Report by the Autism Wellness Foundation,
We were pleased to be invited to past Speaker Marco Rubio’s 100 Ideas Foundation conference in Orlando. Rubio brought together the leaders from across the state in the struggle to cure autism and to provide better alternatives for children and caregivers.
Much of the conference was devoted to group discussions on plans to bring people with autism into the workforce. Autism Wellness Foundation Chairman Yomin Postelnik shared his idea for non-profits to incentivize corporations and local businesses to hire employees with special needs by featuring such hirings in their newsletters, in tandem with a plea for readers to patronize those businesses. Other organizational leaders and advocates shared their experiences and proposed solutions for a wide range of problems faced by the special needs community.
Discussions centered around the need for programs that mainstream kids with autism into standard classrooms. The need to facilitate the transfer of new information on autism to pediatricians and other health care professionals was another key issue raised in group discussions.
The Autism Wellness Foundation viewed Speaker Rubio’s 100 Ideas conference as extremely beneficial to promoting better options for children with autism, not least because of the conference’s goal to implement the best of ideas raised (the top 100 of them, to be precise). Bringing together leaders and people with hands on experience and putting their thoughts into action is the exemplification of leadership and the 100 Ideas Foundation and Marco Rubio deserve credit for doing just that.
The Autism Wellness Foundation is also committed to holistic approaches in the treatment and prevention of autism. Chiropractics, which treat the nerves, have been shown to provide remarkable benefit in children with autism. Diet and motivational programs have also made huge impacts in the lives of these special children. It is our hope that as ideas to treat autism are considered, agencies that currently lead the way in providing treatment and education will look to these methods as well. By enhancing access to all treatment and prevention methods we can ensure a better tomorrow for the special needs community.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Alternatives to Guardianship/Conservatorship
Powers of Attorney
By Mark Biernath, Esq.
Attorney Specializing in Special Needs Planning
Many problems can be avoided with valid powers of attorney. These generally come in two varieties, one is a financial power of attorney, another is healthcare power of attorney. The financial power of attorney allows a designated person to conduct business and manage the financial affairs of a person. The healthcare power of attorney allows a designated person to make medical decisions on behalf of a person.
You cannot grant powers of attorney over someone else. Mother cannot grant to her adult son powers of attorney to make decisions
Two problems arise with powers of attorney: 1) they can be revoked at any time, 2) in
For the most part, if the person signed the durable powers of attorney prior to losing capacity, then the powers will be effective. An incapacitated child may never have had the capacity to enter into the contractual agreement which creates the power of attorney. Also, you must be at least 18 years old to sign a power of attorney.
I have heard of people who had their incapacitated children sign powers of attorney. They tell me that their children will sign anything they are told to sign. If that is true, then the child probably lacks the capacity to grant the powers
"You must have capacity to
grant powers of attorney, if
you do not have capacity,
you cannot grant powers of
attorney."
If the incapacitated adult at one time had normal capacity, and signed a power of attorney when they had normal capacity, but then subsequently lost capacity (via illness, stroke, car accident, etc) you may not need to establish guardianship or conservatorship. Just because someone tells you to go and establish a guardianship does not necessarily mean you have to, if you have a viable alternative, then you can avoid a guardianship.
A word of caution, because people have abused financial powers of attorney, there is a risk that financial institutions will lose confidence in the integrity of financial powers and no longer be willing to accept them. With increasing identity theft problems, this is only going to get more difficult. If this occurs, more people will be
© 2008 Mark E. Biernath,
In
Essential Components of Transition Planning
By Torin D. Togut
Attorney at Law
Transition services and planning is perhaps one of the most important aspects of special education. As defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 2004 (IDEA), “transition services” means a coordinated set of activities
Is designed to be within the a results-oriented process, that is
Is based on the individual child’s needs, taking into account the child’s strengths, preferences, and interests; and
Includes instruction, related services, community experiences, the development of employment and other post-school adult living objectives, and, when appropriate, acquisition of daily living skills and functional vocational evaluation.
20 U.S.C. §1401(34).
The IDEA requirements
There is no one template
A. Parents and/or Guardians Should Be Involved in Transition Planning.
1. Parents should be in
2. Parents should be given a questionnaire regarding transition goals and needs of student.
3. Parents should be given the opportunity to identify resources they would like to see involved in their child’s transition planning.
4. In
B. Students Should Be Involved in Their Transition Planning
1. Students should be instructed in social skills related to self-determination, empowerment and self-advocacy.
2. Student preferences regarding transition goals and services should be obtained.
3. Student should attend transition-planning meetings.
4. Student should be given opportunity to identify school and non-school resources.
C. School Staff Should Be Involved in Transition Planning
1. School staff should participate in-service training regarding transition planning and transition services.
2. Interdisciplinary group of staff should provide input regarding student’s transition goals and needed services.
3. Interdisciplinary group of staff should attend and participate in student’s transition meeting.
D. Nonschool Agencies, Services and Community Organizations Should Be Involved in Transition Planning
1. Community agencies should be given advance notice to participate in student’s transition meeting.
2. School staff should obtain release of in
E. Transition Goals Should Be Considered
1. Students should be involved in identifying transition goals and needed services.
2. School staff should conduct functional vocational assessment and situational assessment of the student.
3. Student should be given opportunity to participate in paid, integrated work experiences, if appropriate.
4. School staff should provide supervision and support as needed
F. An Appropriate Curriculum Related to Student’s Postsecondary Education Goals Should Be Provided.
1. School staff should conduct an assessment to determine post-secondary education goals of student, if appropriate.
2. Representatives from post-secondary educational setting should be part of student’s transition meeting.
3. Participants at student’s transition meeting should identify support services needed
G. An Appropriate Curriculum Should Be Provided to Prepare Student
1. School staff should assess and determine student’s independent community living goals.
2. Student should receive instruction in independent community living skills.
3. Student should attain recreation and social skills
H. Transition Needs Assessments, Including Transition Goals and Transition Services Should Be Prepared at Least Annually
1. School staff should identify transition goals and services as part of the student’s IEP meeting.
2. A community needs assessment should be shared with local transition planning committee.
3. School staff should prepare a need assessment
I. School Staff Should Participate in Cooperative Training with Community Agencies, Services and Organizations Regarding Transition Planning and Service Delivery
1. School staff should invite community resources to participate in development of topics related to transition planning and services.
2. School staff should participate in staff development activities of other agencies related to transition planning and services.
3. School and community agencies should conduct joint sponsored training events related to transition planning and services.
J. School Staff Should Participate in Interagency Collaborative Ef
1. School staff should invite community agencies and organizations, as appropriate, to participate in student’s transition planning and services.
2. School staff should share relevant in
3. School staff should establish interagency agreements with other agencies and services.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
When Parents & Schools Disagree
By Ruth Heitin, Ph.D., Educational Consultant
I often tell my clients that if my own parents were alive, they would never understand what I do for a living.
I am an independent educational consultant, and as a private professional I work for parents in seeking appropriate educational services for their children. Far more often than I prefer, I disagree with the schools - something my parents and their generation saw as heresy.
For the past ten years, I have worked with hundreds of families of students with special needs. Every time I think I have seen the most egregious case of educational unenlightenment, another case comes along that is even more disturbing.
As a former teacher, I fully understand the challenges that teachers face. In my opinion, teaching is one of the toughest and most important jobs of all. I have also sat on the other side of the school conference table as a parent. Now, as an educational consultant, I am able to see both viewpoints. And, what I have learned over the past ten years is that while both parents and schools want what is best for children, their constraints and their perspectives will always differ.
What is important to know is that when parents and schools disagree, the ways that they resolve their disagreements depend upon the issues. Federal laws and regulations provide a framework for addressing the needs of special education students. When a child is not suspected of or diagnosed with a disability, the local school district has the right to govern its own programs. Dealing with general education requires politics, dealing with special education requires knowledge of the laws.
The following are some of the ways in which parents and schools disagree when a child is suspected of a disability with suggestions as to how to address these.
Does the student have an educationally-related disability?
Does the child's disability have an impact on his/her educational performance?
Does the child require special education services?
Are the special education services effective?
Does the student have an educationally-related disability?
In my experience, it is a parent's natural inclination to believe that all is right with his/her child. For parents to get to the point of believing that their child could have some kind of problem, they have to have done some serious reflection and data gathering on their own. Once a parent comes to the point of concern that a disability exists, it is incumbent upon the school professionals to take those parents' concerns very seriously.
However, it is also the natural inclination for schools to seek some outside explanation for a child's problems. Often they indulge in believing that the nature of the problem is a simple matter within the parents' control.
The only way to determine if a disability exists with a child is through comprehensive evaluation. The first step in this process is for the parents and school professional to meet to discuss the child in a meeting of professionals called a Child Study Committee or the like, depending upon the school district.
Schools often offer first to try a variety of interventions before doing evaluation, which is tantamount to a trial-and-error method of addressing a child's problems. Why would we try to address a problem without understanding it first? The role of this committee is to ask only if, based on the information available through their normal procedures, there is justification for further evaluation of the child. The school cannot ask parents to gather more information for them first nor can the school make a determination of eligibility for special education at that time; that is the role of another committee.
If the school does agree to do the evaluation, it is important for parents to understand the limitations of any school system in their evaluation.
One of the reasons that I left the school system was to have the opportunity to assess children in the way that I knew was necessary. School employees have little control over the time and the materials at their disposal in order to do evaluations. No matter how good a school professional is at evaluation, it is unlikely that he/she can perform the job as well as someone who is equally qualified in private practice. Private assessments are expensive because of the time that they require, but parents should know that the investment is, in my opinion, generally a wise one.
It is also important for parents to know that whoever does the evaluation is the one who will take the lead in determining the child's needs. The school personnel who do this are too often the same ones who will have to serve the child in their already-too-busy schedules. Having a private evaluator assess the child allows independent determination of the child's issues and needs without any bureaucratic constraints.
Of course, if the school system does the evaluation, and the parents question the results or the methods, they can seek an Independent Educational Evaluation at the school's expense. The down side of this is that it makes an already-protracted evaluation period even longer, requiring months before a child's needs can be appropriately understood and addressed.
Once evaluation is completed the determination can be made as to whether or not a child has a disability. Federal law does not specify the criteria for determining disabilities, that is left to the local school district. And, in my experience, the many local school districts in our area all have different criteria for determining eligibility for special education.
I have spent the past ten years helping parents in the eligibility process, and I can relate hundreds of horror stories about the process. For example, schools have found children not to be learning disabled based on the fact that they demonstrate no processing deficits, but the school has not effectively assessed the processing skills. This is tantamount to saying that a child does not have strep throat, despite all the symptoms, when one has not done a culture. Naturally, I believe that having an educational consultant assist you through the eligibility process for special education is a wise decision.
When the determination is made as to whether a disability exists, it is appropriate to look at this through all appropriate definitions. For school children, two laws address special needs - The Individuals with Disability Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
While both federal acts allow provision of special education services, practicality has dictated otherwise. IDEA has federal money attached to it, giving schools some reimbursement for serving special needs children, while Section 504 does not. Any child who is eligible for services under IDEA automatically is eligible under Section 504, but not the reverse. Primarily in practice today, the difference is that those who require special education services are eligible under IDEA while those who require only classroom accommodations rather are eligible under Section 504.
A key point in eligibility is whether the disability has an impact on educational performance and how. For example, some students with asthma are able to control it well while others require special accommodations when it comes to exercise and stress. Only in the latter case would it be necessary to identify the child as disabled educationally.
An important note here is that identifying disabilities in young children presents special challenges that the schools are often unable to manage.
Traditional achievement testing is insensitive with young children for a very good reason. Since achievement is the product of what a child has been taught and how much he/she has learned from that, and since formal instruction is limited in young children, it is very difficult to identify underachievement. In testing young children, information processing testing in areas such as phonemic awareness and rapid naming, for examples, must be relied upon to identify learning disabilities. Schools frequently fail to test these areas and instead rely upon the ineffective traditional test measures in measuring learning issues.
When schools come to the conclusion that a child does not have a disability, they often justify their conclusion by espousing that they do not want to label the child. This presumes that labeling a child is a stigma or a negative factor in some way.
Schools never admit that they are being advised to limit the numbers of students being eligible, but I believe they are. What they fail to see too often is that if one is going to err, it is better to give services than not and miss valuable educational opportunities that cannot be regained.
Does the child's disability have an impact on his/her educational performance?
This is often a contentious area of disagreement between parents and schools. There is no federal definition of educational impact. Nationally, court cases continue to address the question of educational impact of a disability.
In my experience, schools will readily admit educational impact if a student's grades are failing or if the child's disability presents a challenge to them. However, in cases where a child's disability affects them in less conspicuous ways, as is often the case with homework difficulties, schools too often deny any educational impact. However, as long as schools demand homework, they cannot ignore the parents' reports about how the disability affects homework time.
Similarly, when the educational impact is emotionally-related, or even medically-related, schools tend to deny what they cannot see. Parents need to document the impact of the disability as well as they can to offer undeniable evidence.
Keep charts of the time spent on homework or the number of headaches a child experiences. Document the help that the child requires in doing homework. It is harder to ignore data than narrative.
Does the child require special education services?
This question presents a difficult dilemma for the school system. The recent trend to educate all children in the general education classroom has too frequently resulted, in my opinion, in a watered-down system of offering specialized support for children.
Teachers and administrators too often seem to feel that if they admit that a child needs specialized instruction they are admitting their own failure. While it is certainly advantageous for some children to remain in the general education classroom for support, for others it denies them the opportunity for small group and specialized instruction that they need.
Historically, we have always known that children with special needs require specialized instruction, and the earlier the better. Recent research in learning disabilities, however, has articulated this even further.
Children with reading disabilities respond best to systematic, intensive, and specialized instruction. The window of opportunity for best results is to begin such programming before the child reaches his/her ninth birthday. After that, the prognosis for ameliorating the reading disability becomes less optimistic.
Are the special education services effective?
In 1997, when IDEA was reauthorized, an important change was implemented in which schools were required to evaluate special education students' progress as often as they did the progress of general education students. IDEA has long required that progress be evaluated in observable and measurable ways.
I cannot begin to count the number of times that a student's progress is merely observed rather than measured in any way. Independent assessment, school standardized testing, state assessment measures and observational charts are all means of evaluating and measuring progress.
My advice to parents who think that their children are not making sufficient progress: Don't stop in your efforts to improve your child's progress.
Failure to make appropriate progress has devastating and cumulative ramifications. This year's teacher will not be around to see the implications over time, but parents certainly will be.
I often tell my clients that if my own parents were alive, they would never understand what I do for a living.
I am an independent educational consultant, and as a private professional I work for parents in seeking appropriate educational services for their children. Far more often than I prefer, I disagree with the schools - something my parents and their generation saw as heresy.
For the past ten years, I have worked with hundreds of families of students with special needs. Every time I think I have seen the most egregious case of educational unenlightenment, another case comes along that is even more disturbing.
As a former teacher, I fully understand the challenges that teachers face. In my opinion, teaching is one of the toughest and most important jobs of all. I have also sat on the other side of the school conference table as a parent. Now, as an educational consultant, I am able to see both viewpoints. And, what I have learned over the past ten years is that while both parents and schools want what is best for children, their constraints and their perspectives will always differ.
What is important to know is that when parents and schools disagree, the ways that they resolve their disagreements depend upon the issues. Federal laws and regulations provide a framework for addressing the needs of special education students. When a child is not suspected of or diagnosed with a disability, the local school district has the right to govern its own programs. Dealing with general education requires politics, dealing with special education requires knowledge of the laws.
The following are some of the ways in which parents and schools disagree when a child is suspected of a disability with suggestions as to how to address these.
Does the student have an educationally-related disability?
Does the child's disability have an impact on his/her educational performance?
Does the child require special education services?
Are the special education services effective?
Does the student have an educationally-related disability?
In my experience, it is a parent's natural inclination to believe that all is right with his/her child. For parents to get to the point of believing that their child could have some kind of problem, they have to have done some serious reflection and data gathering on their own. Once a parent comes to the point of concern that a disability exists, it is incumbent upon the school professionals to take those parents' concerns very seriously.
However, it is also the natural inclination for schools to seek some outside explanation for a child's problems. Often they indulge in believing that the nature of the problem is a simple matter within the parents' control.
The only way to determine if a disability exists with a child is through comprehensive evaluation. The first step in this process is for the parents and school professional to meet to discuss the child in a meeting of professionals called a Child Study Committee or the like, depending upon the school district.
Schools often offer first to try a variety of interventions before doing evaluation, which is tantamount to a trial-and-error method of addressing a child's problems. Why would we try to address a problem without understanding it first? The role of this committee is to ask only if, based on the information available through their normal procedures, there is justification for further evaluation of the child. The school cannot ask parents to gather more information for them first nor can the school make a determination of eligibility for special education at that time; that is the role of another committee.
If the school does agree to do the evaluation, it is important for parents to understand the limitations of any school system in their evaluation.
One of the reasons that I left the school system was to have the opportunity to assess children in the way that I knew was necessary. School employees have little control over the time and the materials at their disposal in order to do evaluations. No matter how good a school professional is at evaluation, it is unlikely that he/she can perform the job as well as someone who is equally qualified in private practice. Private assessments are expensive because of the time that they require, but parents should know that the investment is, in my opinion, generally a wise one.
It is also important for parents to know that whoever does the evaluation is the one who will take the lead in determining the child's needs. The school personnel who do this are too often the same ones who will have to serve the child in their already-too-busy schedules. Having a private evaluator assess the child allows independent determination of the child's issues and needs without any bureaucratic constraints.
Of course, if the school system does the evaluation, and the parents question the results or the methods, they can seek an Independent Educational Evaluation at the school's expense. The down side of this is that it makes an already-protracted evaluation period even longer, requiring months before a child's needs can be appropriately understood and addressed.
Once evaluation is completed the determination can be made as to whether or not a child has a disability. Federal law does not specify the criteria for determining disabilities, that is left to the local school district. And, in my experience, the many local school districts in our area all have different criteria for determining eligibility for special education.
I have spent the past ten years helping parents in the eligibility process, and I can relate hundreds of horror stories about the process. For example, schools have found children not to be learning disabled based on the fact that they demonstrate no processing deficits, but the school has not effectively assessed the processing skills. This is tantamount to saying that a child does not have strep throat, despite all the symptoms, when one has not done a culture. Naturally, I believe that having an educational consultant assist you through the eligibility process for special education is a wise decision.
When the determination is made as to whether a disability exists, it is appropriate to look at this through all appropriate definitions. For school children, two laws address special needs - The Individuals with Disability Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
While both federal acts allow provision of special education services, practicality has dictated otherwise. IDEA has federal money attached to it, giving schools some reimbursement for serving special needs children, while Section 504 does not. Any child who is eligible for services under IDEA automatically is eligible under Section 504, but not the reverse. Primarily in practice today, the difference is that those who require special education services are eligible under IDEA while those who require only classroom accommodations rather are eligible under Section 504.
A key point in eligibility is whether the disability has an impact on educational performance and how. For example, some students with asthma are able to control it well while others require special accommodations when it comes to exercise and stress. Only in the latter case would it be necessary to identify the child as disabled educationally.
An important note here is that identifying disabilities in young children presents special challenges that the schools are often unable to manage.
Traditional achievement testing is insensitive with young children for a very good reason. Since achievement is the product of what a child has been taught and how much he/she has learned from that, and since formal instruction is limited in young children, it is very difficult to identify underachievement. In testing young children, information processing testing in areas such as phonemic awareness and rapid naming, for examples, must be relied upon to identify learning disabilities. Schools frequently fail to test these areas and instead rely upon the ineffective traditional test measures in measuring learning issues.
When schools come to the conclusion that a child does not have a disability, they often justify their conclusion by espousing that they do not want to label the child. This presumes that labeling a child is a stigma or a negative factor in some way.
Schools never admit that they are being advised to limit the numbers of students being eligible, but I believe they are. What they fail to see too often is that if one is going to err, it is better to give services than not and miss valuable educational opportunities that cannot be regained.
Does the child's disability have an impact on his/her educational performance?
This is often a contentious area of disagreement between parents and schools. There is no federal definition of educational impact. Nationally, court cases continue to address the question of educational impact of a disability.
In my experience, schools will readily admit educational impact if a student's grades are failing or if the child's disability presents a challenge to them. However, in cases where a child's disability affects them in less conspicuous ways, as is often the case with homework difficulties, schools too often deny any educational impact. However, as long as schools demand homework, they cannot ignore the parents' reports about how the disability affects homework time.
Similarly, when the educational impact is emotionally-related, or even medically-related, schools tend to deny what they cannot see. Parents need to document the impact of the disability as well as they can to offer undeniable evidence.
Keep charts of the time spent on homework or the number of headaches a child experiences. Document the help that the child requires in doing homework. It is harder to ignore data than narrative.
Does the child require special education services?
This question presents a difficult dilemma for the school system. The recent trend to educate all children in the general education classroom has too frequently resulted, in my opinion, in a watered-down system of offering specialized support for children.
Teachers and administrators too often seem to feel that if they admit that a child needs specialized instruction they are admitting their own failure. While it is certainly advantageous for some children to remain in the general education classroom for support, for others it denies them the opportunity for small group and specialized instruction that they need.
Historically, we have always known that children with special needs require specialized instruction, and the earlier the better. Recent research in learning disabilities, however, has articulated this even further.
Children with reading disabilities respond best to systematic, intensive, and specialized instruction. The window of opportunity for best results is to begin such programming before the child reaches his/her ninth birthday. After that, the prognosis for ameliorating the reading disability becomes less optimistic.
Are the special education services effective?
In 1997, when IDEA was reauthorized, an important change was implemented in which schools were required to evaluate special education students' progress as often as they did the progress of general education students. IDEA has long required that progress be evaluated in observable and measurable ways.
I cannot begin to count the number of times that a student's progress is merely observed rather than measured in any way. Independent assessment, school standardized testing, state assessment measures and observational charts are all means of evaluating and measuring progress.
My advice to parents who think that their children are not making sufficient progress: Don't stop in your efforts to improve your child's progress.
Failure to make appropriate progress has devastating and cumulative ramifications. This year's teacher will not be around to see the implications over time, but parents certainly will be.
Transition Planning For The Child With High Functioning Autism
By Louis H. Geigerman, President
National ARD/IEP Advocates
In my special education advocacy practice I represent families with children from ages 3 to 21. In addition, I know a number of adults in the spectrum all the way to their early 60’s. Statistics have shown that only about 3% of individuals in the spectrum are able to live independently and are self supporting. If you have a child in elementary school, the focus on skill acquisition is totally different than the child in high school. But both scenarios should have the same goal in common which is preparing students for further education, employment and independent living. For instance, should we spend an inordinate amount of time coloring the interior of a circle when a student’s communication or social needs are significantly deficient? The key to getting your child in the 3% that are independent is to understand what skills that they will need to master when living alone.
A few ideas to consider:
When the child is an early teen, teach them to schedule their own doctor appointments.
Open a checking account as early as possible to help them understand money management by balancing checkbooks and living within their means.
Have them start cooking simple meals.
Help them to understand about food spoilage and the importance of cleaning out refrigerators.
By thinking ahead, we can insure better outcomes for our kids.
http://www.narda.org/
louis@narda.org
National ARD/IEP Advocates
In my special education advocacy practice I represent families with children from ages 3 to 21. In addition, I know a number of adults in the spectrum all the way to their early 60’s. Statistics have shown that only about 3% of individuals in the spectrum are able to live independently and are self supporting. If you have a child in elementary school, the focus on skill acquisition is totally different than the child in high school. But both scenarios should have the same goal in common which is preparing students for further education, employment and independent living. For instance, should we spend an inordinate amount of time coloring the interior of a circle when a student’s communication or social needs are significantly deficient? The key to getting your child in the 3% that are independent is to understand what skills that they will need to master when living alone.
A few ideas to consider:
When the child is an early teen, teach them to schedule their own doctor appointments.
Open a checking account as early as possible to help them understand money management by balancing checkbooks and living within their means.
Have them start cooking simple meals.
Help them to understand about food spoilage and the importance of cleaning out refrigerators.
By thinking ahead, we can insure better outcomes for our kids.
http://www.narda.org/
louis@narda.org
Educational Toys That Help Kids Grow
By Dee Carrick
Owner of OZMO - The fun store for Autism
www.ozmofun.com
Most parents try to give their children the best start in life they can. They feed
them carrots and apples for snacks, keep track of their school performance, and also try to buy educational toys. That is wonderful!
So what IS an Educational Toy?
Is it one that seems kind of boring but could teach them some facts?
Is it one that is labeled “educational” or “early learning” on a website or in a store?
Is it one that requires interaction with an adult before a lesson can be learned?
Is it some toy that is labeled with “teaches cause and effect” or “sequencing skills” or “fine motor skill practice” or maybe even “teaches spatial orientation concepts”?
Those sound really good and official! Isn’t it always better to buy toys that teach?
In truth, though, ALL toys are educational. Every toy teaches the child
something. Check out the following list of “toys” and the things they can teach:
Anyway, you get the idea. Babies and children absorb information all the time.
(Sometimes the lessons they learn are not always the ones we want them to learn!) So don’t be too quick to think that a toy has to be labeled educational for it to be of value.
Get a variety of toys to see what they like or have talents for. Make sure they
have access to crayons, paper, puzzles, books, balls, musical toys, and some free time to experiment. Sit down with them once in a while and enjoy playing with them. Inspire them by showing them new ways to use the toys and then let them use their imagination. Encourage them with impromptu art shows, parades, and by taking pictures of their results.
Cheap plastic toy - Really inexpensive toys can break quickly
Cup in the bathtub - How to pour, pouring slowly means dribbles down the
cup, water surface stays flat
Squeezy toy - Practice in fine motor skills, sense of relaxation
Wrestling figure - How to hurt people, it is fun to hurt people
Paper and crayons - Spatial relations, color names, fine motor skills
Puzzles - Concentration, spatial relations, fine motor skills, cats lay on
them and chew them
Spinning light toy - Cause and effect, fine motor skills, if you throw it down
it will break, battery toys last longer if they go off automatically
Dirt - It smells good, it tastes bad, it turns to squishy mud if you add water,
it can grow plants
Big new educational toy- you can sit on it, it won’t work if you lose this
piece, pushing three buttons at once makes a sound that is really annoying
to mom, cause and effect…
My favorite Christmas present as a child was just a box full of colored paper, glitter, glue, sequins, stickers, etc. My daughter’s favorite was a pretty box full of squares of silky or lacey fabrics, cheap plastic bead necklaces, and garage sale hats, for dress-up. My son’s favorite was a, well… flatulence imitating toy. Boys…….
One more thing-if a toy is to be used, it must be fun. We have probably all bought a wonderful educational toy that never got used more than once. Too many educational toys just don’t have enough of the fun factor. (However, the toy may still be appropriate for a classroom where anything that isn’t a worksheet is welcomed by the students!) So be careful and make sure that the toy is appealing and fun. A toy on a shelf isn’t teaching a child much of anything.
And yes, sometimes we can buy a toy just because it looks like fun.
See more info at www.ozmofun.com - The fun store for Autism
Owner of OZMO - The fun store for Autism
www.ozmofun.com
Most parents try to give their children the best start in life they can. They feed
them carrots and apples for snacks, keep track of their school performance, and also try to buy educational toys. That is wonderful!
So what IS an Educational Toy?
Is it one that seems kind of boring but could teach them some facts?
Is it one that is labeled “educational” or “early learning” on a website or in a store?
Is it one that requires interaction with an adult before a lesson can be learned?
Is it some toy that is labeled with “teaches cause and effect” or “sequencing skills” or “fine motor skill practice” or maybe even “teaches spatial orientation concepts”?
Those sound really good and official! Isn’t it always better to buy toys that teach?
In truth, though, ALL toys are educational. Every toy teaches the child
something. Check out the following list of “toys” and the things they can teach:
Anyway, you get the idea. Babies and children absorb information all the time.
(Sometimes the lessons they learn are not always the ones we want them to learn!) So don’t be too quick to think that a toy has to be labeled educational for it to be of value.
Get a variety of toys to see what they like or have talents for. Make sure they
have access to crayons, paper, puzzles, books, balls, musical toys, and some free time to experiment. Sit down with them once in a while and enjoy playing with them. Inspire them by showing them new ways to use the toys and then let them use their imagination. Encourage them with impromptu art shows, parades, and by taking pictures of their results.
Cheap plastic toy - Really inexpensive toys can break quickly
Cup in the bathtub - How to pour, pouring slowly means dribbles down the
cup, water surface stays flat
Squeezy toy - Practice in fine motor skills, sense of relaxation
Wrestling figure - How to hurt people, it is fun to hurt people
Paper and crayons - Spatial relations, color names, fine motor skills
Puzzles - Concentration, spatial relations, fine motor skills, cats lay on
them and chew them
Spinning light toy - Cause and effect, fine motor skills, if you throw it down
it will break, battery toys last longer if they go off automatically
Dirt - It smells good, it tastes bad, it turns to squishy mud if you add water,
it can grow plants
Big new educational toy- you can sit on it, it won’t work if you lose this
piece, pushing three buttons at once makes a sound that is really annoying
to mom, cause and effect…
My favorite Christmas present as a child was just a box full of colored paper, glitter, glue, sequins, stickers, etc. My daughter’s favorite was a pretty box full of squares of silky or lacey fabrics, cheap plastic bead necklaces, and garage sale hats, for dress-up. My son’s favorite was a, well… flatulence imitating toy. Boys…….
One more thing-if a toy is to be used, it must be fun. We have probably all bought a wonderful educational toy that never got used more than once. Too many educational toys just don’t have enough of the fun factor. (However, the toy may still be appropriate for a classroom where anything that isn’t a worksheet is welcomed by the students!) So be careful and make sure that the toy is appealing and fun. A toy on a shelf isn’t teaching a child much of anything.
And yes, sometimes we can buy a toy just because it looks like fun.
See more info at www.ozmofun.com - The fun store for Autism
Connecting With The Almighty
Words of Inspiration By Tzvi Pearlstein, MD, FAAOS, FACS,
Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon
As a doctor, I have seen the suffering of many patients. I have also seen how trying circumstances have brought out the best in both patients themselves and in their families and loved ones.
Pain is not a new experience. I am the eldest son of a holocaust survivor. As a child I was patterned to provide my mother with joy and with joyful events after all the suffering she had witnessed as a young teenager. My awareness of this as an adult made me realize that I was not only fulfilling her need. I was also growing my own character. By helping her, I was truly also helping myself, and, as is the case when any two people share an act of kindness, was thereby elevating the entire world at the same time—acts of kindness tend to multiply and spread resulting in more kind acts.
By caring for another we can accomplish great things, not only for others, and not only for our own self improvement, but also in our connection to God. And the stronger our connection to the Almighty, the greater the benefits we receive in every aspect of our lives.
Building a foundation is always an effort and the same is true with our connection to God. Building a relationship with the Almighty is an effort and a process. It can start with, and is most easily achieved, by doing something for another human being. Each of us can and must share our own unique talents and attributes with those who have less--and doing so is not only man’s work. It is the work of the Divine. It is a partnership we share with God.
A child with any disability or challenge to overcome is indeed a special child, one who deserves great love and attention. We need to transform any pain that may arise from such a condition into constructive loving efforts. It’s about time for human beings, made in the image of God (meaning that we can and must emulate the will of God), to WAKE UP and truly emulate God.
Lend your hand. Do not be a taker. The model for what we need to do is the handshake. According to Torah (Bible) sages and authentic Kabbalah, ten fingers represents a whole. The number ten is all inclusive, comprising all human attributes. When you reach out your hand and your five fingers combine in a handshake with another’s five fingers, the result is a combined whole holy Godly unit. This is the meaning of the Hebrew greeting, “Shalom.” You and me-- together we make a united whole—Peace onto us and the world.
When you see someone in need--someone less fortunate than yourself in any realm— be ready to give a hand and elevate the world. And should that person be a widow, an orphan, or a child or adult with autism, cancer, or one of many human afflictions—give of yourself—bring kindness, love and joy into the world.
Dr. Tzvi Pearlstein practices orthopedic medicine/surgery in Coral Springs and serves as a consultant throughout Southeast Florida from Jacksonville to Miami, with a focus on preventive medicine and orthopedic surgery. Dr. Pearlstein is a graduate of PrincetonUniversity and New York University School of Medicine. The author of several published studies, Dr. Pearlstein also served as Chief Orthopedic Surgeon in the United States Air Force at Clark Air Base, Philippines, and at Andrews Air Force Base, Wash. D.C., as a professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, and left his practice of orthopedic surgery in Anaheim, California in 1990 to serve as a Major during the first Gulf War. His current Book/DVD/Web Project THE ONE MINUTE STRETCH will soon be available online & in book stores. Dr. Pearlstein can be seen playing trumpet with various bands in various musical establishments in South Florida. You can reach him at his office, 954-344-0111 or 877-REHAB30.
Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon
As a doctor, I have seen the suffering of many patients. I have also seen how trying circumstances have brought out the best in both patients themselves and in their families and loved ones.
Pain is not a new experience. I am the eldest son of a holocaust survivor. As a child I was patterned to provide my mother with joy and with joyful events after all the suffering she had witnessed as a young teenager. My awareness of this as an adult made me realize that I was not only fulfilling her need. I was also growing my own character. By helping her, I was truly also helping myself, and, as is the case when any two people share an act of kindness, was thereby elevating the entire world at the same time—acts of kindness tend to multiply and spread resulting in more kind acts.
By caring for another we can accomplish great things, not only for others, and not only for our own self improvement, but also in our connection to God. And the stronger our connection to the Almighty, the greater the benefits we receive in every aspect of our lives.
Building a foundation is always an effort and the same is true with our connection to God. Building a relationship with the Almighty is an effort and a process. It can start with, and is most easily achieved, by doing something for another human being. Each of us can and must share our own unique talents and attributes with those who have less--and doing so is not only man’s work. It is the work of the Divine. It is a partnership we share with God.
A child with any disability or challenge to overcome is indeed a special child, one who deserves great love and attention. We need to transform any pain that may arise from such a condition into constructive loving efforts. It’s about time for human beings, made in the image of God (meaning that we can and must emulate the will of God), to WAKE UP and truly emulate God.
Lend your hand. Do not be a taker. The model for what we need to do is the handshake. According to Torah (Bible) sages and authentic Kabbalah, ten fingers represents a whole. The number ten is all inclusive, comprising all human attributes. When you reach out your hand and your five fingers combine in a handshake with another’s five fingers, the result is a combined whole holy Godly unit. This is the meaning of the Hebrew greeting, “Shalom.” You and me-- together we make a united whole—Peace onto us and the world.
When you see someone in need--someone less fortunate than yourself in any realm— be ready to give a hand and elevate the world. And should that person be a widow, an orphan, or a child or adult with autism, cancer, or one of many human afflictions—give of yourself—bring kindness, love and joy into the world.
Dr. Tzvi Pearlstein practices orthopedic medicine/surgery in Coral Springs and serves as a consultant throughout Southeast Florida from Jacksonville to Miami, with a focus on preventive medicine and orthopedic surgery. Dr. Pearlstein is a graduate of PrincetonUniversity and New York University School of Medicine. The author of several published studies, Dr. Pearlstein also served as Chief Orthopedic Surgeon in the United States Air Force at Clark Air Base, Philippines, and at Andrews Air Force Base, Wash. D.C., as a professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, and left his practice of orthopedic surgery in Anaheim, California in 1990 to serve as a Major during the first Gulf War. His current Book/DVD/Web Project THE ONE MINUTE STRETCH will soon be available online & in book stores. Dr. Pearlstein can be seen playing trumpet with various bands in various musical establishments in South Florida. You can reach him at his office, 954-344-0111 or 877-REHAB30.
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