Notes from ASSEC

March 17th, 2013  

“I think the highlight of the conference was Michelle Garcia Winner.  Her perspective on social skills is amazing.  If you ever get a chance to hear her, go!   Check out her website:  Social Thinking:  http://www.socialthinking.com/ .  She has some hidden places to find forms on her site.  If this interests you, please email and I’ll tell you where to find them.  I’ve already started social skills mapping with some kids and am feeling very positive about the process.”  ~ Bobbi Larrivee WHE Intensive Needs

 

“There are five types of identified bullying behavior:
bullet-point-image-7 Verbal – which is often quick, direct, and sneaky
bullet-point-image-7 Physical – which is the easiest to recognize due to direct evidence
bullet-point-image-7 Emotional (social) – which is calculated and involves manipulation and gossip
bullet-point-image-7 Sexual – which involves a violation of personal boundaries
bullet-point-image-7 Cyber – which is using technology to hurt and harm another person.”

~ Summarized by Dr. Terese Kashi, school psychologist from presentation by Stone Soup Group 

Notes from ASSEC

February 1st, 2013  

For the remaining issues of the school year, we will be featuring learning from educators that attended ASSEC! Please send your learning to Denise Kelly (who reserves the right to edit to fit in the space allotted).

Ron Glodoski was a keynote speaker at ASSEC. He spoke of the critical importance of developing relationships with students – especially the ones that drive us crazy! His personal experiences included school avoidance, gang membership, drug use and dealing, criminal activity, prison, and ultimately therapy, the road to recovery, and development of self – esteem. He urged the audience to be that one person who is there for the difficult students unconditionally. Be the one who keeps coming back to help even when they don’t want help.

His student activity workbook, “How to be a Successful Criminal: The Real Deal on Crime, Drugs and Easy Money,” (it’s a “reverse psychology” type of title!) is available at the district office. Contact Rebecca Stilchen – Jaime, and she can bizhub you the entire notebook or make you a hard copy at no cost to you.

For more information, check out
http://www.ronglodoski.com/bookstore.html

If you use the activity workbook, let us know what you think!

Seminar Review: Autism, Asperger’s, Sensory & ADHD

October 1st, 2012  

Autism, Asperger’s, Sensory, & ADHD
Presented by Gary M. Eisenberg, Ph.D.

Summit Professional Education hosted an Anchorage seminar at the Marriot Hotel featuring Gary M. Eisenberg, Ph.D., a practicing clinical psychologist who has worked directly with children and adolescents with developmental disorders for over 28 years.

Eisenberg reviewed many standard and long practiced interventions shown to be effective with the disorders covered in the seminar. Many of the strategies discussed are used regularly by professionals in our district i. e. ABA, Floortime, TEACCH, Relationship Development Intervention, and Social Skills Training, etc. These effective, researched- based approaches were related to the cerebral cortex as either top down (concept driven and learner directed-needs understanding) or bottom up (foundational skills that are stimulus-driven and therapist directed) behavior therapies. Some of the strategies for teachers with students who have autism/Asperger’s included:  more visual, less verbal; speak slowly in order to facilitate auditory processing; have consistent structure and expectations between home and school; embrace student’s fixations, but set limits; use video modeling; minimize transitions and maintain consistent daily routine; avoid surprises.

Dr. Eisenberg also offered suggestions for kids with attention deficit problems. Aside from the various diets, he suggested that music can and does have a profound calming effect. Another suggestion was for the teachers to “stagger” the tasks sequentially from “easy to hard and then easy.” Finally, he really emphasized the use of visuals for kids with ADHD. He also noted a couple interesting facts. If a kid has a learning disability, the probability of that kid having ADHD is 60%. Classroom tips include: using highlighters, having kids stand, rotate kids through stations every 15 minutes., increase natural and full spectrum lighting, and have them chew gum to increase blood circulation in the frontal lobe of the brain.

Our session was predominantly attended by SLPs and OT/PTs with only a handful of Psyches and SpEd teachers in the group. There were many stimulating questions and thoughtful comments made by attendees throughout the seminar and we all received a certificate upon completion along with an opportunity to purchase a copy of Eisenberg’s work, Recommendations for Treating, Teaching, and Parenting Behavior-Disordered Children. This seminar correlated many of the similarities in effective interventions that work across multiple disorders in a concise and direct way.

   —-Mitchell Pioch & Peter Gundunas, Skyview High School, May 2, 2012

 

The Focus is Math

October 1st, 2012  

For almost all of our schools, SBA scores in math need to be raised—the pressure is mounting. Pupil Services is looking at how to support special education teachers with curriculum and other resources. Hopefully this information is helpful!

www.learner.org—free website from the Annenberg Foundation. Provides professional resources for all academic areas.

www.khanacademy.org—free website for many academic areas, including math, from basic computation to calculus. Provides video explanations as well as practice problems for each of the areas.

www.sosmath.com—free website for practice problems from Algebra to differential equations

According to the Council for Exceptional Children’s math webinar series last school year, we need to use language to move student learning from one level to the next. Ways to increase these language interactions in math class include:

 Allow students to interact frequently with the class materials and concepts

 Model and encourage level appropriate math vocabulary in class dialogue

 Use white boards to assess step by step processes

 Set up cooperative groups with systematic interactions

 Use journals to practice student think alouds and conceptualization

Thank you for all of your work with math (and everything else) for our students!