure they have equal access to a free public education. Read More

Parents Say Children with Special Needs are Struggling with Online-Only Format

Los Angeles Unified School District students went back to school for the start of the spring semester this week, but some parents of children with special needs say their children are struggling with the online-only format.Silvia Baker, a single working mom of two LAUSD students, is one of those parents. She has two daughters in high school, one of whom has Rett syndrome and epilepsy. “She needs 100% assistance in every aspect of her life,” Baker said of her 14-year-old daughter Olivia. Baker said that while both of her daughters are learning remotely due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Olivia was really struggling. “There’s no connection for her,” she said. “She sees her teacher, but there’s no real connection.” Read More

Repeat DNA Expands Our Understanding of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Approximately half of the human genome, known as the repeatome, consists of repetitive DNA sequences. The repeatome includes more than one million tandem repeats — sections of DNA in which a sequence is replicated many times in tandem — whose biology remains largely unexplored. More than 50 diseases are known to be caused by expansion of a tandem-repeat sequence in a single gene; among them are Huntington’s disease and fragile X syndrome. But less-well understood is the role of tandem repeats in polygenic diseases, which have more-complex genetic underpinnings. Read More.

 

NASET ADVOCACY - Board Certification for Advocacy in Special Education (BCASE)

Mothers of Children with Autism Found to have Significantly Different Metabolite Levels

Blood sample analysis showed that, two to five years after they gave birth, mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) had several significantly different metabolite levels compared to mothers of typically developing children. That's according to new research recently published in BMC Pediatrics by a multidisciplinary team from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Arizona State University, and the Mayo Clinic. Researchers analyzed blood samples from 30 mothers whose young children had been diagnosed with ASD and 29 mothers of typically developing children. At the time that the samples were taken, the women's children were between 2 and 5 years old. The team found differences in several metabolite levels between the two groups of mothers. Read More

Schools Team Up on Robotics So Every Student Gets a Chance

They share a campus, and now they share a robotics team. At the beginning of this year, All Nations Community School and Journey School for the Uniquely Gifted and Talented in Oak Ridge North decided to combine students onto one robotics team to learn and grow together. All Nations Community School is a Christian private school with a bi-lingual Spanish and English program for students pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. Robotics has been an integral part of the school’s focus since the fall of 2019. Journey School opened in 2019 and serves students ages 3 to 21 with learning and developmental disabilities. Read More

While Awaiting a Vaccine and Debating Reopening, District Responses to Medical Accommodations for At-Risk Teachers Vary Wildly Across the Country

Longtime clerk Deanna Myron didn’t anticipate celebrating her 21st work anniversary with Curie Metropolitan High School on Chicago’s Southwest Side this way — remotely, and with an appearance on a union Zoom call talking about staff being denied medical accommodations during the pandemic. But Myron, the daughter of a school clerk who remembers walking Curie’s halls herself as a student, felt she had little choice: her fiance has liver cancer, and her district had turned down her request for full-time remote work accommodations during COVID-19. Since getting that answer in September, Myron has used up all of her sick time and vacation days, and has been juggling spreadsheets from her home workstation five days a week while getting paid for just three days because she refuses to return to school. Read More

Autism May Raise Risk for Substance Use Disorder

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have an increased risk for substance use disorder (SUD), according to a study published online Jan. 4 in JAMA Pediatrics. Jing-Syuan Huang, M.D., from the National Defense Medical Center in Taipei, Taiwan, and colleagues examined the risk for SUD in patients with ASD and its associations with comorbidities, psychotropic agents (PAs), and mortality in a retrospective cohort study of participants from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. Overall, 6,599 individuals with ASD (mean age, 11.9 years) and 26,396 controls (mean age, 12.1 years) were enrolled. Read More

 

TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Congratulations to: Jessie Olberding, Karen Frantz-Fry, Helma Wardenaar, Diane Campbell-Mitchell, Mariola Papa, Brenda Glover, Olumide Akerele, Tracey Christilles, Patsy Ray, Laurie D'Amico, Cindi Maurice, Stephanie Jenkins, and Cherree Davis who all knew the answer to last week's trivia question:?

John Dalton, a chemist, physicist, and meteorologist was best known for introducing the atomic theory into chemistry. He was also the first scientist to address a type of visual impairment yet to be discussed in the literature. In 1794, what visual impairment did John Dalton describe after realizing he had this specific visual impairment? (Note: His research on this field is sometimes referred to as “Daltonism”)

Answer: COLOR BLINDNESS

This Week's Trivia Question: In 1953, Canadian inventor George Klein, an engineer and designer at the National Research Council of Canada, developed what significant mobility device in the field of disability research and assistive technology--What did George Klein invent?

If you know the answer to this week's trivia questions, email it to us at contactus@naset.org by January 25, 2021. If you are correct, you will be acknowledged in next week's NASET's Week in Review


When it Comes to Special Education, What’s Working and What Isn’t?

Since the pandemic upended New York City’s public school system in March, thousands of students have not received legally mandated special education services like counseling, physical therapy and learning accommodations. THE CITY and Chalkbeat New York have reported on many of the challenges parents and teachers are experiencing as they try to navigate a school system that’s reached a new level of crisis. Our coverage has been driven by hearing from many of the parents, teachers, administrators and advocates working within this system as best they can. We want to better understand not just the issues, but how the community is dealing with unprecedented challenges. Read More

Sperm Samples May Help Predict Autism Risk in Offspring

Biomarkers in sperm may help identify men at risk of fathering children with autism, researchers say. For the study, investigators examined sperm epigenetics -- the molecular processes that affect gene expression -- in 13 men who fathered sons with autism and 13 who had children without the disorder. The American and Spanish researchers focused specifically on DNA methylation, a chemical modification that can turn genes on or off. "We can now potentially use this to assess whether a man is going to pass autism on to his children," said study co-author Michael Skinner, professor of biological sciences at Washington State University, in Pullman, Wash. Read More

Lead Poisoning of Children

Decades after the industrialized world largely eliminated lead poisoning in children, the potent neurotoxin still lurks in one in three children globally. A new study in Bangladesh by researchers at Stanford University and other institutions finds that a relatively affordable remediation process can almost entirely remove lead left behind by unregulated battery recycling -- an industry responsible for much of the lead soil contamination in poor and middle-income countries -- and raises troubling questions about how to effectively eliminate the poison from children's bodies. "Once the lead is in the environment, it stays there pretty much indefinitely without remediation," said study lead author Jenna Forsyth, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. "Ultimately, we want to work toward a world in which battery recycling is done safely, and lead never makes it into the soil or people's bodies in the first place." Read More

Want Students to Master Literary Analysis? Try Starting with a Vocabulary Lesson 

I remember my first experience teaching analysis to high schoolers. After briefly explaining how analysis differed from summary, I asked my students to analyze the carousel scene at the end of The Catcher in the Rye. While they took several minutes to read over their annotations, I eagerly waited for their brilliant discussion of this poignant moment, knowing that I’d hear at least one student make the connection between Holden’s fixation with the carousel and his fear of growing up; perhaps one student might even cleverly conclude that the carousel, in its predictable and circular movement, offers Holden an escape from the linear inevitability of life. Read More

Food Insufficiency During COVID-19 Pandemic Increases Depression and Anxiety Symptoms

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all of us in some way or another, but it hit harder on some people. While many families lost their loved ones to the disease, others lost their jobs and savings, and some were left homeless and starving. According to a US study, food insufficiency increased by 25 per cent during the pandemic and it worsen the mental health of many Americans. Those who did not have enough to eat reported experiencing more depressive and anxiety symptoms, a per the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Read More

Special Education Amid Pandemic Poses Challenges for Schools

When DeKalb County School District transitioned to virtual learning due to the coronavirus, Philip Woody took a sabbatical to support his special needs son. Evan Woody, 21, survived a brain injury as a toddler. It left him nonverbal with the mental equivalency of a 3-year-old. His parents, Philip and Lisa, perform his tasks of everyday life, from showering to dressing. And this year, they took an even more active role with Evan’s education since DeKalb schools have been all virtual. The format has presented challenges for students of all kinds, but particularly those with special needs. Read More

 

 


JOB POSTINGS


* 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

* Teacher - JHU is looking for an energetic, flexible, and motivated teacher needed to work full-time with a young adult with autism. Teachers work on a multi-disciplinary team with specialists in autism, special education, speech-language pathology, fitness, art, and behavior analysis to address communication, academic, daily living, vocational, and leisure skills in home, educational, and community settings in and around New York City, Connecticut, and via Zoom. To learn more - Click here

* Assistant Professor; Collaborative Special Ed - The University of North Alabama invites applications for the position of tenure-track, Assistant Professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, & Leadership. Qualifications include: an earned doctorate in special education; a minimum of three years of successful public school experience with students who have either mild, moderate, or severe disabilities in grades K-6, 6-12, or K-12; demonstrated university teaching experience to teach undergraduate courses required for a dual K-6 certification in elementary and special education, along with online graduate courses; excellent verbal and writing skills; the ability to advise teacher education candidates; and the ability to work with P-12 students as well as P-12 schools and administrators. To learn more - Click here

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


FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The more you care, the stronger you can be.

Jim Rohn

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