Special Education Law Blog

NEA Guidelines For Teaching Children with Autism

NEA is one of the primary national teacher's unions. On many issues the NEA takes positions that are adverse to the interests of special education students particularly regarding behavioral protections.  Recently, however, the NEA has come out with guidelines and an overview for working with children with autism.[ Download NEA Autism Guidelines.pdf ] While it is by no means as authoritative as other texts, the fact that the NEA has officially endorsed these guidelines has an undeniable authority that schools would be hard pressed to dismiss.

A Different Perspective on the Jason McElwain Story

I am sure many of you have heard the inspirational and heart-warming story of Jason McElwain, the basketball player with autism, who was brought in for the last minutes of the game and scored the winning points having previously never played.  On a personal level, I was very happy for this young man, but I still had many uneasy feeling about the media coverage.  In my experience media coverage of  people with disabilities seems to come in two flavors--either the individual with a disability (e.g. special education) is draining the public coffers for no good end or otherwise victimizing society or an institution, or the good people of the community have extended their largess for some  "truly deserving" person with a disability. The variant on this latter theme is the Jason McElwain story.  A person with a disability has amazed us with the fact that he or she in fact has abilities which are primarily newsworthy because of the the fact of being disabled.  I had not been able to capture the full range of my feelings about the media coverage of the Jason McElwain story, until I saw the following story by Kathie Snow in Disability is Natural Press which I think hits the mark.

Behavior Intervention Out of Control

In a rural school district in Harvard, Illinois a substitute teacher was arrested for using masking tape to bind  the arms, legs and mouths  of two students with special needs.  The teacher's first explanation was that he did it as a means of  discipline, but then claimed he was joking.  The only one really out of control in this situation was the teacher. Criminal charges are pending.

Baltimore School Officials Failing To Deliver Ordered Services For Special Education Students

In the movie "Its a Wonderful Life" at its climatic moment Jimmy Stewart says to his hapless uncle "Do you know what this means ? Bankruptcy, scandal and jail." In Baltimore school officials may be saying the same to themselves.  Court ordered compensatory services have woefully not been implemented; of 90,000 hours of service ordered less than 4,000 have been provided.  While the school officials are short on services there is no shortage of excuses and finger pointing among the politicians and school administration. Contempt of court orders are possible with penalties to include jail time. 

American Sign Language Lexicon Available Online

Key phrases in American Sign Language ("ASL")  are now available for free on online with video illustrations.  This program is known as the ASL Browser.  There is also a more comprehensive CD-ROM for sale at the site. This site represents a wonderful resource to support inclusion for deaf children and other children who use sign for communication as part of a Total Communication System.  For some students it will be a nice introduction to ASL, as they consider a career in deaf education. For me the most delightful benefit of this site is that it enables typical peers to better communicate both expressively and receptively with their classmates with disabilities who use ASL.  Vibrant communicative opportunities supports real inclusion and an appropriate education.

The Inclusive Class Grows All Around by Lori Miller Fox

Inclusion is more than an accessible desk or a name heard in role call.  It’s more than  a law, it’s more than the right thing, and when it’s done well, it can be beautiful.

Read Your IEP Backwards

As any avid reader of the sports section of a tabloid-style newspaper knows, the way to read the paper is to start at the back and work forwards.  IEPs should be given similar back to front attention.

Parents Fighting to Decline Services

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in a very strange case that parents may decline IDEA services. In  Fitzgerald v. Camdenton R-III School District [ Download Fitzgerald waiver case.pdf ],  the school district determined that a child needed a case study evaluation on the belief that the child required special education services.  The parents expressly declined services, refused consent, began home- schooling the child and privately provided special education services.

Remarkably, the school district sued to compel consent. The due process hearing officer and the district court ordered that the evaluation should go forward as soon as possible. The parents appealed to the 8th Circuit which ruled:

"Congress intends that a district may not force an evaluation under the circumstances in this case. Where a home-schooled child's parents refuse consent, privately educate the child and expressly waive all benefits under IDEA, an evaluation would have no purpose."

New Data Collection System Benefits Children With ASD, Sensory Issues, and Behaviors

Good qualtity data collection to address a child's behaviors in school is one of the most stubborn issues that I confront. Often no data is collected, data is collected in a format that is not useful (e.g. simple hash marks with no context), or it is not generated across settings and disciplines. In the event that it is initially created in a useful format  and all the other issues are also addressed  (not a frequent  occurrance), the data is rarely updated to determine the effectiveness of  the plan whether a BIP or a sensory diet. 

Mary Block, who is a school and clincially-based occupational therapist (see brief biography below),  has designed an elegant online solution to these issues of data collection and updating data for FBAs, BIPs and sensory plans.  The product is entitled Student Occupational Time Line which is trademarked under the acronym of SOTL. This product is designed expressly (but not exclusively) for the school setting.

SOTL allows data input from multiple informants, across settings and over time.  It takes much of the drudge and effort out of the process of data collection, and also allows for tabulation and analysis all to the benefit of the child and the staff working with him or her.  [The continuation of this post with the exception of the concluding paragraph was written by Mary Block.]

High Stakes Testing Awry Again

In the last two days there have been two major stories of problems with high stakes testing.