Week in Review - January 8, 2021

Continuing_Ed


NASET

WEEK IN REVIEW

National Association of Special Education Teachers

January 8, 2021                 Vol 17 Issue #22



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 Autism Spectrum Disorder Series

Considerations in Social-Emotional Learning for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Review of the Literature


This issue of NASET’s Autism Spectrum Disorder series was written by Maria A. Silva, M.S.Ed., NBCT. Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit deficits in social and emotional development that can cause negative lasting effects into their adult lives if they do not receive proper interventions. Social-emotional learning (SEL) encompasses explicit instruction of appropriate social behaviors and how to participate in positive relationships. While most SEL interventions are provided to young children, studies have shown that adolescents with ASD benefit from social and emotional skills training. This review of the literature will address the critical need of SEL for adolescents with ASD, explore the current practices for SEL interventions, and discuss the benefits of collaboration between schools and families to support the social-emotional needs of adolescents with ASD.

Read More

 

 

A Pursuit of Better Testing to Sort Out the Complexities of ADHD

The introduction of computer simulation to the identification of symptoms in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has potential to provide an additional objective tool to gauge the presence and severity of behavioral problems, Ohio State University researchers suggest in a new publication. Most mental health disorders are diagnosed and treated based on clinical interviews and questionnaires -- and, for about a century, data from cognitive tests has been added to the diagnostic process to help clinicians learn more about how and why people behave in a certain way. Cognitive testing in ADHD is used to identify a variety of symptoms and deficits, including selective attention, poor working memory, altered time perception, difficulties in maintaining attention and impulsive behavior. In the most common class of performance tests, children are told to either press a computer key or avoid hitting a key when they see a certain word, symbol or other stimulus. Read More

District No Longer Secludes Students with Disabilities

A southwestern Indiana school district has agreed to stop secluding and restraining students with disabilities, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday. The agreement with the North Gibson School Corp. in Princeton follows the department's investigation into a complaint that the district inappropriately secluded and restrained students with emotional and behavioral disabilities as young as 5 years old in so-called self-contained classrooms. Self-contained classrooms were defined as those comprised only or primarily of students with disabilities where a special education teacher instructs all or nearly all academic subjects. They including “life skills” and “emotional disabilities” classrooms and similar classrooms in preschool, the agency said. Read More

New Sensory-Friendly Fitness Center Caters to Children with Disabilities

A new, 122,000-square-foot fitness center is up and running in Pendleton. However, it’s not the size of the Community Sports & Wellness Center that makes it one of a kind. It has programs dedicated to helping families who have children with disabilities. According to the Community Health Network fitness center’s team, the sensory-friendly facilities have been certified by Sensory City, a Boston-based nonprofit addressing the many common needs that people and families affected by autism spectrum disorder and sensory processing disorder. The facility is the first of its kind in Madison County, and staff members say there aren’t many like it in the Midwest. Katie Wangler, director of membership, and Cally Elkin, gymnastics director, talked about the facility on Thursday’s “All Indiana.” Read More

Clinical Criteria for Diagnosing Autism Inadequate for People with Genetic Conditions

People with certain genetic conditions are likely to have significant symptoms of autism, even if they do not meet all diagnostic criteria, a study concludes. Researchers at Cardiff University say their findings show clinical services need to adapt so that people diagnosed with autism-linked genetic conditions are not denied access to vital support and interventions. Published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, the international study analysed data from 547 people who had been diagnosed with one of four genetic conditions, also known as copy number variants (CNVs), associated with a high chance of autism - 22q11.2 deletion, 22q11.2 duplication, 16p11.2 deletion and 16p11.2 duplication. CNVs happen when a small section of a person's DNA is missing or duplicated. Certain CNVs have been linked to a range of health and developmental issues. They can be inherited but can also occur at random. Read More

Good Neighbor: Alternative Baseball Recruiting Players on the Spectrum

The Alternative Baseball Organization, a nonprofit league for teens and adults on the autism spectrum playing across the Southeast, is coming to the Tri-Cities and recruiting players, coaches, umpires and volunteers of all capacities for a late spring season start. The league was founded five years ago by Taylor Duncan, a 25 year-old Dallas, Georgia resident with autism who wrote to me a few days before Christmas to share some refreshing news. ABO is bringing its “authentic baseball experience” for teens and adults age 15 and older with autism and other disabilities to Northeast Tennessee in 2021. And best yet, the program is looking for a coach/manager, volunteers, and players to help get the ball rolling in Johnson City and the surrounding area. Read More

5 New Year’s Resolutions for People with Disabilities

Offering New Year’s resolutions is risky, especially when you’re giving advice to a group of people already drowning in advice, like the disability community. People with disabilities are constantly bombarded with advice all year, every year, mostly on how to solve problems we already know how to solve … or how to become, or at least appear to be, less disabled. Still, there are a few goals to choose from for people with disabilities interested in committing to some useful self-improvement in the new year. Here are five ideas to consider. Read More

 

 

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

Parents of Children with Disabilities Concerned with State's COVID-19 Vaccine Plan

North Carolina's revised COVID-19 vaccination plan is raising questions for some people. Parents of children with disabilities like Mike Wetzel are concerned their children are not higher on the list for receiving the vaccine. Adults with one chronic condition fall under Phase 2, but those under 18 are not mentioned. Wetzel said it is unclear if his step-daughter Kayla, who has Down syndrome, even qualifies for Phase 2 as an adult with a chronic condition. Read More

Is a Video Game the Key to Identifying ADHD in Kids? This Study Says Yes

A new study by researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM, in its Spanish acronym) say they have developed a video game that allows the identification and evaluation of the degree of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents.  The study was carried out in collaboration with a group of 32 children, between the ages of 8 and 16, diagnosed with ADHD by the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit in the Psychiatry Department at the Jiménez Díaz Foundation University Hospital. When the children took the test, they were observed by trained professionals, and caregivers filled out a behavior classification scale, which helps evaluate the severity of ADHD symptoms. Each test only takes seven minutes to complete. Read More

Mom Creates Children's Clothing Line to Raise Awareness for Autism

Running a business out of your own home while trying to raise three young children is a challenge, but one Tampa mom says she wouldn’t do it any other way. That’s because the business is specifically designed for her four-year-old daughter. “I feel like I’m a one-woman circus all the time but it’s a great feeling,” said Kait Scheele. For the past year Scheele has been running a children’s clothing line out of her Tampa home. It’s called Bowtism. “Our kids just love bows, they sleep in them every single day and they just can’t get enough of them,” said Scheele. Read More

Pandemic Takes a Toll on Students with Special Needs

Mrunal Patel hasn’t gone to school in person since March. He loves it. “But we did not love it,” says his mother, Dipti Patel. Her son, 14, has Down syndrome, and months of all-virtual learning because of COVID-19 have taken a toll on his education. His mother says he’s speaking less and is falling behind, despite taking classes five days a week online. His story is achingly familiar to many parents and teachers of children with special needs. While the pandemic has been difficult for families and educators of all school-age students, those with disabilities have been hit especially hard. “Families who have children with extra educational needs are struggling even more to meet their needs,” says Kari Jones, president and CEO of the Down Syndrome Association of Central Ohio. Read More

 

TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK

This Week's Trivia Question: 

At specific times, and for certain violations of the student code of conduct, IDEA’s discipline procedures require school systems to conduct what is known as a “manifestation determination review.” The purpose of this review is to determine whether or not the child’s behavior that led to the disciplinary infraction is linked to his or her disability. Under the federal law, IDEA, a manifestation determination must occur within how many days of any decision to change the child’s placement because of a violation of a code of student conduct?

If you know the answer to this week's trivia questions, email it to us at contactus@naset.org by January 11, 2021. If you are correct, you will be acknowledged in next week's NASET's Week in Review


US Government Wants to Make Rental Cars More Accessible for Those with Disabilities

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Monday proposed a new rule that should make mobility far more accessible to those living with disabilities, especially those using a wheelchair. The government agency will move to allow rental-car companies to install hand controls and equip vehicles with rear-mounted transporters for wheelchairs or scooters -- essential to so many American drivers. NHTSA said the rule would allow rental-car companies to bypass two important safety requirements of the typical automobile. Foremost, companies would be permitted to disable knee-bolster airbags found in many modern vehicles so they can install temporary hand controls. This would allow the hand controls to install safely without the fear of airbag deployment pushing the controls into the driver and increasing the risk of injury in the event of a crash. Read More

On the Pandemic’s Hidden Frontline, Children and Teens Struggle with the Mental Stress
While children and adolescents generally are spared physical harm from COVID-19, many are feeling deep mental stress because of school closures and the isolation brought on by the pandemic. In Raleigh, Jennifer Birch and Jessica Sparrow are working on this largely invisible frontline of the pandemic. Birch is a therapist specializing in children and adolescents. Sparrow is a Raleigh psychiatric nurse practitioner who prescribes drugs for children and adolescents struggling with anxiety and depression. The two often coordinate their work. Birch told me the number of children she counsels has doubled since March and “all of it is pandemic related.” Read More

Dyslexia Advocacy Group Forces Changes. Schools Ordered to Do More to Help Kids

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the Wake County school system have been ordered to make changes that advocates hope will improve services for children with dyslexia. DPI has found several districts, including Wake and Bladen counties and the agency itself, not to be in compliance with federal requirements for identifying children eligible for special-education services. DPI is requiring changes designed to reduce the roadblocks that may have kept some children from getting the help they need. The changes come after Literacy Moms N.C. filed 18 complaints against the state and individual school systems accusing them of not being in compliance with the Child Find provisions in the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Read More


JOB POSTINGS


* 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

* Educational Instructional Support Specialists - The Collaborative for Educational Services (CES) is seeking Educational Instructional Support Specialists to assist with onsite coordination of hybrid and/or remote teaching and learning. The Specialist will provide structure, onsite support and the connection to teachers as needed.  The Specialist's purpose is to make sure that students have what they need in order to actively, and successfully engage with their learning when done via remote instruction, or through a combination of in person and on-line (hybrid) programming. To learn more- Click here

* FT Special Education Teachers, (K-4, 5-8, 9-12) - PA Virtual has openings for Full Time Special Education Teachers at the Elementary, Middle and High School Levels. All teaching positions are remote and we require candidates to have a current, valid certification to teach in the state of Pennsylvania. The Teacher position is responsible for the planning, organization and implementation of an appropriate instructional program, in an elementary or secondary virtual learning environment. To learn more - Click here

* Special Education Teacher - A local school district in Charleston, SC has partnered with an industry leading healthcare job placement agency, to fill several vacant Special Education Teacher positions in Charleston, SC for the entire 2020-21 School Year. The Special Education Teacher is responsible for planning, coordinating and the provision of special education services to eligible students. This position assures adherence to timelines and federal and state requirements for special education services and the responsibility for monitoring compliance with Individualized Services Plans (ISP) and/or Individualized Education Plan (IEP). To learn more - Click here

* Special Education Teacher - Merakey is seeking a Special Education Teacher to join our Education Services within our Children's and Family division in our school in Chambersburg PA for the 2020-2021 school year. The Merakey Children's and Family Division focuses on a continuum of care throughout the lifespan. The core, fundamental principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) are incorporated into a specialized approach across all service offerings. To learn more - Click here

* Special Education (Autism) PreK-4  - General responsibilities indlude aiding each student consistent with his or her abilities and educational needs. Develop competence in the basic learning skills, progress on the basis of achievement, and to qualify for further education and/or employment. To learn more - Click here

* Virtual Special Education Teacher Positions - K12 believes in education for everyone. We provide families an online option for a high-quality, personalized education experience. Students can thrive, find their passion, and learn in an environment that encourages discovery at their own pace. In support of this, we are committed to creating and maintaining a culture of inclusion and diversity. 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. STARS is owned and operated by Occupational Therapists. You will be an employee and receive full benefits - To learn more - Click here

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


FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

Albert Einstein

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