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>> Kathy Miller: Greetings.
Welcome to Igniting Inclusion.
This webinar is brought to you by the Institute on Disabilities at Temple University.
My name is Kathy Miller and I am the Director of Supports and Services here at the institute.
The project that is sponsoring this particular webinar is Competence and Confidence Partners
in Policymaking Family Leadership and funding for our project comes
from the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council.
We're so pleased that Lisa Wallace-Larkin who is a parent and also an inclusion specialist
at the Arc of Philadelphia is presenting tonight's fabulous webinar.
Before we start I want to tell you a little bit about Competence and Confidence Partners
in Policymaking Family Leadership which we fondly refer to as C2P2 Family Leadership.
In inclusive education in non-traditional schools and it's designed for families
of students with disabilities who are educated in home school, cyber charter schools,
charter schools, private schools and parochial schools.
Supports began this year to administrators and staff within these settings as well.
The goal of the project is to create a network of family leaders who will work together
with educators and administrators to champion inclusive practices for children
with disabilities in the non-traditional school communities.
Our project activities include online leadership development training, such as today's program.
We also offer free one on one parent consultation
which is direct supports from trained parent consultants.
We have online resources and we're delighted to let you know
that we will be having a live session on May 7th this year, 2016, at the Doubletree Suites
which is located in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.
It's also important to note that we have available archived webinars.
These can be found on our website.
We have webinars on safety, building safe and healthy relationships,
how to keep your child safe when they are on the internet, understanding evaluations,
community connections, how to become enriched, engaged and included, excuse me.
Other archived webinars include creating a vision for your child, how to work together
with your child's school team, how to understand your child's rights and another session
on inclusion, because again it's so important that inclusion is really the foundation for all
of the work that we do here at the institute for children and adults with disabilities
as a natural part of the community that's what we strive for
and this what our families have told us they want for all of their children.
You can see here the, on the screen is our web address for the archived webinars,
www.disabilities.temple.edu / programs / leadership / c2p2family.shtml.
This webinar will be archived afterwards and you'll have the reference to our website.
An important date to keep in mind is April 5th when our final webinar
of this year will be presented at 7 pm, Calming the Chaos, The Power of Prevention,
Positive Behavior Supports and Parent Coaching.
So please look out for that and mark your calendars.
Identifying Community Resources is the face to face event that I mentioned briefly before.
It is occurring on May 7th and it will be held in Plymouth Meeting
at the Doubletree Suites from 9 am to 2 pm.
We encourage you to do your registration; it is at that same website address that you can find
on the PowerPoint after this presentation.
I want to talk briefly about the complimentary one on one parent consultation
that is available through the project.
Our project partners are Pennsylvania's Education for All Coalition,
which is called PEAC, and families participating in any of the C2P2,
FL trainings including this webinar may request guidance and technical assistance
and you'll be matched with trained parent consultants from PEAC.
It's a wonderful service.
We've had many family members use this.
Some of the things that the PEAC consultants can assist you with are locating resources
and supports, helping you understand your child's rights,
reviewing your child's individual education plan, the IEP, or the evaluation report, the ER.
They can also help you brainstorm strategies to support your child's inclusive education,
suggestions and ideas for accommodations and supports
for your child's individual specific needs.
In some instances consultants can also attend IEP meetings with you for transition
from early intervention to secondary school and so on.
So there's a lot of wonderful services and resources that you can find
by working together with a parent consultant.
Support can be offered in person, over the phone or by email
to really match what your individual needs are.
Again that very same website you can go to our project website
and there is a user friendly form that you can fill out to request
that a parent consultant work with you.
The other, one of the other resources that we offer to families is a closed Facebook group.
Now it's closed because it's to provide confidentiality
so that people can chat and share information.
The address to that Facebook is www.facebook.com / groups /364939946957712.
Again this information will be available after the webinar.
If you simply put that into your Facebook and click Join Group your request will be accepted
within a few days and you can post and read comments.
You'll be part of our Facebook community.
We hope you join us there.
If you need any more information about C2P2 FL please contact Cathy Roccia-Meier
who is our Family Education Coordinator.
Cathy can be reached by phone, her voicemail is directly by dialing 215-204-1772.
We also have access to a TTY is you are in need of that resource.
That number is 215-204-1805, or you can also use our fax number, 215-204-6336 to fax
in a request Cathy's email address if you prefer
to use an email is Cathy with a c, r-m at Temple.edu.
I'm going to skip over this.
So after you listen to this webinar on our archived page if you would please,
after you're done with that you will notice that a survey monkey, survey request will come up.
So if you could please just fill out that survey, it's a very brief survey,
but we're really eager to hear your feedback on how this session went
so that we can make any improvements on our sessions.
You can suggest future topics and we also of course like to get back to our funders
to give them the feedback in terms of how you enjoyed listening to that session,
so please take a few moments to do that.
Now finally what you've been waiting for, the Igniting Inclusions by Lisa Wallace-Larkin,
I am going to turn the session over to Lisa and she will guide you
through this very fascinating information.
Thanks so much.
Okay, take it away Lisa.
>> Lisa Wallace-Larkin: Thank you Kathy and thank you to everyone
who is joining the webinar today.
I'm thrilled that you are interested in learning more about inclusion and I'm grateful
to the institute here at Temple for inviting me to be a part
of this very important webinar series.
The title of our time together today is Igniting Inclusion.
So what you're looking at on your screen is a cartoon
and above the cartoon it has the title Igniting Inclusion Without Burning Bridges.
I actually added that being inspired by this particular cartoon which has a picture
of a wooden bridge and on top of the bridge there are a few people.
One man looks like he's sweating and he's saying, are you warm or is it just me?
Because underneath the bridge there are two men around a campfire and one of the men is saying,
it's got to be hot but not too hot and the other man says okay.
And the capture underneath reads, fanning the flames of change,
lighting a fire under people without burning your bridges.
The reason I wanted to start with this is because inclusion is a very,
we could talk to hours about inclusion because inclusion really is about a mindset
and really a framework of components to be put together and although
in theory it can make perfect sense, in fact from me personally
as a parent too I would think we have the laws which we'll talk about today and the research
which we'll also talk about today, but in the end it really comes down to people
and our relationships with one another.
So you'll hear me say frequently that inclusion does not have to be an all or none thing,
in fact it's not really a thing as much as it is more of a mindset.
When we're dealing with people we like to think about taking one step at a time
and in a positive way to encourage progress.
So when it comes to inclusion we want to work collaboratively and with coming from a place
of compassion and understanding and that really will increase our chances
of having a successful inclusive school and community.
I just want to talk a little bit about myself to give you an understanding
of how it is I got to be in this seat today.
I am a mother.
I have a daughter who is almost 13 and the picture that you're looking
at on the slide is my son Reny [assumed spelling] who is nine years old
and when he was born I at the time was working as a special education teacher.
And really it wasn't until Reny became school age that I started to learn about inclusion.
And we were, we live here in Philadelphia and we're exploring our options and we're very close
to looking at private school and literally on a, I can't even explain it to you any other way
than this sort of fluke happened where I picked up a book and it's a bit of a mouthful
but the name of the book is Academic Instruction for Students with Moderate
and Severe Intellectual Disabilities in Inclusive Classrooms.
And I read the first chapter of that book where it talked about research and I was
from the mindset of well obviously a special setting
or a more specialized setting would get my son what he needs.
But as I would read this book and more after I would come to learn more about the research
and how it supports the most positive long term outcomes, as far as relationships, employment
and that was a game changer for me and it was at that moment that I really I dove in head first
to learn about what is inclusion, what does it look like and what does that mean for my son.
And that evolved into me sitting here with you today in that in the end I had decided
that I didn't want our choices to be an emotional argument yet one that was based
on what would give my son the best chance because we're raising an adult
and in the end we decided to have him go to public school where to this day we are working
for him to be in an inclusive classroom.
You're looking at a slide where the title says what is the goal of education
and that photograph is actually taken from a birthday party
from my son's birthday party last year, and you'll see in those six children,
my son is the one wearing a Superman shirt, there's a nice diverse group of kids.
And what I'd like for you to do before we get started is I want you to take a second
and actually think about what is the goal of education,
whether it's public school, private school, home schooling.
In order to make good choices for our kids, for me at least,
it was helpful to reflect upon what is the goal.
And so what is inclusion?
When you think about those two things together people may have different answers based
on who they are and their circumstances, but I'll tell you in my time talking
about this overwhelmingly I've heard people say that the goal of education was
to prepare their child to live in the real world, to be independent,
to have problem solving skills, to make friends.
In the end they want to be able to raise, in the end at graduation we want to have children
that of course with the academic skills that they need but it is also about sort of the idea
of having the whole child supported.
So before we move forward I'd like to take, you to take a second and just think where you are
at this point in your life, whether you are a parent, an administrator, an educator,
whatever it is that brings you here today, what does inclusion mean to you.
And what might it mean to your community, for your child or to the world around us?
[ Silence ]
I chose this cartoon on the next slide because I feel
like it's a good follow up to that reflective moment.
In the cartoon you see a picture of two people sitting at a table and on the left side
of the table there's a woman and she's saying, we're trying to decide
which school district is best for our daughter.
So we want to know what you have.
Inclusion?
Inclusive education?
Or full inclusion?
And the man across the table who I'm assuming is the administrator or teacher.
There's some papers in front of him and he's holding a pencil.
And he says oh, I get it.
It's a trick question right?
And the caption underneath reads, Mr. Moody continues
to be befuddled by the lack of clear definition.
The reason I included this today is that there really is no one size fits all definition
of inclusion, because as I mentioned earlier inclusion itself is more of a mindset
and a framework with a lot of components that in the end or by not just for a child
that may have a disability but any child or person that may feel marginalized with the goal
of creating a community where all the members feel included and valued.
So you may have participated in other webinars about inclusion, you may have read books
about inclusion and in the end it really is about your individual child and what you
and potentially your team feels will get your child where you want them to be,
perhaps as we referred to earlier to get to that endpoint of what the goal is of education.
This slide is a quote from Norman Kunz and it has been my experience
because I've seen quite a few you know definitions in black and white
about what inclusion is, and this one has been my favorite
which is why I want to share it with you today.
It reads, "...the valuing of diversity within the human community.
When inclusive education is fully embraced, we abandon the idea that children have to become
"normal" in order to contribute to the world...and in doing so begin
to realize the achievable goal of providing all children with an authentic sense of belonging."
I'll tell you what I like about that quote most of all is
that it almost defines inclusion as a feeling, at least for me.
That's sort of how I perceived it.
It gives me a sense of inclusion and what it should almost feel like.
And you're looking up at the slide now of a cartoon of a chalkboard
where in big letters it says A, B,
C and the caption underneath it reads, The ABC's of inclusion.
And next to the A it says acceptance, B is for belonging and C is for community.
I'll tell you.
We could talk for days about what the research says about inclusion and I referred earlier,
especially with the background in education, sometimes that's tough to wear both hats.
And so when I go into meetings for my son it's impossible not to be emotional
but it was important to me that the decisions that we were making were not emotional arguments
but were based on what has proven to be the most effective.
And in the end overall the main themes that you'll find in the research is
that inclusion benefits all students in the classroom.
Again, inclusion is not just about disability.
Inclusive classrooms actually increase the rate of learning
and strengthens the classrooms as a whole.
And throughout our time together we'll be touching on these things a little bit more.
This was the, this article in particular that you'll see on the screen was one
of the game changers for me in that Wagner's research found that long term outcomes,
not just academic, but include better outcomes after high school in the areas
of employment and independent living.
So I'm getting back to that original question of what's the goal of education.
Well if I'd like my son to have a job
and live independently the research supports inclusive education
as the best way to get him there.
One of the most key components is administration.
So in this context you would think school administration but this really does carry
over to administration in any context.
So at your church or synagogue, the YMCA, anyplace where you are bringing your child,
it really is key to have those who are sort of in charge, kind of running the show,
to be engaged and in this process.
It's a Causton School team letter, this is a good opportunity to mention the fact that,
so we have a limited amount of time together and given the unique needs of every child,
of every school, of every educational situation we could talk for days, weeks.
So today I'm going to try and touch on and provide some concrete ways and examples
where all children can access learning and together, but because we do have limits,
to wrap this presentation I will be referring to certain things.
Like you see upon the slide here it says Causton School team letter.
I will be putting together a resource sheet that will be posted on the website
and in that resource sheet it is going to give you some direction.
So if I touch on something today that you really want to learn more about that particular area,
my goal is that this resource sheet can point you in the right direction; websites, books.
The only reason I'm sitting here talking to you all today is because I made the commitment
to learn as much as I possibly could and now I'm sitting here.
So my hope is that we can learn some things together today but most
of all I hope it becomes a stepping stone for you to learn and find the resources you need
so you can get your child or students what they need.
So this Causton School team letter you'll find in the resource sheet.
It's actually like a five page letter that you can give to your school administrator
or leadership, wherever the environment is that gives a little bit of information
about research, little bit of information about eh law and really does sort
of give an inclusion 101 because it really is about education.
The Law. Another thing we could talk a whole lot about, and so we have IDEA that we could talk
about but because of the nature of the audience and the people
who are participating today I decided to focus a little bit more on the Americans
with Disabilities Act and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The reason I chose that is because there are parts in the law that talk
about you know public entities and having to provide.
So personally speaking in the city where I live if I want my son to be included
with his typical peers right now public school is my only option and that's
because he's protected under the law.
But what ADA talks about in here and I'm not going to through and read this verbatim for you,
but basically the point of me sharing this with you is if you go
down to the third bullet it says, Title II of ADA Section 504 regulations require any program
or activity that receives federal funding such as a school needs to provide opportunities
in the most integrated setting appropriate to that child's needs.
And integrated settings are those that provide individuals with disabilities opportunities
to live, work and receive services in the greater community
like individuals without disabilities.
In addition Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation
such as private schools, private child care programs or private pre-school regardless
of whether an entity receives federal funds.
I want to direct you, one of the websites and you may already be aware of this particular site
that I found helpful when it comes to learning about the law because it can feel overwhelming,
but it is really important for you to get in the know, is [inaudible] Law.
There are a lot of, there's a lot of information on that site from things about assessments
to placements and IEP's, it's an excellent resource that I recommend you explore further
if you have areas of interest when it comes to the law.
So in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
of 2004 there is the least restrictive environment clause in IDEA that I want to share
with you because I think it's a critical piece when it comes to inclusive education.
And so if in the future I say LRE, there are so many acronyms
in special we could talk for an hour just about those.
In fact maybe they even have [inaudible] about that.
LRE refers to least restrictive environment and the LRE clause of IDEA states
that to the maximum extent appropriate school districts must educate students
with disabilities in the regular classroom with appropriate aids and supports,
referred to as supplementary aids and services, along with the non-disabled peers
in the school they would attend if not disabled.
This clause is incredibly important
and really does protect a child's right to an inclusive education.
And we're going to talk a little bit later, so the bold in there of supplementary aids
and services is mine and we're going to talk about that a little bit later
because as you'll see when we get there I really do feel that it's that piece in this clause
that ends up being the backbone to inclusive education.
And what you'll see in the photo there is actually a good example of a peer buddy
in an inclusive classroom where the child is reading to my son.
That's a book that's actually at her level and she's reading to Reny and so he gets the benefit
of listening and having that social interaction, but what she's also doing is
on each page she's having my son point to the letter M on every page
because that's an area that he's working on.
I want to talk a little bit about least restrictive environment
and educational placement for students with IEP's.
The common practice I see often is and also the belief, the mindsets is that a child
with a disability starts in a more restrictive placement and then sort
of works their way into general education.
Well that couldn't be farther from the truth.
In fact it's the exact opposite because within the law it states that the presumption is
that the IEP team begin placement discussions with consideration
of the regular education classroom and the supplementary aids and services that are needed
to enable a student with a disability to benefit from educational services.
So whether your child is coming into kindergarten or you are faced with an IEP
that has a change in placements, it should be written right actually on the document
within the IEP that says that the team really does need
to consider the regular education classroom first with a discussion of what, you know,
supports, aids and services do we need in order for that child to benefit from that environment.
So remember when it comes to that you really do want to start discussion
with regular education first and then work from there.
You may have heard this before but I think this is also key considering what the law states
and what I see in practice a lot.
Special education is actually a service, it's not a place.
Special education is a service and not a place, and on this slide I sort of chose that title
as a way to sort of segway into a discussion about the difference
between mainstreaming and inclusion.
So it was in the 70's, the 1970's where mainstreaming started to become a term
that was used quite a bit and it's still used quite a bit today.
Mainstreaming is not the same thing as inclusion.
Mainstreaming has been historically where a child is physically in the classroom
where they are sort of expected to acclimate and keep up with what's going on in the classroom
and there's very little or minimal accommodations to modifications to curriculum
or instruction, where inclusion starts with the child in the classroom,
in the general education classroom, but what makes it different is
that then the child receives appropriate, individualized supports and services
so that the child can meaningfully access the general education curriculum.
Later on we're going to talk a little bit more about what this would look like in a classroom
because in the end inclusion is more than simply placing individuals together,
it's a belief that all individuals belong and are valued
and then I'll take it one step further in that the child is given what they need
to be successful and that's going to look different for every child.
The amount of time spent in classrooms,
what the particular services are will look different for every child.
The cartoon that you're looking at now about on the top half of the screen it shows a crowd
of people and everyone's sort of talking and socializing and above that there's a banner
that reads, welcome to the IDEA violators annual conference.
And then there's that sort of a sign underneath it on the ground that reads, keynote,
how to avoid compliance and penalties at the same time.
And next to that sort of board is a shadow of an arm that takes it out almost
up the entire bottom half of the cartoon.
And the caption underneath reads, when it comes
to enforcing IDEA the long arm of the law isn't long enough.
[Inaudible] this to be harsh.
The point I'm trying to make by including this is we have the laws in place
that protect our children's rights and we have an overwhelming amount of research
that supports inclusive education as providing the best long term outcomes,
and again a reminder not just for children with disabilities,
but that doesn't mean that everyone's doing it.
In fact that was really a challenge for me as a mom
and an educator saying well we've got the law, we have the research, why isn't this happening?
Well the bottom line is that in order for IDEA to be fully realized is that it involves you
and it involves me and it involves other parents supporting each other, supporting schools,
supporting communities so we can work together collaboratively and be able to move
in a direction where the law is respected and in the end our children get what it is
that we need or that you feel they need.
So just having the law, just having the research is not enough.
We really do need to hold those in charge accountable and that can be done in a way
that is collaborative, and in case I forget to say later too, if you are a parent coming
to this I cannot overstate how important it is to connect with other parents.
Kathy mentioned at the beginning she talked about PEAC and their parent consultants.
I'll tell you I may know what I know about this but when it comes
to my son I still need all the help I can get and it was through an advocate that I ended
up really making progress because it's tough.
But with the support of each other and things
like this webinar we can move things in a progressive way.
Earlier when I talked about least restrictive environment I mentioned supplementary aids
and services as the backbone of inclusion.
So supplementary aids and services are basically all the ingredients
in the inclusion cake I guess I can say, and I believe it's the next slide or so I'm going
to talk about those a little bit more, but before we get into the concrete examples
of what supplementary aids and services are, I want to just spend a couple of minutes talking
about the difference between an accommodation and a modification.
And the reason that makes sense at this point in our time together is because accommodations
and modifications are supplementary aids and services.
There's more than just this, but I want to clarify it so that
when we move forward hopefully you have a clear picture of the difference between the two.
So an accommodation is a strategy that's used to help a student learn content
and typically that's the same curriculum as his peers and in a short while I'm going
to show you an example of what that looks like.
However, an accommodation might be that there are parts of a worksheet that have highlighting.
With an accommodation the learning outcomes are also the same.
So a child that, for example has a section 504 may primarily just need accommodations.
These happen in the general ed classroom.
Tools, materials, technology, visual aids, timing, these kinds of accommodations are used
to help the student access the curriculum so that he
or she can learn the same content as his or her peers.
Integrating is also the same.
So like right now I'm using my own visual aid where I have a timer set
so I can keep an eye on the time.
That's a visual aid and what's important also to note is that the accommodations,
and I'll talk very briefly a little bit later about universal design for learning,
most of the time a lot of the accommodations don't just benefit the child
with the disability, they could benefit a lot of the other children
and maybe even all of the children.
You may use your cell phone yourself to do accommodations
because you know what it is you need.
Within the classroom or community based setting it's just a matter of making slight changes
in the environment but the actual task at hand has the same learning outcome.
However, with a modification you are modifying the curriculum or the assignment.
So a child that has significant learning needs can still access the general education
curriculum; however, the learning outcome may be different.
And again I'm going to show you some concrete examples
and hopefully provide a little bit more clarity there.
For the sake of time we're going to keep moving forward and we'll keep coming back to this.
But in the end the modification, the big difference is accommodations it is tools
that help access the curriculum whereas
with the modification it really helps the student experience the curriculum
but they may not be learning the same content as his or her peers.
Okay. So what are supplementary aids and services?
The one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten or so subtitles I have underneath the title of what are supplementary aids
and services are just some of the areas that supplementary aids and services fall under.
So I'd like to think of supplementary aids and services as sort of an umbrella,
and underneath the umbrella you could almost imagine you know ten or eleven
of these big raindrops and one would read environment, the other one might be pacing
of instruction, materials, presentation of subject matter, specialized equipment
or a procedure, an assignment modification, self-management, follow through,
a testing adaptation, social interaction support and level of staff.
These are all considered supplementary aids and services
and I can't also overstate enough how important it is to learn about what these are.
So it's right in the law and the key is have these supplementary aids
and services been explored and put into place?
Has data been taken about their effectiveness?
You would want to ask these questions before there would be any thought potentially
about putting a child in a more restrictive environment.
Along the bottom it says resources.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with, some people say PaTTAN,
I say PaTTAN.net is a wonderful resource for a variety of topics as far
as special education goes and it really is kind of a go
to resource for training and information.
In fact I know for those of you this would apply
to in August every year they do a [inaudible] disability conference
that is incredibly helpful.
Parents, educators, if you go to the PaTTAN.net website you can find information
about this and a lot of other things.
But it's the SaS Toolkit that I want you to highlight, write down and make a promise to me
that after this you are going to go to the PaTTAN site and search or just Google it,
supplementary aids and services toolkit,
because that is a wonderful tool that the team engages in.
Really it's best done by a trained facilitator
but PaTTAN has resources for that, so look into that.
In the end the point of toolkit is to help the team provide,
well to explore the individualized environment, the general education classrooms, the child,
the teachers and find out what are the barriers for that child to be meaningfully included.
And then once those barriers are addressed, you can put the appropriate supplementary aids
and services in place in an IEP to address those barriers, because it's not expectable to say
that the barrier is the child's level of disability.
The beautiful thing about the toolkit is it really puts the own-ness
on you know us grownups, the team members, the teachers, the professionals and the people
that know the child best to use our individual skills
to do what's necessary for the child to be successful.
Next to that it talks about the SaS checklist and I have an example of one that I'm going
to show you and again, this will be a resource
that will be made available for you after the session.
I'm looking for the [inaudible].
You know what?
We'll, bear with me here, sorry.
There we go, okay.
What you're looking at up on the screen now is just an example.
Julie Costen [assumed spelling] is a researcher, author, expert extraordinaire
out of Syracuse University and if you Google her she has a lot of wonderful resources.
She has a great set of books that I highly recommend that just came out last year that sort
of like an inclusive education handbook for, there's one for educators,
there's one for power professionals, there's one for principals,
there's one for occupational therapists and within those books they also provide,
open you up to a boatload of forms and information that she has that are wonderful.
And she also has an inspiring inclusion Facebook group that I'm a part of and it help kind
of connect you with other parents across the U.S. because like again,
it really is important to have the support.
So what you're looking at here is a checklist of just a sample, these aren't all of them,
of supplementary supports, aids and services.
You're going to see in bold those subtitles that I referred to in the slide before.
So when you sit, if you choose the SaS toolkit that I referred to
and you've identified the barriers to whether it's behavioral, academic, you know,
what are the issues as far as why that child cannot be educated
in the general education environment, when you're considering these,
addressing these barriers you can use this checklist as a way to help identify
which supports will be like the least intrusive and only as special as necessary
and the most natural to the context of the classroom.
So under environmental you'll see things like preferential seating, that's an accommodation.
I know for myself when I go to see a speaker I either sit towards the front
of the room or on an aisle.
And so when you're thinking about certain classrooms think about the educator,
should we be considering like where the child should sit?
Who should the child sit next to?
Because peer buddies and peer tutors, which I'm going to talk about a little bit later,
are a wonderful way to, and actually with peer buddies it's beneficial for both children.
There's research that supports that and that is also an example
of a supplementary aid and service.
So I know in the lunchroom my son wears, what do you call them,
the headphones that help decrease, noise reducing, noise reduction headphones.
We bring them with us when we go to [inaudible].
Really that's an accommodation.
That's an environmental supplementary aids and service.
Pacing of instruction.
So a child may get the exact same assignments but may get extra time and that's okay.
In fact again these might be things, especially if it's not an assignment that is
about how fast a child can do it, this is the kind of thing that may be good
for not just a child with an IEP.
Allowing for breaks.
Who doesn't need after sitting for 30 minutes a chance to get up?
These are things that can be naturally embedded into the child's day and may not require a visit
to a sensory room or a separate environment.
When you think about supplementary aids and services you want to think
about how we can embed these into the natural routine of the day.
How subject matter is presented.
Universal design for learning is a wonderful evidence based practice that is beneficial
for all students, whether it's a child with a disability or a child who's gifted;
maybe a child who doesn't have an IEP but struggles.
We want to look at creating a strength based program.
A strength based classroom.
When we focus specifically on deficits you know the impact that you have it's not,
you will not seek as much or you will not get as much I think reward or result in that way.
Of course we need to be knowledgeable of what the areas our child needs to work on,
we create goals, but what we want to do is look at what are their strengths
and what are their interests to foster progress.
Okay I'm going to move forward here due to time,
but like I said I'm going to make this accessible for you.
I actually have another example of this that offers different options.
So in the law it talks about supplementary aids and services.
Well I was a special ed teacher and I really didn't know what supplementary aids
and services, what did that mean.
I'm hoping that you'll walk away from today knowing what does that mean.
I know what the law says, have we tried these things and if we haven't let's put some of them
in place and collect data and have a real concrete sense of what's been effective or not.
Materials, now we're going to talk a little bit, I'm going to show you some examples of materials
and you'll see on the screen here assignment modification.
I'm going to show you now some concrete examples of assignment modifications.
Before I do I do want to talk about self-management and follow through.
I'll tell you, taking my parent hat off and putting my teacher hat on,
one of the most important things I felt like I would focus on as a special education teacher,
especially for my students who were on the autism spectrum, was teaching that child
about who are they and what are their strengths, what are they good at, what do they need,
because in the end we do want our kids to know who they are and not just focus
on well I can't do this, but empower them to be able to ask for what they need
because they know that's what they need for themselves to be successful.
Providing them, and we've got all this wonderful technology, there's wonderful apps
that can provide a visual calendar.
You can actually use the app to take photographs of you know physical locations, of teachers
and create a visual calendar for your child so it makes it kind of cool because it's on an iPad
or a tablet, which is also a tool we use every day.
But at the same time they get to have control over that and power over that
and that is actually something that can help create the child feeling better about themselves
and potentially decrease any kind of negative behavior.
Social interaction support, anyway I definitely encourage you
to take some time to explore what these are.
Alright here we are.
We're good.
What we're going to do now, before what we're going to do now is I'm going to remind you,
before an attempt is made for maybe a more restrictive placement, check the list
and if you don't know them ask someone else.
Shoot me an email.
You'll get my email address at the end of this session.
And if as you're going and I'm moving quickly through something and you had a question,
write it down as we go and at the end of the presentation it does provide my email address,
please reach out to me and I don't have all the answers but I can certainly try
and help you connect you or provide you with resources that may get you what you need.
Alright, now I'm going to show you some concrete examples of accommodations or modifications.
What you're looking at here, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Irlen,
spelled I-r-l-e-n, Irlen overlays.
These can be particularly beneficial for children
that have a specific learning disability in reading
or may have visual processing challenges.
I had a student who had a diagnosis of dyslexia and I was, we were really struggling
and with a little bit of research I had learned by asking someone else about overlays.
And what the overlays are are just sort of a clear,
plastic sheet that you put over a book or a worksheet.
So on the left is an example of what that might look like without an overlay
and how the child might perceive the letters on the page.
Using an overlay this may be how your child now sees it.
Now there's different colors, again, this is an example of a supplementary aids and services.
You can have it written into the child's program or plan that the child can use overlays.
So if they don't have any challenges with content reading,
they may be in their 8th grade classroom and all the children have their textbook out,
but this child knows that they need to have their overlays
so that they can read with more clarity.
What you're looking at now is a worksheet
and I'll tell you the next few examples I am showing you, now I'm no fan of worksheets,
I'll tell you, but let's be realistic, it is a reality.
And so what I wanted to be able to do was provide some examples of some modifications
and accommodation, modifications through some of these worksheets.
If there are ever particular scenarios where you need to adjust them let me know
and also be looking at universal designs for learning,
which again on the resource sheet I'll have some resources for you to look into and I'll touch
about it briefly in a little bit.
What you're looking at is a 5th grade math worksheet and although I'd love it,
I almost want to ask you if you think it's an accommodation or a modification
because if you look at it obviously a teacher or an adult has written on the sheet.
So for problem number one it reads 8000 minus 2817.
Underneath it someone has handwritten in red use calculator.
The next one says use calculator.
These are accommodations.
In the end the content is the same but this child, based on what their individual needs are,
are allowed to use the calculator.
Or if you look below to the bottom, perhaps this child might be very visual,
it has this actual problem is somewhat modified.
Because instead of having the child do the math problems, the addition problems
down to the point, it's asking the child to round it.
So instead of 781 plus 411 plus 652 plus 293, it says round to 700
or 800 because that child might actually have a goal about estimating and rounding.
So this child's IEP goal might be being addressed by using the same material
as their peer without a disability.
What you're looking at now is a modified grade 8 science assignment.
This would probably be for a student that might have an intellectual disability and so while his
or her peers might be using the textbook to the left that says review vocabulary,
reviewing key concepts, the child with a disability might have sheet of paper
that you can lay over the same textbook that his or her peers are using,
and it says chapter four, density and buoyancy
and then it has three questions or three question, yes.
The first one says pressure means to push down on something and the word pressure is in bold.
That is an accommodation.
Can I tell you I'm such a huge fan of different colored highlighters?
So another concrete example might be that if the child is given questions that they have
to answer after reading a passage, especially if you can highlight the actual text,
you can use different color highlighters to highlight the information
that needs to then go into your answer.
It provides sort of that visual to help things be a little bit more clear.
Just like kind of like highlighting how many more in a math word problem.
So pressure means to push down on something, and the student has to check either yes or no.
Number two buoyant means to float.
Again the child checks yes or no.
Three, you use a ruler to measure in centimeters, yes or no?
So these are the main ideas of the lesson and the child has to check yes or no.
So they're accessing this curriculum but it's been modified in a way
that makes it meaningful for that child.
I'm telling you it really is about being creative and thinking outside the box.
Here's just another example.
So yes or no questions are really the simplest way you can modify curriculum content.
Now what you're looking at is a spelling word list.
So your child may not be able to have this particular list.
Another way to make it meaningful would be choosing maybe the most common words
that you see day to day and cut the list.
Or for a child that has an intellectual disability,
a way that you can make this meaningful
for them is you can give them the spelling word list their peers have, but perhaps their job is
to identify the letters that they're working on.
They're currently working on a, b, s and t, use different color highlighters and use yellow
for a, blue for m. You may actually find words within words.
So I see at quite a bit in some of these words, so one of the challenges might be find the at.
So again you're taking a high level or an assignment and making it accessible.
And again modify it according to whatever it is that the individual child needs.
Now we're looking at again a math lesson and assignment.
Looks pretty complicated.
Boy this is a busy page.
One thing actually that you could do for a child that gets highly distracted is take a piece
of construction paper and cut out a window so they could lay it over
and it just has them focused directly on the problem that they're looking at.
With a child with more significant needs,
it may just be that you have the child identify numbers.
Find all the number 6's on the page.
Or add the numbers that are in the circles.
These are all just sort of creative ways to take something that you might, teacher might look
at and go this child can't do this.
There's always ways that we can make it meaningful
to the child, we just need to be creative.
And again, if you're not sure ask someone else.
Look it up.
That's pretty much how I've learned how to do it.
Given my background as a special education teacher was really working with children
with learning disabilities and my son has a more significant disability.
This has been a whole other education for me.
I'm learning more all the time about how I can support him
and his school and the people in our community.
So what does an inclusive classroom look like?
Or what does an inclusive YMCA or you know a place in the community that you like to go to?
If you home school and you take your child to a program what should that, what would that look
like to see whether or not it's inclusive?
Now I'm going to talk a little bit about what are the five common traits
of inclusive classrooms, and this is based on research and [inaudible] reading that I've sort
of narrowed, you know it's been narrowed down.
When you walk into an inclusive classroom you may see groups of desks placed around the room,
not just in the linear fashion, because grouping students allows for socialization as well
as cooperative and peer learning.
Those characteristics research shows actually results in higher achievement
and greater productivity for all learners.
And it also touches on, you know, we talked earlier about serve the whole child,
these opportunities to work like this help create a more caring,
supportive classroom environment and create opportunities for relationships as well
as health, social competence and self-esteem.
You know when you think about when you provide opportunities for people to get
to know each other, and this is adult too when you think about it,
when you take down those barriers and allow children to be educated together, it really can
and is connected with a decrease in bullying.
Because rose a level of compassion and understanding and know
that those peers are future business owners.
And so it's not just about it being beneficial for the child with the disability,
it's about it being beneficial for all of us.
And in the end that child grows up as a business owner and has been exposed to different kinds
of people and is not afraid to hire someone who has, who is different from themselves.
Another example of something you might find in an inclusive classroom are visual learning aids,
and I mentioned earlier about my phone, I could not live without my post its.
That's a visual aid and why is it,
it doesn't have to be oh well this specific child needs this clock
on their desk that looks like something.
Well let me just say, there are a lot of opportunities to use everyday objects
that not only the child with a disability can use but all of the children can use.
So when you're giving instructions on what to do, write it on the board or and maybe depending
on the child maybe have a picture next to it that represents the task,
and that way if halfway through what they're doing they forget,
they don't have to raise their hand or not because they're embarrassed,
they can just look up on the board.
Timers, posters, flip charts and again technology.
I could talk to you for a whole other hour about how technology has been a game changer for all
of us, and if you want to know any information about particular apps or anything in that area,
again I certainly don't know everything but I have come to embrace it so if you have an issue
that you'd like to see if technology could be of service, look it up or reach out.
Developmentally appropriate learning materials placed around the room.
So having a classroom library that has a variety
of levels including maybe a little bit more challenging for children who are gifted.
That's the thing.
Again inclusion is not just about a child that has a special needs that it can be,
a special need can be a child who's gifted and needs more of a challenge.
Instructional materials, level books, math manipulatives.
Use math manipulatives that make sense.
Instead of using teddy bear counters, use pennies.
Learning to count by fives, use nickels.
Counting by tens, use dimes.
Addition, once they know that a nickel is five pennies use a nickel plus a penny.
Try and find ways to use everyday objects; technology, money.
You can kill a lot of birds with one stone.
A classroom social skills program.
I would love to talk further about this.
I know there's a lot of concern when it comes to how do you create a classroom
where your child is looked at as being a member of that classroom and community.
Well it starts with participation and not always, and research actually shows
that part time participation the other students in the class don't necessarily look
at that student as being a member of that classroom.
So we want to try and maximize for whatever is appropriate for the student,
time in general ed and time together.
Leadership, leadership, leadership, your teacher and what they do
and how they conduct themselves may be the most important thing,
or the leader at your church or the community group.
Use literature as a way to open up dialog and not about diagnosis.
Have it be about difference and respecting difference in general.
On the resource sheet I'm going to include information about,
if you've heard of it before, PBIS.
It's really kind of the something that's growing more and more and that stands
for positive behavioral intervention systems or you may hear it as school-wide PBIS.
The idea behind these are that every classroom doesn't have its own set
of rules or expectations.
The idea is that the school or the community as a whole has a certain set of principles
that everyone abides by that hopefully the goal is to create an inclusive school community.
And again, inclusive of anyone that might make [inaudible] marginalized,
and everyone having a level of accountability.
I urge you after this to check out PBIS.org and look into this
because it really can be an important tool in creating an environment
where all children are welcome and that it's okay to do things the way they do.
The other thing it's focusing on how we all have needs.
We all have special needs in some way.
Getting both adults and children to connect with the fact that everyone has unique needs,
but in the end most people want the same things in the big picture.
And then there's assistive technology that can be done.
So in my son's classroom instead of maybe having just one pair of noise reduction headphones,
have a few pairs in a basket so that there may be other children who also have sensitivities
that anytime it's okay to get up and go get them,
especially at like assemblies that kind of thing.
That's a trait of an inclusive classroom where you can take a tool that may be meant
for a child who has [inaudible] and benefiting a lot of other students.
This cartoon is just a picture of a chef or a cook and it's just a total disaster mess all
over the counter; egg shells, a blender.
And he's looking at a cookbook and on it it says inclusion cookbook and he's sweating.
He looks very stressed.
Underneath it it says, after several attempts Fred begins to realize
that cookbook recipes for inclusion just don't work.
I include this today because I want to remind you inclusion is not a one size fits all thing.
There's no cookbook that says a, b, c, d, you must do all of these things for every child
in order for it to be successful.
Every school is at a different place.
If the child spends the majority of their day in a more restrictive environment,
look at what the child's strength is.
Maybe reading is their favorite subject, so maybe you start
with time spent in general ed during reading.
What I would like to show you and I don't, you know, again another case perhaps of all
of the websites or resources, I encourage you to visit SWIFTschools, dot org or dot net.
I'm going to pull it up for you in a second so you'll see.
Anyway the point of this is there's no specific one way to do it because it really is
about mindset; however, there has been a fair amount of research to say
that there are certain components that maximize the success of an inclusive school or community.
Okay. What I'm showing you now is actually the SWIFT website, and I'm trying to remember,
I'm blanking off the top of my head if it's school wide, inclusive framework,
I'll have to look back but it is an acronym.
It may be the biggest organization that gets the most help from the government
as far as building inclusive practices.
Dot org, thank you.
It's SWIFTschools.org.
Again, it'll be on the resource page.
We could spend a lot of time on this website but of course we can't.
So I just wanted to give you a little bit of a taste of what it can offer.
This isn't even the home page.
They just revamped their website too.
It's just fantastic and it really does incorporate universal design techniques.
So what I'm going to show you a little bit today is called the SWIFT Guide
because those components I did talk to you about that maximize success,
SWIFT has found they fall into five domains.
Okay? And those are administrative leadership, we touched on that earlier,
a multi-tiered system of support.
So I mentioned earlier PBIS, the positive behavior intervention systems,
that's a part of a multi-tiered system of support.
The reason I highly recommend you explore this because this is something
that helps support inclusive schools but in the end it helps all students.
It helps all students with academics and behavior and really about creating a sense
of community where individual needs are not just met but they're respected.
You need to have sort of others, family and community engagement.
[Inaudible] This one's a little bit difficult to see but this one,
or is this the multi-tiered framework?
Yeah, no. I'll come back to it.
I'll come back.
It has to do with organizational structure and creating
that strong and positive school culture.
If you can get a strong and positive school or community structure and culture,
it's again it hits so many different areas; academic, emotional, behavioral and it helps
and is a service to all participants.
Family and community engagement, inclusive structure, policy and practice.
So for the sake of time I'm not going to go into this but I did want to give you a sense.
So under multi-tiered system of support on the SWIFT site it's wonderful.
You can go here and you can click underneath which will then, you know,
if you want to learn more about any of these components, strong and positive school culture,
I'm going to choose inclusive behavior instruction.
When you click on that it gives you a little bit of information.
So as far as if you have a child that struggles with self-regulation or behavior,
the two things that I'll say to you in a nutshell would be that look
at the environment first and really to get a sense of the why,
where is the behavior coming from, it's a form of communication and it not be just
about expecting the child to sit inside the box.
It really is about what can we do in the environment so that child's skills base
or has the tools they need to access learning or make relationships.
So inclusive behavior instruction is a proactive approach to teaching social and behavior skills.
You can see before academic and behavior supports are integrated
within one multi-tiered system of support.
So amongst the website you'll find these what they call [inaudible] and I'm not going to click
on this, but on every single one
of those subtitles I showed you before, there's a SWIFT [inaudible].
So you can actually get a visual picture of what that might look like.
And then there's a section In Depth.
There's a discussion guide.
So if you're an educator or an administrator, these are wonderful tools for you to do
with your staff or if you're a parent looking through them yourself to open up ways
to start dialog with your child's team.
Introduction to inclusive behavior instruction.
[Inaudible] Intro, [inaudible] steps, there's video, underneath there's resources.
There we go.
Publications, tools, toolkits, matrix, there's an example
of a functional behavioral support plan, and then websites.
So it really is a wonderful place to learn a lot more, especially if there is a particular area
that you're interested in learning more about.
Universal design for learning.
I don't have a lot of time but basically universal design for learning is a set
of principles for curriculum development
that gives all individuals equal opportunities to learn.
I urge you to visit either cast.org, that's c-a-s-t.org, or www.udlcenter.org.
It will talk to you about sort of the three components as far as the guidelines.
There's a wonderful graphic organizer and basically UDL is a multiple means
of representation of some things are provided.
Multiple means are of how to express or action are provided,
and then also there's providing multiple means of engagement.
So in a lesson that might look like in math representation
of a concept might be there's a concrete example, there's a computer station
with visuals, there's paper and pencil.
There might be a school store.
Higher level, on an assignment a child can choose to write a book report,
a child can choose to create a video, a child can use to, can draw a picture
or a great comic book apps out there
that a child can show what they knew through creating a comic book.
Again, I urge you to look more into that.
My feeling is UDL is the future.
UDL is about all children and meeting the needs of all children.
We already kind of touched on this.
These are the critical components of inclusion.
You may not have all of them but that doesn't mean you still can't move
in a direction of progress.
If you've got one thing, take that and build from there.
Now you're looking at a cartoon and in it there's a woman who has what looks
like a real beat up baseball cap on and she's next to a table of students like in a circle,
at a table in the shape of a circle.
And all the children are interacting, there's books,
one of the children is using a wheelchair to sit in.
And a woman is saying to what I presume is a teacher wearing the cap,
it's amazing how well you've adjusted your teaching now that students
with severe disabilities are in your class.
And the woman with the hat, the teacher responds, well I just keep reminding myself
that my students were each different before inclusive education
and that hasn't changed, just expanded.
And underneath it reads, Mrs. King sports her worn softball cap as a reminder
that individualizing to meet unique student needs is old hat to good teachers.
You know I find myself saying often good teaching is good teaching;
we're not reinventing the wheel here.
There's such a focus on special needs, special this, and I understand that
and every child has unique needs, but in the end the practices that are best practice for kids
without disabilities tend to be best practice in a lot of ways
for children with, and that goes both ways.
So I urge you whatever environment you are working in, whatever professional role you come
to this webinar today, think big in a sense of think universally,
and I urge you to explore further resources that will be provided and I hope that you're able
to walk away today not only with maybe more information that you had but in the end
that I'm igniting your excitement and energy
to move us towards a more inclusive school community.
Here is my contact information.
It says inclusion specialist.
I always joke with the director there that really all I could think of myself
as a facilitator you know, because again it's something that's really about teamwork.
If I can offer you, your school, whatever environment you're in any kind of support,
I hope that you'll reach out to me, email or give me a call and I thank you
for your participation today and my son thanks you
and thanks again to the institute here at Temple.
[ Silence ]