A Parent's Guide to Section 504 Gives Answers

"What can you tell me about the evaluation process for students going on a 504 plan?" I asked a specialist while at a traumatic brain injury conference last week.
'I don't think there is one" she replied.
A special education teacher chimed in that no official testing is needed because this falls outside of IDEA and the IEP/Special education services.

Bingo! I found an online article tonight on "Great Schools" that stated:

"Under Section 504, no formalized testing is required. The 504 Committee should look at grades over the past several years, teacher's reports, information from parents or other agencies, state assessment scores or other school administered tests, observations, discipline reports, attendance records, health records, and adaptive behavior information. Schools must consider a variety of sources. A single source of information (such as a doctor's report) cannot be the only information considered. Schools must be able to assure that all information submitted is documented and considered."

I wrote a post last week that discussed the 504 Plan and whether or not it was under-used. I would like to share that the quote above came from a wonderful post, "A Parents Guide to Section 504" that goes through the 504 plan, what it is, how it is addressed in different schools, what rights parents have in section 504 plans, what kind of supports you might expect to see used, etc. This article was written by Mary Durheim and the Educational Rights Information & Consulting Center in 2003. I couldn't find the center when I searched online, but the article is excellent.
I am keeping this material close in case I have questions come up. This information is invaluable. The Great Schools site is also a terrific place to find information. The Learning Disabilities page is full of links and articles.
I hope this information helps and that my thoughts on it the other day didn't muddy the waters too much.

All the best to you!
Lon




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Back to School AT Blog Carnival is Up

The Back to School Edition of the Assistive Technology Blog Carnival is up and ready to read.

This month has some great posts sharing parent's perspectives from their blogs where they share their heart about their special needs kids.

There is a wonderful post on print disability tools for the Mac, a visit to a special Education teacher's classroom and a post on creating audio books on your own.

Take some time to visit and enjoy!

All the best to you!

Lon



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Assistive Technology & Parent Advocacy: Issues of Time and Services to the the Hispanic Community

I read an interesting blog article today that fits with the topic of parent advocacy I have been sharing lately. The blog can be found at wickedlocal.com under the education news section. The link is HERE. To summarize the issue, a Hispanic mother is concerned about the slow process in aqquiring one on one assistance for her daughter who has West Syndrome. West syndrome, also known as infantile spasms, is a rare and serious form of epilepsy in infants. The mother has limited English proficiency and is trying to advocate for her daughter in spite of difficulties getting translations and proper support for communication.

I see two issues here: The first is on the time factor in getting evaluations, recommendations and approvals for services and equipment for children in special education. The process of networking, collecting data and meeting with teams is huge. Sometimes it takes 3 - 6 months just to get through meetings, evaluations and team planning sessions. This can include trials of AT equpment to see what is working. If something doesn't work, it is back to the process of a new trial with a new device. Money is a huge factor, and even though federal law mandates it, federal law doesn't fund all of it. Finding money to do everything a school district needs to do is stretching.
I had a conversation with a school district special education director yesterday, and another one today where we are looking at AT equipment to support kids. Both administrators were very supportive of purchasing what was needed and they both are using local foundation and trust money to help in the purchase price for high price-tag items.
The second issue deals with providing spanish versions of IEP's and documents as well as providing a translator for meetings. We have a large Hispanic population in several of our districts. We strive to provide translators for meetings and our ESD has several on-staff translators who convert documents and reports into spanish.

I would encourage you to go read the article on the link above. Take some time to read the comments at the bottom. There is a mix of everything from racist pre-conceived notions of the Hispanic community, administrator perspectives, hispanic perspectives and special educator perspectives. It is pretty eye-opening.

I don't have the answers to these issues, but I believe that when parents are in situations where they see their child on a mat on the floor in class all day, it is time to get active in the area of advocacy. Use the principles we have been sharing in previous posts to find out what is happening, where things are in the process and be positive as a part of the solution - not adding to the problem.
I thought it was interesting that the mother had only good things to say about the staff and teachers who were with her daughter. She had a very positive attitude toward the school, it was the system that she was having issues with. The system is still made up of a lot of people who care about kids, and I am so blessed to be able to say that in my area of Oregon, we have people who think ourside the box to get what kids need. I hope you are somewhere where there is support like that for you too.

All the best to you!





If you know of someone who could benefit from this post or this blog in general please refer it on to them.

Image credit: http://www.wickedlocal.com/roslindale/news/education/x288018531

Electroplankton New Visual Music Game

Electroplankton is a new game on Nintendo DS. It was designed by Toshio Iwai, an interactive media artist from Japan. This is not a game, it is more an interactive and manipulative music and art activity. There isn't any objective to accomplish really, just exploratory play with color and sound. Children with high interest in in music and art could find this to be therapeutic and a behavior reward too. The drawback is that it is a Nintendo DS game rather than a computer game. Go to the link to see the beautiful blend of color in the Flash enabled site. Watch the video below to see it in action and a review.

All the best!

Lon




Image from: http://www.imagequest3d.com/photos/plankton/untitled.htm

Free Guide for Assistive Technology is a Great Support from WATI

Considering AT is a Federal Mandate:

Did you know that assistive technology must be considered for every student on an IEP? This means that when teachers, specialists and family gather to discuss a student's IEP goals and how to meet them, assistive technology must be given time for discusion and collaboration. Oftentimes this gets overlooked because the members of the team are unfamiliar with assistive technology and don't know where to start.

Free Tools to Help:

The Wisconsin Assistive Technology Initiative (WATI) has a great guide to help in the discussion and consideration of AT for a student. The consideration guide gives you a checklist of low, mid and high tech options in AT under various curriculum areas and skills. It gives teachers and parents a place to start in research as well as information to make a beginning decision on what should happen next. Hopefully, by seeing ideas and tools off the checklist that could help support the IEP, the team would request further assistance from an assistive technology specialist.

You can download the WATI Assessment forms by going to their website linked above and on my Important Links page. Select the products link. On that page is a link to free materials. The document is "WATI Assessment forms -forms only". You can view them on a pdf file and print off what you want.

The WATI Consideration Guide:

Look for the Wati Consideration Guide and the accompanying 2 page checklist. There are also screening tools, data collection forms, AT ssessment trial sheets, etc. I will do another post on the law and requirements where I can give a little more detail. If you would like more information or have specific questions, feel free to contact me by comment or email.
WATI is a great resource!

All the best to you!

Lon