Greer Gazette
Special Populations
October Issue
Nuts and Bolts and Reminders
Thank you for participating in our first CLASS Meeting. We have had a lot of positive feedback about the meetings and some suggestions of how we might improve our next one this month. We are taking all the feedback into consideration and plan on having a short pause between each agenda topic to give participants time to ask questions, ensure presenters are looking directly at the camera and speaking loudly into the microphone, and slow down the pace. If you have additional suggestions to improve the CLASS Meetings, please notify your quadrant Special Populations Coordinator.
Classroom Management
A well-managed classroom always has some basic housekeeping expectations established. Consider the following in your classroom:
- How do students get my attention when they need me?
- What should students do when they have completed an assignment?
- What should it look like when students enter or leave?
- How do I manage transitions?
When reflecting on your classroom plan ask, “What behavior/s do I consistently address?” Put a procedure in place for this behavior and you should see this behavior decrease.
Recipe: 3 cups basic procedures, 3 cups teacher modeling, 1/4 cup of graduated consequences, 1 lb of positivity and reinforcement!
What makes a good Occupation Therapy Referral?
What Makes A Good OT Referral?
Federal law states “Related services means transportation and such developmental, corrective, and other supportive services as are required to assist a child with a disability to benefit from special education”. School-based occupational therapy services may address, but is not limited to, components such as fine motor skills, visual-perceptual skills, handwriting, self-care, sensory differences and pre-vocational needs. Occupational therapy supports special education where special education has not demonstrated ample progress and needs specialized support. A good referral for school based occupational therapy services would first have the following in place:
1. A student demonstrating deficiencies in one or more of the above stated components
2. Special education currently addressing area of concern with an IEP goal or accommodation for at least 3 months without ample progress
3. A verbal consultation or a formal observation by an OT with recommendations that have been tried
Sensory Processing
Sensory processing deficits can pose a challenge to occupational performance of every day activities and acquiring skills to promote function. As an expected part of development, children process, interpret, and respond to sensory information. When occupational therapy practitioners address the sensory needs of individuals, they consider the registration, modulation, organization and interpretation of information gained through the senses. In the school setting emphasis is placed on the tactile, body awareness and body position in space and vestibular. Therapists also assess praxis, the ability to come up with an idea involving action, and to anticipate, time, plan, sequence, and execute unfamiliar motor actions. Occupational therapy practitioners who provide occupational therapy services using sensory processing approaches work with children to remediate the underlying sensory integration and praxis factors effecting a student’s education and participation at school.
Curriculum Corner
The Benefits of teaching with Spalding:
“This research validates what we’ve known for years: Teaching reading is best when the program is based on explicit, multisensory, structured instruction incorporating all sensory pathways to the brain,” said Spalding Director of Research & Curriculum Mary North, Ph.D. “Unlike mainstream programs, ‘The Writing Road to Reading’ connects speech to print, rather than print to speech, allowing children to first concentrate on hearing the sounds in spoken words. Research shows that children who struggle to hear or manipulate sounds in spoken words have trouble decoding. In Spalding, phonemic awareness is quickly coordinated with teaching the letters and letter combinations that represent speech sounds.”
Resource/ Inclusion
FAC and STC
Facts about the ABLLS-R (Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills-Revised)
*The ABLLS-R is an assessment tool, curriculum guide, and skills-tracking system.
*Provides a baseline level of performance.
*Models a visual display of data.
*Helps guide instruction of critical language and learner skills for children with Autism and developmental disabilities.
*Reviews 544 skills from 25 skill areas.
*Domains assessed include: language, social interaction, self-help, motor, and academic skills.
*Breaks down skills into their essential components in order to facilitate skill development.
*Builds upon abilities already in the child’s repertoire.
*Is a program monitor and the recommendation is that it be redone every 6-12 months in order to monitor progress.
Life Skills
The Functional Scheme is an assessment instrument for learners who function on a level between 0-48 months. This assessment guides teachers in determining appropriate goals and programming for MISD’s earliest learners. Learners will be assessed in the following fields of development:
· Gross Movement
· Fine Motor
· Mouth Movement
· Visual Perception
· Auditory Perception
· Haptic-tactile Perception
· Small/Taste
· Spatial Perception
· Object Perception
· Language (non-verbal)
· Language (verbal)
· Comprehension of Language
· Social Perception
· Emotional Perception
· Play and Activities
· Toileting Skills
· Undressing/Dressing
· Personal Hygiene
· Eating Skills
Contact Betsy Sexton if you have a student who could benefit from this assessment. Trainings will be scheduled in the near future.
DSSC
Incident Reports should be completed within 24 hours. One copy will go to the parent and the other will be filed in the RADD Binder. An Incident Report should be done any time the following occurs: a fit or tantrum which results in: a change in level or privileges within the leveled program, removal from class, safety zone/cool down zone.
Incident Reports are only a brief summary of what occurred. It is neither necessary nor possible to include every action displayed during an incident. Therefore, Incident Reports merely relay a brief overview of a problem situation. They should only include observable behavior and should never contain emotion or adjectives that imply emotion. Kim Darling is always available to review Incident Reports for DSSC teachers prior to them being sent home for parents.
Classroom Management:
“If you feed it, it will grow”. This is an accurate statement in regards to classroom behavior. If negative behaviors such as shouting out or calling out off topic comments are becoming an issue, these should be ignored. Instead of giving attention to those problem behaviors, call attention to those that are raising their hand or getting your attention in the expected manner. Planned ignoring will extinguish some problem behaviors; however it must be employed consistently. If you plan to ignore a behavior, you must always ignore it. Provide specific positive praise to those that are getting your attention the correct way and say, “I love the way you raised your hand and waited on me to call on you”. You can also hand out small rewards – randomly- for those following your classroom expectations and this will increase those behaviors over time. If you’re having a lot of disruptive behaviors ask yourself, “Am I feeding what I want to grow?” Put your energy and attention towards those behaviors you want to flourish.
Speech and Language
This link will provide good information on speech and what is age appropriate.
Medicaid One Time consent Form
What makes a good Learning Disability referral?
· Rule out exclusionary factors (attendance, vision/hearing, continuity of instruction due to school hopping, second language issues)
· Need to have had faithful research-based interventions on off-level goals thru Response to Intervention with progress monitoring on that skill
· Informal academic data shows consistent weaknesses in the academic area of concern
What make a good OHI (Other Health Impairment) referral ? - AD/HD
· Behavioral accommodations did not work
· Data to show intervention should have taken place
· Had behavior RTI goals or Positive Behavior Support plan in place
· ADHD warrants modifications of curriculum and requires specially designed instruction that cannot be provided through general education
· Would be nice to have a rating scale (i.e. Conners, Brown)
Special Olympics
McKinney ISD, Special Olympics team, the McKinney Mavericks, is the largest sport team in the district. The McKinney Mavericks currently have 254 athletes competing in various sports throughout the school year: bowling, powerlifting, basketball, and track and field. An athlete must be at least eight years old to compete in Special Olympics. This athlete must also be identified as having either an Intellectual Disability or closely related development disability, which means having functional limitations in both general learning and in adaptive skills such as recreation, work, independent living, self-direction, or self-care.
The McKinney Mavericks are ready to start the competition during the 2014-2015 school year. Bowling will kick off the competition in October. Competition will be held at USA Bowl in Dallas, Texas with elementary competing Tuesday, 10/28/14, middle school competing Thursday, 10/30/14, and high school competing Friday, 10/31/14. Powerlifting will be held at Stroud’s Fitness Center in Hurst, Texas, Saturday, 11/15/14. Basketball competition will be held at the Fieldhouse USA in Frisco, Texas on Friday, 2/13/15. The athletes favorite event, the McKinney ISD Hosted Local Special Olympics Track & Field Meet, will be held at Ron Poe Stadium in McKinney, Texas, Friday, 4/10/15. Plans are in the works to add Bocce to the competition schedule, at the high school level, for this school year.
The McKinney Mavericks welcomes everyone to these events to volunteer or simply being a cheering squad. We are fortunate to have our Special Olympics team a part of McKinney ISD in order to provide year-round physical fitness training to special needs athletes. The support and quality sports experience give true meaning to the word, community, for all athletes with special needs and their families here in McKinney ISD.
Special Olympics bowling practice at Allen Bowl
Elementary: 10/1/14
Middle: 10/7/14
High: 10/8/14
Future Special Olympics dates
Competition at USA Bowl in Dallas, Texas
Elementary Tuesday, 10/28/14
Middle School Thursday, 10/30/14
High School Friday, 10/31/14
Basketball
Competition at Fieldhouse USA in Frisco, Texas
Friday, 2/13/15
Track and Field
Local Meet at Ron Poe Stadium
Friday, 4/10/15
Extra thanks to....
Congratulations to Jami O'Connell on passing her BCBA test! Way to go!
Thank you to all the North Quadrant teams. You each have had difficult situations the past week or two and have worked through these times together. Thank you for supporting each other!
Thank you to Kelli Cantu for supporting another campus with a difficult situation. We appreciate your help!
Larry Jagours for his can do spirit and always putting the needs of the students first
Thank you to the East quadrant team, you all have had difficult situations, you senergized and work as a team! Thank you
Shout out to the DAEP staff (South Quad) for always having a positive attitude in the most difficult circumstances.
Lisa Rich at Mc Clure. Thanks for having amazing data and doing a wonderful job in a difficult ARD.