Smart Kids With LD

When we hear the term Assistive Technology (AT), we likely imagine kids with LD (and other disabilities) mastering previously challenging assignments with the help of the latest and greatest in high-tech gadgetry.

In fact, we may be doing our children a disservice by thinking of AT in such narrow terms. As defined by the Assistive Technology Act of 1998, AT is “any item, piece of equipment, or product that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.”

Yes, that means a yellow highlighter is AT—and it may be just the item your child needs to help her organize the information that will be on her history test next week.

Choosing appropriate AT solutions—whether high tech or low tech—depends on a number of factors: What is impeding success? How is it getting in the way? And how can a student best compensate are the first questions to consider. Other factors might include level of fatigue, strain, physical limitations, and how long it would take to complete work (e.g., to write a paper) without the use of technology.

If your child has language learning disabilities, read High Tech Help for Reading and Writing, but don’t dismiss these low-tech suggestions entirely. Alone or combined with high-tech solutions, these may help your child gain access to appropriate grade-level curriculum. Whether low-tech or high-tech, AT enables students to perform at a higher level than would be possible without the technology.

Low-Tech Help for Reading

• Tachistoscopes (e.g., an index card with a cut-out showing a few words)
• Highlighters
• Colored overlays
• Changes in lighting
• Highlighting tapes
• Dictionary pens
• Audio tapes and CDs.

Low-Tech Help for Writing

• Slant boards
• Pencil grips
• Adapted paper (e.g., colored, raised line, and with portions highlighted)
• Word banks
• Dictionaries/thesauruses,
• Alternative keyboards,
• Tape/digital recorders,
• Spelling devices, and even computers with word processing software.

By Susan Baum, Ph.D.

Education professor Susan Baum, Ph.D. is a leading authority on children who are both gifted and learning disabled. Here she discusses the unique challenges facing this often misunderstood, misdiagnosed group of students.

Many people assume that learning disabilities and giftedness are at opposite ends of a continuum. In some states, a student may be identified with either LD or giftedness, but not both. In fact, we know that learning disabilities and giftedness can—and often do—exist simultaneously. You’ve probably come across people who exhibit remarkable talents or strengths in some areas and disabling weaknesses in others. This is the 8-year-old bug expert who can name and classify a hundred species of insects, yet he can’t read; or the obviously bright student who is struggling to stay on grade level.

Missed Diagnosis

Often bright children who are having difficulty maintaining their grades are neither identified nor offered services because they are not failing or performing below grade level. But a profile from the WISC IV IQ test can provide the evidence for diagnosis of such a subtle learning disability.

Likewise, children who have been diagnosed with LD are passed over for gifted programs. Their overall IQ test scores, depressed by their learning disability, prevent them from being identified and receiving services they deserve as gifted or talented. Again, examining areas of strengths on the WISC IV can provide the needed evidence for proper identification, setting the stage for appropriate services.

Different Shapes and Sizes

Students that are gifted and LD can be grouped into three categories, each resulting in unique challenges:

1. Identified gifted students who have subtle learning disabilities. While increased effort may be expected of them due to their obvious intellect, they often do not know how to do what’s being asked of them due to their LD.
2. Unidentified students whose gifts and disabilities are masked by average achievement. These students are struggling to stay at grade level. Their superior intellectual ability is working overtime to compensate for undiagnosed learning difficulties.
3. Identified LD who also are gifted. These students are most at risk because of the implicit message that often accompanies an LD diagnosis: something is wrong that must be fixed before anything else can happen. As a result their talents are put on hold, when in fact, nurturing their gifts is the key to helping them deal with their learning challenges.

In the final analysis, students must learn to be their own advocates. But parents and teachers can help by following these general guidelines:

• Focus attention on developing your child’s gifts
• Provide a nurturing environment that values individual differences
• Encourage compensation strategies
• Encourage awareness of individual strengths

ADHD Drop-Out Rates

Having ADHD may make teens less likely to finish high school, says a new University of California, Davis study. According to the study, published in the July issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, almost a third of students with ADHD do not graduate with their peers. “That’s high compared with the national high-school dropout rate of 15 percent,” says lead author Dr. Joshua Breslau.

People with ADHD may have trouble focusing, controlling impulsive behaviors, and/or are overly active. When looking at the different types of ADHD, the study found all types associated with a high dropout rate.

The study also found students who use alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs are at greater risk for dropping out. “Psychiatric disorders have an adverse effect on education,” Breslau says. “There are really two main disorders, ADHD and conduct disorder, and there is an interlinking of smoking and drop out that is troubling.”

Researchers say parents need to make sure they are working together with their schools so that the pediatrician and the child’s teacher are communicating about the child’s medical health and performance in school. “We need to better integrate school health with what schools do, education,” says Breslau.

Summer Reading Closes Achievement Gap

If you’re that parent who struggled to get your child to crack a book this summer, you’re about to reap the reward for fighting the good fight. According to the National Summer Learning Association, students who don’t engage in reading during the summer months lose the equivalent of two months of reading and spelling skills by the time they return to the classroom in the fall. Those that do read during the off months gain about a month.

Although the summer slide is greatest among low-income children whose exposure to reading materials at home is limited, the antidote for all kids is the same: provide access to books that kids are interested in reading. Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville recently completed a three-year study comparing students who were given books of their own choosing to take home for the summer with those who were not offered books. Their findings, confirming earlier studies, found that summer reading was definitely beneficial. In fact, this study found that summer reading was just as effective, if not more than attending summer school. Says lead researcher Richard Allenton, “We found our intervention was less expensive and less extensive than either providing summer school or engaging in comprehensive schools reform.”

So make sure that your child spends at least part of the summer break in the library finding, and then reading, books he enjoys. The payoff will be worth it.

Kids may be at greater risk of losing math skills than reading skills during the summer months, according to research noted by Frances Nankin, the Director of Cyberchase. This animated daily math series on PBS KIDS GO! features numerous ways to help kids avoid the “summer slump” in math.

Check out the eye-catching activities described online at www.pbskidsgo.org/cyberchase including number puzzles, keeping track of summer earnings (and developing a budget to help with money math), charting progress in self-designed exercise programs such as swimming or biking, or learning about estimating – and when an answer that is close to the right answer is good enough for the question at hand.

Strengthen your kids’ math skills over the summer? It may be as simple as engaging your kids in the activities on Cyberchase on your local PBS station – including “sneak peeks” at new episodes, photos, and behind-the-scenes videos.

When Smart Kids asked a group of middle school kids how their learning disabilities impacted them, we were impressed—and sometimes surprised—by their thoughtful responses. During the course of the wide-ranging discussion, students were not shy about expressing their views. In most cases, their comments were initially positive; however, as they began to reflect on their experiences, a far different picture emerged.

We knew we’d hear how challenging it is to travel between the resource room and their mainstream classes, but we never expected to hear how teachers frequently added to the burden. We thought we knew how beneficial accommodations could be—after all, they’re put in place to help students achieve their potential—but we were amazed to learn that students often don’t understand the reasons behind their special treatment, leaving them to assume the worst. While opinions differed on some topics, one thing they all agreed on was that they often feel put upon to succeed, or as they said, “No pressure, please!”

For the full rundown see Living with LD: A Kids’ Eye View. Their comments are likely to cause you to take a second look at your child’s school program and to listen differently when she speaks.

For years health advocates have warned the public about the evils of lead, particularly for young children. High levels of the mineral have been linked to a wide range of physical ailments and, more recently, to an alarming number of learning difficulties. But conventional wisdom suggested that with vigilance we could protect our children from the harmful effects, primarily by keeping them away from toys, furniture and other products that contained lead-based paint.

Now, however, a new source of lead contamination has been uncovered, one potentially more difficult for parents to monitor. Last month, the Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) filed notice alleging that lead levels exceeding .5 micrograms were found in a variety of children’s foods and baby foods. The products included a number of popular juices and packaged fruit products. A complete list of the products tested, and whether or not they exceeded the standard, is available at the ELF website at www.envirolaw.org

The notices filed by ELF claim that the foods contain enough lead in a single serving that they require a warning under California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65). Toxicologist Barbara G. Callahan, PhD, DABT, termed the findings “alarming.” As Dr. Callahan explained, “Lead exposure among children is a particular concern because their developing bodies absorb lead at a higher rate and because children are particularly sensitive to lead’s toxic effects, including decreased I.Q.”

What Happens Next?

Notification has been sent to appropriate law enforcement officials, and to the affected manufacturers, retailers and distributors, alerting them that these products require a warning label. If, within 60 days of notification, the companies have not brought themselves into compliance by either (a) reducing or eliminating the lead or (b) placing “clear and reasonable warnings” on the food packages, then ELF will file suit if no other law enforcement prosecutes the violation.

By Kalman Hettleman

There are many reasons for the huge academic gap between students with disabilities and other students. The least understood but most important reason, however, is the low level of goals and services established in most Individual Education Programs (IEP). All too often they are vague and ill-defined, leaving them open to interpretation, which usually translates into expectations for academic progress that are far below students’ abilities.

Take John, for example. He’s a fifth-grade student with dyslexia (who has probably been retained once). He has an IEP goal to raise his reading from the current second-grade level to the third-grade level. But because services are inadequate, John—and the overwhelming majority of such students—will fail to make one year’s progress. Many do not even come close. And even if John gains twelve months, he will not close the gap between his performance level and his grade level—he will still be three years behind.

One Year Plus

In the Baltimore City public school system, where I work pro bono for students with disabilities, there is an unprecedented, exciting effort underway to address this issue and raise the academic achievement of students with LD and other disabilities.

The starting point for reform in Baltimore, under the leadership of the system’s CEO Andres Alonso, is to direct that students receive goals that entitle them not only to twelve months’ progress but to reasonable additional progress that closes the gap between their performance level and their grade level. The directive is called “One Year Plus.”

Of course, just setting the goal doesn’t guarantee progress. But if implemented as intended, the school system will be forced to provide more and better instructional and support services so that students attain progress of one year plus. In short, raising the bar on goals raises the bar for the quality of services.

Back to John. At best he has been making six months’ progress in reading each year (for the two or three years that he has been receiving special education), which accounts for why he is so far behind. So if he is going to make one year plus progress—say two years’ progress in one year—the services he receives will have to be substantially increased and improved. It will almost surely require many additional hours of instruction in a small group of no more than four students, using research-based reading intervention taught by a well-trained teacher.

System-Wide Changes

This is a steep incline for special education systems that are short of resources. For one thing, money to pay for teacher training and expensive small group instruction is scarce. But even more important, educators have not been trained to recognize or apply research on the most effective instructional programs for students with disabilities.

The academic potential of most special education students is underestimated: low expectations underlie low goals.

Retraining staff to replace old misconceptions with research-based IEPs will be slow and arduous. And a fresh supply of trained reading teachers must be found to deliver the services. Nothing less than a transformation of the system is necessary, but the payoffs could be enormous. Most students with LD could be lifted to new heights of academic achievement and post-school success.

I believe that Baltimore is on the cutting edge of this transformation, and hopefully it will become a model for the nation. I welcome feedback from others. Does the need for something like One Year Plus make sense to you? Could it be advocated for and undertaken in your school district?

Kalman Hettleman is a public-interest attorney who has played an important role in educational research and policy, in addition to serving as a Baltimore school board member and deputy mayor for education, and as the Maryland cabinet secretary for social welfare programs. He is the author most recently of “It’s the Classroom, Stupid: A Plan to Save America’s Schoolchildren.”

The school year is drawing to a close, but here is some food for thought over the summer.

by Ken Magrath, Ph.D.

I remember doing it in junior high school (I know, I’m dating myself here) and high school. I don’t remember ever actually liking it, though.

I’m referring to homework of course. Today we take it for granted, but maybe we shouldn’t.

Students have access to well-trained, well-informed teachers throughout the day. At the end of the day, they’re given packets, assignments, and projects to complete at home, where they have no access to that well-trained, well-informed person who gave them the assignment. So who do they turn to for help and guidance? Parents. But when it comes to homework, parents are by definition lame helpers! They weren’t there for the instruction and they didn’t hear the assignments.

In some areas, most parents should be banned from helping! Take math for example. The models and approaches they learned as kids are very different from the models used in their child’s class. Jimmy can accurately learn old-school long division from Dad, but that approach will be different from the one that Jimmy is taught in the classroom.

Is homework helpful?

And that’s only one of the issues I have with homework. Here’s another:

If Meghan brings homework from school, what are the rules and expectations for parent involvement? What level of help is appropriate, and when does it turn into Mom’s work?

Why would any teacher ever grade homework? Are homework errors the child’s fault? Or might they represent a disconnect in understanding? Why would we punish homework errors with lost points or low grades rather than use those errors as opportunities for re-teaching?

Good athletic coaches know that practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent! How often is homework individually geared to a student’s actual, real-time understanding or skill development? Or so scientifically developed and matched to an individual student’s strengths and weaknesses that the work has a chance of enhancing learning? Not often, I think.

If homework is so important and helpful, why is it that Finland (consistently the global leader in academic skill development) limits homework to 30 minutes a night?

If an elementary school expects 40 minutes per day of homework time, why wouldn’t we grade what the student did in the 40 minutes rather than taking points off for not getting to all the items?

These are just some of the problems I see with homework. Do you agree or disagree? What issues do you have with this age-old institution? What, if anything, do you think should be done about it? And who do you think can and should take the lead?

Talk amongst yourselves—and with us.

With the school year coming to an end, many families are looking forward to kicking back and relaxing in the sun. For those of you choosing to send your child with LD and ADHD off to camp, don’t forget to prepare him and the camp staff for the experience.

It’s not uncommon to want to free your child from academic “labels” in the summer, and you may be reluctant to let the camp know about his learning difference. But with the right preparation, camps can match the right counselors or activity schedule to your child’s needs, creating a summer experience that is relaxed, fun, and productive.

Kids with LD often have trouble in social situations, with fine or gross motor skills, or with attention issues that can make transitioning from a well-structured school environment to a more relaxed camp environment a bit of a challenge. Informing the camp director about your child’s strengths and challenges can make the summer more successful than you or your child ever hoped.  Read how one parent told her son’s camp about her child’s NLD in “Dear Camp Director.”

The Cartoon Network plans to launch a major anti-bullying campaign next fall directed toward the community of students most often affected—those in middle school. Rather than targeting either the victims or the aggressors, this new campaign will feature Bugs Bunny and other favorite cartoon characters in the effort to involve a different group of students: those who witness bullying. The cartoons will provide practical strategies to help student bystanders intervene effectively when they see someone being bullied.

In addition, CNN will offer complementary programming for adults, accompanied by public service ads and an online curriculum. As Susan Limber of the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life at Clemson University states, “Kids alone can’t address bullying. They need adults to take the issue seriously and be there to help.”

Read more at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100525/ap_en_ot/us_cartoons_vs_bullies

Kids with LD and other disabilities are often the victim of bullies. Check Smart Kids’ Call to Action on bullying.