ADHD

Navigating the Limits of Special Education

STAR Admin — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 20:22:10 +0000

Navigating the Limits of Special Education STAR Admin Mon, 04/29/2019 - 20:22

My daughter was three years old when we made our first trip to STAR Institute for Sensory Processing Disorder. The staff’s appreciation and awareness for both the subtle and overt challenges she faced brought us back to Denver from Northern California three more times for therapy, testing, and treatment. With each visit we took away something new and constructive to help our daughter find peace in the midst of the brain-body conflict of her non-typical sensory processing abilities.

Many parents and children struggle with the transition of early intervention services to the school based system of identification for services at age three. For many reasons, large percentages of children lose access to public services during this transition time. Even if a child remains identified, the level and type of services can be drastically different than they were during those first few years.

The absence of Sensory Processing Disorder from the DSM further complicates matters for parents who are grasping for any form of proof to show their school district why their child needs the ongoing help; especially as the child now has to cope with integrating academic demands into their life. Dwindling regular education and special education budgets only exacerbate this problem.

Focusing upon the functional outcomes of your child’s disability can sometimes be an effective strategy when engaging school district personnel. At home, parents learn to minimize or mitigate stimuli that can be noxious to their child, but in schools, it is frequently unavoidable. Successfully asking a public school to reduce the amount of sensory triggers for your child can be incredibly difficult. Parenting a sensory child requires ongoing and creative advocacy. Unlike private or early intervention services, simply describing what your child struggles with to a school may not be effective. Semantics and delivery matter – put the focus upon the academic access and outcome issues as they relate to how your child processes the world.

If you are unsuccessful on a personal level with your child’s teacher and administrators in getting the help that your child needs, the only obvious options for families seem to be to simply agree with whatever the school is, or is not, doing for your child; or to engage an advocate or attorney. The former puts your child at risk for emotional and developmental harm, the latter will almost always frame you as confrontational or difficult parent. An often overlooked or unused avenue to explore is the use of political pressure and leveraging the human connection.

Just about every school district is overseen by an elected board of trustees. It is the school board’s responsibility to represent the public’s interest – they are not employees of the school district. Children in special education represent 13% of the national public school student body. The CDC estimates that the number of disabled children is higher (reporting that one out of every six child is disabled). Special needs parents represent a large block of the voting and tax paying public, yet we often are underrepresented. Some ways to advocate for your child in a manner that can be viewed as less confrontational by your school district could be to:

Ask for some face time with one, or several, of your school board members to discuss your concerns. (Your school board members’ contact information should be publicly posted on your school district’s website)
Ask to be on your district’s parent advisory committee for special education. And if there is not one, form one. (There should be a link on you school district’s website, if not email your superintendent directly)
Form a special needs/special education parent teacher organization. This can put teachers, administrators, and parents into a different social situation that allows for all parties to see each other as cooperatives not competitors. (More information on how to start a PTA can be found here: https://www.pta.org/home/About-National-Parent-Teacher-Association/join/start-a-pta. More Information on how to start a PTO can be found here: https://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/837-how-to-start-a-pto)
Organize similarly situated parents in your community and present your concerns at a public school board meeting. Ask to have special education placed on a formal school board agenda. (Your school district’s website should provide you with contact information for your superintendent, director of special education, and school board members)
Run for school board yourself and make special education your platform. (Filing practices and timelines will vary depending upon your municipality, contact your city offices for more information about how to get on the ballot)
Engage your local newspaper to report on special education related issues and get special needs families to write letters to the opinion/editorial section of the paper describing the difficulties they have had with appropriate school based services. (Check with your local paper for contact information)

At the end of the day, potentially the most effective method of driving change in your district is to get the topic of special education discussed openly, honestly, and in a public forum. For far too many families the issues we face get trapped inside the walls of IEP meetings and parent-teacher conferences. Once administrators and elected officials begin to discuss the shortcomings of special education in the public space, a large portion of the ownership and burden of that imperfect system is lifted from your shoulders and placed upon theirs.

Aaron J. Wright is a Family Nurse Practitioner and the Trauma Program Manager for a Level 1 Adult and Pediatric Trauma Center. He is also the author of Daisy Has Autism and runs the website www.daisyhasautism.com. He and his wife have two children and live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

By Aaron J. Wright RN MSN FNP-C

Sensory Processing Disorder

ADHD

Parent experience

Occupational Therapy

Where To Turn After a Poor Parent-Teacher Conference

STAR Admin — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 21:36:20 +0000

Where To Turn After a Poor Parent-Teacher Conference STAR Admin Fri, 10/21/2016 - 21:36

It’s that time of year…. Parent-Teacher Conferences. Some parents love hearing about their child’s successes, but some parents don’t have that experience. Instead they receive a troubling report.

If you’re reading this, you probably sat in the tiny chair in front of your child’s teacher and absorbed the classroom your child occupies five days a week. You scoured the walls looking for your child’s artwork and reminisced on your own school days for a minute.

You were a little excited and a little nervous to get the scoop on how your brilliant child is excelling in school, but the teacher spent about 30 seconds on your child’s strengths and the rest was about how he’s struggling.

Struggling to grasp academic concepts…
Struggling to stay focused…
Disrupting the class…
Not performing well on tests…
Or even struggling socially…

Struggling just enough to be cause for concern and just enough to not make sense. You know your child is brilliant and you experience it at home, but your child’s teacher isn’t quite accessing it. It can feel like your child’s brain is turned off at school or amped up so high that they can’t learn.

Regardless of the teacher’s feedback you left the conversation puzzled and not really understanding how to get your child up to speed. Maybe this type of parent teacher conference isn’t new to you, but you’re not seeing changes and you weren’t given any direction on how to create change.

Here’s some valuable information for you to look into. Many children are experiencing sensory challenges that are going unidentified in schools or are being incorrectly diagnosed as behavioral issues, ADHD, or even autism spectrum disorder. Sensory challenges are 5 times more likely than autism spectrum disorder yet most professionals your child is encountering are not trained to spot it.

Sensory challenges just mean that a child’s brain responds to sensory input differently and some sensations may create an over-responsive action, like hitting back when being lightly touched. Other times a sensation like touch or someone trying to get the child’s attention may go unnoticed because the brain is under-responsive. There are many other variations of sensory challenges that can prevent your child from entering “the learning zone”.

Sensory challenges show up differently in each individual and most doctors are trained to respond to sensory concerns from parents as if the child will “grow out of it”. Teachers are rarely trained to understand what sensory challenges are so they are often looked at as behavioral issues or laziness. For many children, the sensory challenges continue and even get worse without treatment as they grow.

Once a sensory issue is identified, the child can receive the direction they need to enter “the learning zone” they haven’t been able to access at school.

If you think your child may be experiencing a sensory challenge check out the Symptoms Checklist and the Understanding SPD informational page. STAR Institute for SPD is equipped to assess children who are experiencing sensory challenges so you can be clear on how to get your child in the learning zone.

ADHD

Sensory Processing Disorder

Parent experience

Intervention

How to Create a Successful Morning Routine for Your Child with ADHD

STAR Admin — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 17:02:34 +0000

How to Create a Successful Morning Routine for Your Child with ADHD STAR Admin Fri, 06/24/2016 - 17:02

Having a morning routine is something adults have long embraced, with early rituals even inspiring a website, MyMorningRoutine.com. It presents a different routine every day to help motivate people to be more productive the rest of their days. Morning routines are embraced by everyone from bestselling authors and CEOs, to professional athletes and teachers. They help people become more efficient by getting important tasks out of the way, while creating a peaceful state of mind that serves as preparation for what lies ahead. Just like adults thrive with effective morning routines, they're important for children, too, especially those who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Having a consistent morning routine helps children learn structure and stay focused on learning throughout the day. It also helps parents create an optimal schedule that maximizes their child's academic potential. Here's what to keep in mind when constructing a morning routine for your child with ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, sensory processing disorder or really any developmental or behavioral disorder.

Fuel Their Day

The Food and Nutrition Service of the United States Department of Agriculture recommends children eat breakfast because the meal boosts academic performance and improves behavior. Breakfast also helps with tasks requiring attention, problem-solving and memory — just about anything related to the school day. It’s important for parents to eat meals with their children for many reasons.

First, it serves as an example that you're invested in a good start to the day, too. Make breakfasts nutritionally valuable by crafting meals rich in vitamins and balanced with healthy proteins, fruits and vegetables. Pair them with a glass of water to get kids hydrated and to work toward meeting their daily requirement.

Second, and most important is that it gives kids a great start to their day to have some quality time with their parents before school.

Third, you can take advantage of the time to get their minds primed for the day, too, either by doing some fun activities or by being extra supportive of how great a kid they are (support self-esteem) that gets them mentally prepared for school. Customizable word search puzzles and age-appropriate educational games like memory cards help get minds thinking without diving into tests or multiplication tables. If your child also struggles with a sensory processing disorder, getting some hard work / exercise in the morning is a good idea, too. It can help burn off some of the extra energy if they are a sensory craver or have ADHD that can cause problems in school for kids. Plus it’s an excellent mood-booster.

Visualize Success

A board that includes a child's checklist of tasks or visual schedule to accomplish in the morning helps visual learners understand what needs to be completed and helps establish consistency each morning. Use stickers or a wipe off marker to mark off duties that have been finished, and include periodic meaningful rewards for sticking to a schedule. Always keep in mind that the most meaningful rewards are those that involve YOU, the parent. Getting an ice cream together on Saturday or other parent-child activities that include having “alone time” with one parent make the best rewards.

Include items related to hygiene (brushing teeth, getting dressed), chores (cleaning up a room) and responsibilities (feeding a pet). Children will know what's expected of them so they'll be able to get things done and clearly focus on schoolwork.

Collaborate with Your Kids

When creating a morning routine, it's essential to involve your children in the process of creating expectations to persuade them to stay on track. In his book "The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness," author and business guru Stephen Covey tells the story of a family who had immense trouble in getting their kids to finish morning tasks without significant prodding. When their parents had a discussion about what needed to be accomplished every morning and asked their kids if they felt capable of completing the tasks on their own, they all agreed. Family productivity skyrocketed because the kids felt empowered to take care of themselves. This can be especially beneficial in kids with ADHD because it gives them a sense of personal responsibility and power. By showing your children you trust them to handle their routine on their own, they’ll start their day on a positive, confident note that will likely carry on into the school day.

Make your physical morning schedule that you hang up together with your kids. Check in with them often to ask how they feel about their routine, what help they need, and how it could be improved. Continue to evolve your morning routine so it's a balanced one that sets both you as a parent and your child as a student up for success.

Get more Home Activity ideas now!

Learn more about Sensory Processing Disorder & ADHD.

Joyce Wilson is a retired teacher with decades of experience. Today, she is a proud grandmom and mentor to teachers in her local public school system. She and a fellow retired teacher created TeacherSpark.org to share creative ideas and practical resources for the classroom.

by Joyce Wilson

ADHD

Sensory Processing Disorder

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