If a district has determined that a student will take a Locally Developed Alternate Assessment (LDAA) for science, why does a new Individualized Education Program (IEP) have to be written? Why can’t the current IEP be used since it contains the entire ARD information about that individual student, including all modifications currently being used by the regular ed. teacher?
According to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, Margaret Spellings, in most cases, a new plan does not have to be written. You can amend an existing IEP, as long as the IEP team agrees and unless there is a State law mandating that a new one be written. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) law requires that a student’s individualized education program team meet at least annually to evaluate the progress of the student and determine if a change in services is needed. The IEP team should take the lead in making the decisions about which assessments students will have to take. Good luck in your important work.
I was recently hired to teach at a special education preschool and one of my students has been diagnosed with Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. Can you provide me with some information about this disorder?
Childhood disintegrative disorder is a condition occurring in 3- and 4-year-olds who have developed normally to age 2. Over several months, a child with this disorder will deteriorate in intellectual, social, and language functioning from previously normal behavior (U.S. National Library of Medicine 2004b).
Childhood disintegrative disorder develops in children who have previously seemed perfectly normal. Typically language, interest in the social environment, and often toileting and self-care abilities are lost, and there may be a general loss of interest in the environment. The child usually comes to look very ‘autistic’, i.e., the clinical presentation (but not the history) is then typical of a child with ASD (Yale Developmental Disabilities Clinic, 2006). An affected child shows a loss of communication skills, has regression in nonverbal behaviors, and significant loss of previously-acquired skills. The condition is very similar to classic autism.
Symptoms of Childhood Disintegrative Disorder may include (U.S. National Library of Medicine 2004b):
- Loss of social skills
- Loss of bowel and bladder control
- Loss of expressive or receptive language
- Loss of motor skills
- Lack of play
- Failure to develop peer relationships
- Impairment in nonverbal behaviors
- Delay or lack of spoken language
- Inability to start or sustain a conversation
Childhood Disintegrative Disorder must be differentiated from both childhood schizophrenia and pervasive developmental disorder (PDD). The most important signs of childhood disintegrative disorder are loss of developmental milestones (U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2004b). The child tends to have normal development through age 3 to 4 and then over a few months undergoes a gradual loss of previously established abilities listed above in Diagnostic Symptoms (e.g., language, motor, or social skills).
The cause is unknown, but it has been linked to neurological problems (Yale Developmental Disabilities Clinic, 2006).
Is DIR (Floor-time) an effective approach to teaching children with autism spectrum disorder?
A frequently promoted approach to working with children with autism is DIR (Developmental, Individual Differences, Relationship-based therapy or Floor-time) developed in the early 1980s by Stanley Greenspan and Serena Weider. DIR is a developmentally-based intervention that is based upon the premise that early learning grows out of the intimate relationships with caregivers. The strategy involves starting where the child is at developmentally and building up skills by promoting and elaborating on communication interactions between the child and caregiver. The caregiver follows the lead of the child in a play situation and gradually encourages longer and more complex interactions.
Support for this model of intervention is based on testimonials and a chart review of 200 children completed retrospectively by Greenspan and Weider (1997). They found that 58% of the children were deemed to have very good outcomes including purposeful organized problem solving interactions; increased trust and intimate connections with parents; displaying more pleasurable affect; and heightened capacity for abstract thinking. The research for DIR is not based upon experimental design, but was a retrospective chart review published in a non-peer-reviewed journal founded by the authors. A recent study on the use of a developmental, social-pragmatic language intervention, which incorporated many of the components of DIR, showed an increase in spontaneous language for 2 of 3 young children with ASD (Ingersoll, 2005). This was a well designed study which provides some preliminary support for this intervention to increase language. Additional research is needed to verify the effectiveness of this approach.
In our school, administrators want us to evaluate our students using norm referenced tests and criterion referenced tests. What’s the difference?
Norm-referenced tests are those tests that are standardized on groups of individuals and that measure a student’s performance relative to the performance of a group with similar characteristics. District, state, or national offices usually administer norm-referenced tests. Criterion-referenced tests measure a student’s achievement or development relative to a specific standard. Such tests are especially useful for planning instruction or for measuring curriculum content mastery because they can correspond closely to curriculum content and classroom instruction. The classroom teacher generally selects or develops, as well as administers, criterion referenced tests.
What has the research told us about food additives and sugar for students with ADHD?
It has been suggested that attention disorders are caused by refined sugar or food additives, or that symptoms of ADHD are exacerbated by sugar or food additives. In 1982, the National Institutes of Health held a scientific consensus conference to discuss this issue. It was found that diet restrictions helped about 5 percent of children with ADHD, mostly young children who had food allergies. A more recent study on the effect of sugar on children, using sugar one day and a sugar substitute on alternate days, without parents, staff, or children knowing which substance was being used, showed no significant effects of the sugar on behavior or learning.
In another study, children whose mothers felt they were sugar-sensitive were given aspartame as a substitute for sugar. Half the mothers were told their children were given sugar, half that their children were given aspartame. The mothers who thought their children had received sugar rated them as more hyperactive than the other children and were more critical of their behavior.
Can anyone represent parents at an IEP meeting?
A parent or guardian of a student with disabilities must be invited to attend all IEP meetings. If the student is a ward of the state, or parents or guardians cannot be located, the district must appoint a surrogate parent. If the student is a ward of the state, the student’s parents must be given the opportunity to participate in the IEP meetings unless the parents’ right to oversee the education of their child has been severed by the courts. Parents of a student who is a ward of the state may not sign as guardian. In this case, the district-appointed surrogate parent must be invited to the IEP meetings.
If a student with a disability is in a substantially separate program or does not have a general education teacher, must a general education teacher attend the student’s IEP team meeting?
Yes, a general education teacher should participate as a member of the IEP team for a student with a disability who is in a substantially separate program. General education teachers are particularly familiar with the general education curriculum. Their presence helps ensure that the IEP team will consider the student’s opportunity to be involved with and progress in the general curriculum. The general education teacher can provide valuable information on the specific curriculum areas to be addressed as well as modifications and accommodations that could be made for the student.
What has been the fastest growing category of special education in the past 30 years?
According to the 26th Annual Report (U.S. Department of Education, 2004), 2,816,361 students between the ages of 6 to 21 years of age were identified as having specific learning disabilities. This represents approximately 47 percent of all students having a classification in special education, or about 5.0% of all school-age students.
There are many conflicting reports on the actual number of individuals with specific learning disabilities. Since 1976-1977, when the federal government first started keeping prevalence figures, the size of the specific learning disability category has more than doubled (Hallahan & Kauffman, 2006), with the number of number of students identified as having a specific learning disability has grown by over 250 percent, from approximately 800,000 students to almost three million (U.S. Department of Education,
2004).
Learning disabilities has also been the fastest growing category of special education since the federal law was first passed in 1975. Furthermore, the number of students with learning disabilities has increased almost 30% in the past nine years, a rate of growth much greater than the overall rate of growth for the number of students in school (Friend, 2005).
Does a School District’s Child Find Obligations Change within RTI Systems?
According to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, Margaret Spellings, implementing a RTI system does not alter a school district’s obligations to identify students with disabilities (child find). Parents, teachers, or anyone else can initiate a referral at any time. Schools need to ensure that staff is trained to refer students who may require special education services no matter their tier level. This means that students do not need to advance through the multi-tiered system as a condition before a referral is made. In certain circumstances, a student may have progressed through the multiple tiers without any success (e.g., at least two Tier III interventions have been unsuccessful). In this situation, a disability should be suspected and a referral must be made. District personnel should be aware that a parent or any one else has the right to make a special education referral even for students who have not yet demonstrated a lack of responsiveness to an intervention. A district or school may continue RTI interventions if they have already been initiated while processing the referral and determining whether or not the student is a candidate for special education evaluation within required timelines.
