Testing Day Reveals Different Story

Briana began the school year reading at “level E,” where a first grader should be in September. By November, she had progressed to “level G.” At the end of the year she reached “level J,” the benchmark for a second grader.Briana achieved a year’s worth of progress for a year’s worth of teaching, and increased her confidence along the way. But her test results told a different story.You see, Briana is not a first grader. She is a third-grade student with a learning disability.

Educational Planning Tips for Autistic Children

A child with an autistic spectrum disorder does not intuitively understand the social world. Severely affected kids may have little apparent interest in people around them. Someone with mild impairment may be quite motivated socially, but lacks the skills to initiate or maintain social exchange or play. Regardless of whether the diagnosis is autism, Asperger's syndrome or pervasive developmental disorder (PDD)-nos, this difference in social development defines the disability.
Educational planning for children with autistic spectrum disorders is often complex and difficult to negotiate.

A Terrifying Way to Discipline Children

Interesting opinion piece in Sunday's edition of The New York Times by Bill Lichtenstein, an investigative journalist and filmmaker.

In my public school 40 years ago, teachers didn’t lay their hands on students for bad behavior. They sent them to the principal’s office. But in today’s often overcrowded and underfunded schools, where one in eight students receive help for special learning needs, the use of physical restraints and seclusion rooms has become a common way to maintain order.

It’s a dangerous development, as I know from my daughter’s experience. At the age of 5, she was kept in a seclusion room for up to an hour at a time over the course of three months, until we discovered what was happening. The trauma was severe.