Learn Your Special Education Laws, Special Education Rights, and Share IEP Goal Ideas

What are the learning pathways?  Research tells us that learners absorb new information through the primary sensory visual, auditory, kinesthetic-tactile (VAKT) [1] pathways, and these entrances must be in working order.  They also should optimally function together, or integrate. One or two pathways may be stronger than the others, and can compete with the weaker ones, creating an out-of-sync learning input structure. Visual processing speed may be faster than a lagging auditory (listening) processing speed, creating a conflict between the two. [2] Without auditory-visual integration, [3] the result is a “slow, inattentive learner” although the student is highly intelligent. [4] Read the rest of this entry →

Just what is the goal for spelling words?

Getting 100% on a test??? Read the rest of this entry →

A General Education Teacher recently told me her principal told her not to refer any students to the Resource Teacher because it’s not going to do any good….which means this person is ineffective and should not be working with Special Needs Students.  Unfortunately, it happens all the time in School Districts across the United States.  Special Needs Students are not receiving a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) because schools are not staffed appropriately.  Read the rest of this entry →

Learning to read in English would be such a simple task if all similar-sounding phonemes were spelled the same.  They aren’t.  English is such an unfair language with so many iniquitous rules!  Read the rest of this entry →

Many of the students I work with have ADD or ADHD (often referred to simply as ADHD), and I often hear from parents that they are concerned about making the decision to give their child medication. A parent recently asked me for my opinion of medicating kids with ADD and ADHD.  Read the rest of this entry →

Reading isn’t easy for everyone.  In fact, it can be hard work!  Did you know that without proper interventions, 74% of the children who are poor readers in 3^rd grade remain poor readers in the 9^th grade? Read the rest of this entry →

On October 8, 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the $133 million dollars that was supposed to reimburse county mental health facilities for providing services to special needs children.  He also suspended AB 3632, which stated that county mental health facilities were to provide services for special education students.  As a result of this, the State of California will no longer be required to provide mental health services for these children. School districts will now be responsible for paying for mental health services, so long as they are identified in an IEP.  My question is….how could this happen? Read the rest of this entry →

Your 15 year old child with a disability has just announced to you that he or she would like to go to college. You’ve heard that young adults with disabilities are attending college more than ever, but before you run head long into the ivory tower, there are some things you need to do. Read the rest of this entry →

Under 34 CFR §300.503(a), the school district must give you a written notice (information received in writing), whenever the school district: Read the rest of this entry →

A recent Wall Street Journal article, “How Handwriting Trains the Brain” [1] could conversely be stated that “Brain Training Changes Handwriting.” Technically speaking, increased and retrained brain activity can transform handwriting following twenty hours of intensive multi-sensory integration instruction.   Read the rest of this entry →