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

This is a common refrain at our house – sound familiar?

“Son, you look like you’ve lost focus. What do you need to do to get back on task?”

Wouldn’t it be great if your son’s behavior management was his responsibility, not yours?

Recently, my sons answer made me laugh with pride, “I need a motivator!” he said with a huge smile on his face. He quickly created an incentive for himself (something to do with ice-cream I think) and finished his homework in record speed.

Motivation is a powerful tool for behavior management. We know that the ADHD brain needs to be motivated in order to maintain focus. It is powerful when our kids begin to understand the concept and create tools to help themselves. Read the rest of this entry →

“You need to calm down.”

This is something I hear a lot in my work as a behavior specialist when a student starts to get agitated– answering rudely, refusing to work, making insulting comments or whining. A teacher might tell a child to “go sit in the beanbag chair and calm down” or simply “relax.”

The problem is, many students don’t know how to calm down. This is especially true for children who display chronic agitation or defiance. Read the rest of this entry →

When professionals develop ABA intervention programs for students with ASD and other disabilities, they use many different approaches when selecting goals.  Some use criterion-referenced assessment tools such as the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills- Revised (The ABLLS-R) or The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP) to set intervention goals.  Others use informal assessment procedures such as interviews with students, caregivers, and teachers, checklists, and informal observations to set goals for ABA interventions.  What professionals do not typically use nearly enough are ecological assessments to set goals for ABA interventions. Read the rest of this entry →

I attended an IEP this week where the discussion focused mainly on the student’s off task behavior; there are a variety of reasons why a student will exhibit this behavior.  The difficulty is identifying the exact reasons why or what triggered the off task behavior.  I think we as parents and educators of children with special needs must keep in mind that in order to determine the cause of off task behavior, we must acknowledge all the areas of need first.  Most children with special needs have multiple disabilities, so it’s imperative to look at each area as a possible trigger for off task behavior.  Read the rest of this entry →

When I was in elementary school, I had a bit of a tough time of it.  From first to third grade I spent an inordinate amount of time in the principal’s office, the punitive measure of choice at my elementary school.  Every paper thrown, inappropriate comment bellowed and t-shirt removed during a reading lesson (I won’t get into this) evoked the same response from my teachers:

“Go to the principal’s office.” Read the rest of this entry →

Typically developing people can take in all sensory input (i.e.: visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, etc) and regulate their sensory systems to remain at a state of homeostasis (i.e.: sensory integration). However, people with Autism do not have the same ability. It has been described by people that are on the Autism Spectrum (e.g.: Temple Grandin) as an experience that leads them to seek out sensory input that allows them to regulate their behavior (i.e.: sensory seeking-squeezing themselves into small places, stereotypic behavior-hand flapping, toe walking, visual “stimming” [self-stimulation], etc.). Read the rest of this entry →

The following is a list of the most viewed special education advisor guest articles from 2012. Thank you to all of the guest authors that have submitted articles to Special Education Advisor in 2012. The quality of articles and their content has been outstanding and we really appreciate every single submission. Without your submissions we would not be able to fulfill our mission to families with children who have special education needs. Enjoy the list: Read the rest of this entry →

Two questions underscore important points related to kids with special needs.

To understand that statement, answer each of the following questions: What color are road stop signs?  What color are yield signs?

If you answered “red” for stop signs, you were correct. Yet if you’re like the overwhelming majority who say yield signs are yellow, then you were wrong.

Yield signs have not been yellow since 1971. Truly. For more than 40 years, yield signs are red and white.

So, how is it possible people still think yield signs are yellow, and what does that have to do with special needs kids?

Well, we think yield signs are yellow for one of two reasons.  If you’re someone who drove in the ’60s—when they actually were yellow—then your brain never updated the information, even though you’ve passed thousands of red and white yield signs for decades.

In short, our brain doesn’t automatically renew and revise circuits. Instead, we have to consciously update our brain when new information comes our way.

If you thought yield signs were yellow—even though they’ve been red since you’ve been alive—then incorrect information was imprinted on your brain.  How could that happen?

Easy. The brain doesn’t have an automatic fact checker. For example, Google “clip art for yield signs” and we’ll find lots of yellow ones. We’ll also find red and white ones. Read the rest of this entry →

Recently, I’ve  been putting together a shaving program for an adolescent learner I work with. When creating a program for adaptive behaviors, I use Task Analysis to identify the steps needed to complete the targeted skill.

Task analysis “involves breaking a complex skill into smaller, teachable units, the product of which is a series of sequentially ordered steps or tasks” (Cooper, Heron & Heward p. 437).

Task analysis is helpful in determining the “sequence of behaviors that are necessary and sufficient to complete a given task efficiently.” (p. 437).

Additionally, task analysis allows a teacher to identify steps needed to complete a complex skill that are “individualized according to the age, skill level, and prior experience of the person in question” (p. 437).

A cooking recipe is a common example of task analysis.  Each step needed to create a dish is specified in sequential order; if we follow the steps, we create an edible dish (well we should be able to.  Remind me to tell you about my falafel debacle some time.  What a mess that was). Read the rest of this entry →

It has been well documented in the literature that individuals with ASD have impairments with what it called “theory of mind.”  Basically, theory of mind refers to the ability to take the perspective of other people, or to see things from the point of view of someone else.  Some refer to the difficulties with theory of mind in people with ASD as “mind blindness.”  I find that to be quite a harsh description of individuals who have amazing minds and much to offer the world.  I’m not going to discount the fact that many people with ASD do have difficulty understanding the perspective of other people.  But what I am going to point out is this:  so do a lot of people who don’t have autism.  Let’s not deny that many people in this world spend the majority of their time thinking from their own perspective and have great difficulty seeing things from the perspective of others.  It may be true that people with ASD have more difficulty with perspective taking than individuals without ASD, but they are not a rare species of humans who are the only people who have difficulty with theory of mind.  Read the rest of this entry →