Students With Disabilities – Creating Collaborative Partnerships – Tips For Schools (Part 2 of 3)

admin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 07:52:37 +0000

More than 6 million students receive exceptional student education services, according to the U.S. Department of Education. In 2004, the Office of Special Education Programs found that students with specific learning disabilities accounted for almost half (47.4%) of all students with disabilities, which was roughly 2.9 million students being served (U.S. Department of Education, 2004). Students with disabilities drop out of high school at about twice the rate of general education students (Thurlow, Sinclair, and Johnson, 2002). They are also less likely to go back and earn their high school diploma as compared to their counterparts without disabilities. School administrators and personnel are encouraged to create collaborative partnerships with parents and after-school programs to improve outcomes for these students. Recommendations for schools are provided in this 3-part series entitled “Students with Disabilities: Creating Collaborative Partnership.”

Tips for Schools

1. Minimize language barriers for parents and students by providing translators and translating necessary paperwork.

2. Hold a special orientation day for parents with students with disabilities before the

start of school.

3. Introduce key staff to parents and students and their respective job duties as they related to facilitating ESE services.

4. Include disability resources in the school’s student handbook. If there is not a
school specific handbook, provide parents with a packet listing relevant resources available at the school, in the community, and on the internet.

5. Support or provide general education teachers with training and support relevant to providing instructional services to students with disabilities.

6. Invite guest speakers to participate in PTA or parent meetings to educate parents about their child’s disability and/or available resources.

7. Encourage and stress the importance to parents regarding their participation in their child’s IEP meetings.

8. Encourage and allow parents to bring advocates to their child’s IEP meetings.

9. Don’t talk down or over parents. Instead of speaking in acronyms or technical language, try to speak in a way that facilitates parent understanding of the educational process.

10. Make sure parents understand the process, timeline and consequences of all decisions made regarding their child’s education.

11. Encourage parents to have their child to participate in either on or off-site
after-school programs.

12. Include a listing of local after-school programs in introductory packets sent out to parents during the first few weeks of school.

13. Network with community providers to create collaborative partnerships.

14. Invite community providers to speak with appropriate staff regarding their services to connect students with available community programs and services.

15. Collaborate with afterschool programs to reinforce instructional learning.

Resources:

Learning Disability Association of America (LDA)
4156 Library Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15234
http://www.ldaamerica.org/

National Information Center for Children and Youth with Disabilities (NICHCY)
PO Box 1492
Washington, DC 20013
http://www.kidsource.com/NICHCY/

By: Felecia Sheffield PhD

Special Education Teachers

admin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:36:12 +0000

Special education can be defined as specially configured instructions and other education-related services to meet the educational, social, emotional, and vocational needs of students with disabilities. Special education teachers educate students who have various types of disabilities, including speech or language impairments, mental retardation, emotional distress, hearing impairments, orthopedic impairments, multiple disabilities, specific learning disabilities, visual impairments, autism, combined blindness and deafness, traumatic brain injury, and other health impairments. A special educator has to work with students of all ages from infants and toddlers, students in elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as youths. The special educator’s job also involves working with a team of professionals, i.e., doctors, speech pathologists, social workers, orthopedists, psychiatrists, counselors, etc. The teaching methods and techniques in special education would vary based on the disability and it would also vary from individual to individual.

The teaching methods include individual instructions, problem-solving techniques, group work, and special assignments depending upon the needs of the individual. They can also develop individual educational programs for each student to help with the child’s activities of daily living. As technology plays an important role in special education, a teacher is expected to instruct the students and their parents on the latest instrumentations and its usage in disability, as the case maybe. For instance, interactive software and computers that talk are now available in the market, which would be of great help for students with speech impairments. It requires a lot of enthusiasm, optimism, patience, tolerance, and perseverance for one to be a special education teacher as the job involves a lot of interaction with students of all age groups and with other people.

In the United States, all states demand special education teachers to be licensed. The special education teacher has to complete of a teacher’s training program and must have a Bachelor’s degree or a Master’s degree. As they deal with students with mild to profound disabilities, their job demands specialization in either one or other areas of disability, which would enable the teachers to develop their own curriculum materials and teaching techniques to meet the needs of the students.

By: Ken Marlborough

Special Education » Specific Learning Disabilities

Students With Disabilities – Creating Collaborative Partnerships – Tips For Schools (Part 2 of 3)

Special Education Teachers