Greetings!
Another year for all of us! May it be full of excellent opportunities and achievements for us all. This edition of News You Can Use connects you with new resources in OSEP's TA&D Network and beyond and includes a special-issue focus on transition planning for youth with disabilities. There's no time like the present to plan ahead, and the New Year always reminds us of that, doesn't it? We hope you find this information useful and valuable. As always, we are eager to hear your feedback. Please feel free to contact us at nichcy@aed.org. Best wishes for the New Year! Your friends at the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities
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| It All Starts in Families and Communities |
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Searching for info on a rare disorder?
The Office of Rare Diseases website has been completely redesigned and recently was launched as the new public site.
Assistive technology: A parent's guide.
This guide provides an overview of current technologies to help parents select tools for their children with learning problems.
http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/2488Response to Intervention (RTI): A primer for parents.
A major concern for parents is how to help their children who experience difficulty in school. This Primer for Parents, developed by the National Association of School Psychologists, helps parents understand the RTI approach to providing services and interventions to struggling learners, including early intervening services through academic and behavioral supports rather than waiting for a child to fail before offering help. It also suggests ways parents can become involved in the process and provides links to additional RTI resources.
Find alternate formats for those with print disabilities.
Does someone you know need printed materials in another format? This page from NIMAS at CAST highlights where to obtain both digital electronic text and digital audio for those with print disabilities.
http://nimas.cast.org/about/resources/alternate_formatsHeard of the National Center of Medical Home Initiatives for Children with Special Needs?
Its goal is to ensure that children and youth with special needs have a medical home where health care services are accessible, family-centered, continuous, comprehensive, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally competent. Through the National Center, physicians, parents, administrators, and other health care professionals have access to educational, resource, and advocacy materials, guidelines for care, evaluation tools, and technical assistance.
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The Little Ones: Early Intervention/Early Childhood
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Early childhood inclusion: NECTAC's 2009 schedule of conference calls.
Based on needs identified by the state Section 619 coordinators, NECTAC is offering four conference calls to enhance communication and coordination among state and local administrators of Head Start, Child Care, state pre-K and other early childhood programs to support inclusive practices. The calls scheduled are:
- February 17, Partnerships to Enhance Inclusive Practices
- March 3, Building the Capacity for Cross-Sector Professional Development
- March 17, Effective Strategies for Supporting Local/Regional Partnerships to Promote Inclusive Practices
- April (date not yet set), Lessons Learned from Community Teams: The SpecialQuest Experience
Read all about it at: http://www.nectac.org/~calls/2009/sec619/sec619.asp
Looking for training on inclusion?
The SpecialQuest Multimedia Training Library supports the inclusion of young children with disabilities birth-five and their families, in early care and education settings. The SpecialQuest materials and approach have been used with over 5,000 participants nationwide, refined over the past ten years, and have been shown to create and sustain change. SpecialQuest Birth-Five provides these materials at no cost with funding from the Office of Head Start.
Developing preschool language and literacy.
The Doing What Works website offers preschool teachers this practice guide and multimedia overview to developing language and literacy in preschoolers. The guide reviews the research base on, connects teachers with recommended practices, and offers planning templates.
The effects of early education interventions on cognitive and social development.
This meta-analysis from the National Institute for Early Education Research shows that there are substantial positive cognitive and social benefits for children who attend preschool education programs before entering kindergarten.
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Interactive white boards in the classroom.
http://www.cited.org
Interactive white boards like SMARTBoard, ActivBoard, and eBeam have revolutionized teaching and learning. Explore their use of interactive white boards at CITEd, the Center for Implementing Technology in Education. For example:
- Top 10 Tips for Boards
http://pdtogo.com/smart/?paged=4
Learn about the top 10 ways to use interactive white boards to differentiate instruction and engage all learners. Listen to this podcast on your lunch break, during recess, while grading papers, or on the way to school.
- Differentiation at the Board
http://www.cited.org/index.aspx?page_id=63
See this listed under "Featured Resources?" Watch this video to learn how interactive white boards can transform teaching.
- Using SMARTBoards: Two Minute Tutorials
http://pdtogo.com/smart/?paged=3
Research shows that teachers need adequate training and support to successfully use interactive white boards to meet students' needs. Try these free, two minute tutorials on everything SMARTBoard.
The Doing What Works Web site.
Doing What Works is designed to help teachers (K-5) implement effective educational practices. The site offers practice guides and multimedia overviews that review the research base, connect teachers with recommended practices, and offer planning templates. Here's a sampling of the subject areas on which practice guides focus:
Teaching reading to English language learners, Grades 6-12.
This resource from Colorín Colorado provides a comprehensive framework for developing literacy skills and accelerating language development, not just for ELLs, but for all students. Cost: $30+ (sold through the Learning Store of WETA, where each purchase helps to support four national educational projects at WETA, including Colorín Colorado).
For math teachers working with students with LD.
This guide for teachers, from the Center on Instruction, identifies and describes seven effective instructional practices for teaching mathematics to K-12 students with learning disabilities and those who are experiencing diffiiculties in learning mathematics but are not identified as having a math learning disability. The guide also incorporates recommendations from The Final Report of The National Mathematics Advisory Panel.
Supporting students' writing with technology.
Technology can be an effective element of the writing curriculum for students with disabilities. Read about the research backing the use of technology in a writing curriculum in CITEd's Research Center.
Differentiated instruction.
The Fall 2008 issue of the Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook focuses on the fast-growing practice of differentiated instruction-in which teachers work to accommodate and build on students' diverse learning needs.
Assessments to guide adolescent literacy instruction (Grades 4-12).Hot off the press in 2009, this guide provides information about the key elements of a comprehensive assessment plan to improve literacy instruction for adolescents. It's a companion volume to two others from the Center on Instruction: Academic Literacy Instruction for Adolescents and Improving Literacy Instruction in Middle and High Schools: A Guide for Principals.
Are you working on a transition-focused lesson plan?
Visit the Research to Practice Lesson Plan Starter Library of the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center. You'll be glad you did.
Culturally responsive pedagogy and practice: A professional development module.
The National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational systems (NCCRESt) has released a new professional learning module, "Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practice," designed to help educators understand and create a classroom atmosphere and curriculum that integrate and respond to the vast diversity of cultures present today in our schools. http://nccrest.org/professional/culturally_responsive_pedagogy-and.html |
FERPA Final Rule!
Final regulations have been published for the Family Educational Rights and Privacy (FERPA).
Turning around chronically low-performing schools.
Low-performing schools can quickly increase student achievement using multiple turnaround actions that need to be jointly implemented. These actions target leadership and instructional practices, staff commitment, and visible improvements early in the process. Visit the Doing What Works website to delve into this important subject.
http://dww.ed.gov/priority_area/priority_landing.cfm?PA_ID=11Resolution meetings: State supports and practices.
This In-Brief Policy Analysis from Project Forum is based on a survey sent to all special education units of SEAs and interviews with eight states. Findings are synthesized for types of supports provided, frequency of resolution meetings, factors that impact the use of resolution meetings, and states' needs to support the implementation of resolution meetings.
http://www.projectforum.org/Supporting services for children with disabilities who are homeless. This policy forum proceedings document discusses the unique challenges administrators face as they support implementation of services for children with disabilities who are homeless.
And, believe it or not, summer's coming...
No pressure, of course! But consider this resource in the months ahead: The Learning Season: The Untapped Power of Summer to Advance Student Achievement. This comprehensive report synthesizes evidence on the effectiveness of summer learning programs, including how multiple resources are leveraged and reviews different types of summer programs that serve to close the learning gap.
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| Special Focus: Transition Planning for Youth with Disabilities |
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OSEP-funded projects exclusively focused on transition.
Our special focus on transition resources begins by pointing the way to projects that OSEP funds to support preparing youth with disabilities for the adult world. The ones we've listed focus exclusively on transition.
- National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center
http://www.nsttac.org
- National Center on Secondary Education and Transition
http://www.ncset.org/
- TAcommunities: Exiting Part B.
Join this community of practice, where OSEP's TA&D network come together to discuss and share resources on increased graduation rates, reduced dropout rates, and transition to postsecondary education, employment, civic engagement, and adult community living.
http://www.tacommunities.org/community/view/id/1004
- TATRA (Technical Assistance on Transition and the Rehabilitation Act)
http://www.pacer.org/tatra/
- National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2)
The NLTS2 has been documenting the experiences of a national sample of students who were 13 to 16 years of age in 2000 as they move from secondary school into adult roles. Find out what they've found out about youth in transition.
http://www.nlts2.org/index.html
Plus a sampling of other OSEP-funded projects.
There are many OSEP-funded projects (including us!) that address a range of topics-one of which is transition. We can't list them all, but here's a quick resource list:
- The National Dissemination Center (NICHCY)
Visit our transition suite at:
http://www.nichcy.org/EducateChildren/transition_adulthood/Pages/Default.aspx
- Technical Assistance Alliance for Parent Centers (the Alliance)
Look down the list of the Alliance publications, and you'll find many on transition planning, including materials in other languages such as Spanish, Hmong, and Somali).
http://www.taalliance.org/publications/handouts.asp
- National Consortium on Deaf-Blindness (NCDB)
Find materials on transition for youth who are deaf-blind at:
http://www.nationaldb.org/ISSelectedTopics.php?topicCatID=22
- National Post School Outcomes Center (NPSO)
NPSO helps SEAs establish practical and rigorous data collection systems to measure and profile the post-school experiences of youth with disabilities.
http://www.psocenter.org/index.html
- The IRIS Center on Faculy Enhancement
Find modules, activities, and info briefs to help high school students with disabilities in the transition from the school environment to a post-school setting. The link above takes you to the IRIS's resource locator. On the left, you'll see a list of topics. Select "Transition." In the center column, select what interests you-all materials, modules, case studies, activities, or info briefs. And poof! Get your list of connections on the right.
http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/resources.html
Our apologies to those projects we haven't listed. We had to stop here, or the January enewsletter would go on until February!
Here are a few last transition resources we just had to mention:
What works in transition?
That's what the What Works Transition Research Synthesis Project was funded to tell us. See what they have to say.
http://www.nsttac.org/ebp/what_works.aspxPreparing girls with disabilities for work. This feature issue on employment and women with disabilities focuses on enhancing employment options for girls and women with disabilities. A publication of the Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota.
IDEA 2004 added this term (and service) to its requirements for transition planning. But what's involved? Answers are given in this fact sheet for school systems.
Ready by 21: Taking aim on the big picture.
The READY BY 21 Big Picture Approach helps leaders (from young people to parents, and from program directors to policy makers) to bring precision to their passion for preparing youth for adulthood. The goal? To ensure that all young people are ready by 21-ready for college, work and life.
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| 2009's Upcoming Events! New Postings |
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Our 2009 events list has grown quite long, and will undoubtedly grow still longer as the year progresses. That's why we've decided to move the list of calendar events to the end of the newsletter and divide the listings into new postings (the ones immediately below) and the dates and events we've mentioned in previous newsletters. Please let us know if this works for you, or if you'd prefer another arrangement of this information.
January 6 and 13: CITEd's Moving Forward with Technology Webinar series.
CITEd's webinars offer key information about implementing technology in education. Sessions are presented live and online by national leaders in the field. Coming up:
- Technology Implementation: Getting to Where You Want to Be
January 6, 2009 and January 13, 2009
- Accessible Instructional Materials 101
February 4, 2009 and February 10, 2009 Register free online at: http://www.cited.org/webinars.html
January 13, Interagency Collaboration and Customized Employment for Students with Severe Disabilities.
Teleconference from 3 - 4 p.m. EST.
Hosted by the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (NSTTAC).
http://ww.nsttac.org (more information to be posted on NSTTAC's website in the first week of January)
January 19-23, Response to Intervention.
A week-long online discussion at 1 CST, conducted by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality.
February 12-14, Inclusive Education Conference: Energizing Learning.
Held in Denver CO
Sponsored by PEAK Parent Center, this conference focuses on practical strategies that boost the academic success and inclusion of students with disabilities in their classrooms, schools, homes, and communities.
June 23-25, Building on Family Strengths Conference.
To be held in Portland, OR
Hosted by the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health
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| Previously Mentioned for 2009 Calendars |
As promised, we repeat 2009 events that are still upcoming but that we've mentioned in earlier enewsletters. There's still time to get them on your calendar...if you're interested.
Technology, Reading and Learning Diversity Conference.
January 22-24, 2009
San Francisco, CA
TRLD is a conference integrating technology interventions with expert literacy strategies to help students of all ages (K-12 through adult) succeed.
http://www.trld.com
OSEP National Parent Center Conference.
January 28-30, 2009
Crystal City, VA
Parent Center leaders and colleagues will come together to learn about current topics and reflect on their work, united by the common goal of improving outcomes for children with disabilities.
http://www.taalliance.org/conferences/2009/index.asp
2nd Annual Rare Disease Day.
February 28, 2009
NORD, the National Organization on Rare Disorders, is partnering with EURORDIS, the European Rare Disease Organization.
http://www.eurordis.org/article.php3?id_article=1862
Addressing Challenging Behavior: National Training Institute on Effective Practices Supporting Young Children's Social/Emotional Development.
March 22-25, 2009
Clearwater Beach, Florida
If you're an early interventionist, a child care provider, part of Head Start, or an early childhood teacher, you may wanna check this one out.
http://www.addressingchallengingbehavior.org/
International Conference on Positive Behavior Support.
March 26-28, 2009
Jacksonville, Florida
The Association for Positive Behavior Support will be your host.
http://www.apbs.org/conference/jacksonville/index1.aspx
Professional development telecasts from NASDSE.
NASDSE (National Association of State Directors of Special Education) is offering four conferences for purchase by the state directors of special education. Subscribing states receive unlimited rights to rebroadcast and reproduce these telecasts for in-state use in local and statewide professional development. Find out from your state department if your state subscribes to the series, or visit NASDSE online. Topics and dates are:
- Resources and Supports for Students with Autism and their Families
(October 10, 2008)
- Partners in Progress: Youth/Young Adult Leaders for Systems Change
(December 5, 2008)
- From Computers to Classrooms: Tackling Bullying in Today's Schools
(March 20, 2009)
- Understanding the Big Picture: Federal Policy and its Impact on the Classroom
(May 1, 2009) http://www.nasdse.org
Middle Level Essentials Conference.
April 23-24, 2009, Las Vegas, Nevada
http://www.nmsa.org/ProfessionalDevelopment/Conferences
Workshops/MiddleLevelEssentials/tabid/590/Default.aspx
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| Comments on our newsletter? Suggestions for future topics? Please feel free to contact us at nichcy@aed.org. We're here to help you help children with disabilities. | |
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Final IDEA rules.
On May 13, 2008 the Department of Education published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register. The comment period closed on July 28, 2008, with more than 700 comments received. The Department has now published final rules addressing:
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parental revocation of consent after consent to the initial provision of services has been provided;
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State or local educational agency's (LEA's) obligation to make positive efforts to employ qualified individuals with disabilities;
representation of parents by non-attorneys in due process hearings;
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State monitoring, technical assistance, and enforcement of the Part B program; and
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allocation of funds, under sections 611 and 619 of the Act, to LEAs that are not serving children with disabilities. The rules went into effect December 31, 2008.
edocket.access.gpo.gov/
2008/E8-28175.htm
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