Key Elements

Teaching children with special needs takes an extra talented teacher to know what the child needs. There are special steps in order to make sure the child is getting the education he/she needs, which can be hard to perfect in some situations. Unfortunately, not every public school can provide the child with that type of teacher. This is not to say that private schools can always provide that either. While it may be easy to know what needs to be done, it is harder to actually implement those plans.

According to Education.com, there are several key elements to effectively teaching special needs children:

• A teacher who sets high expectations for the child and who encourages peer interaction and mentoringas appropriate.
  
• Special and regular educators who collaborate in instruction and who have a sense of ownership in the process.
  
• Individualized instruction with decisions based on careful collection and analysis of data focused on measurablegoals and behaviors
  
• Special services are brought into the classroom to facilitate generalization and to prevent stigmatization
  
• A collaborative team approach -including regular and special educators, school administrators, supplemental school personnel, and parents or guardians -is employed to set goals and to evaluate progress of the IEP
  
• An assumption that all children can acquire skills if instruction is modified to help the child succeed
  
• Adapting the school environment by extending school hours or the school year and coordinating with home caregivers.
  
  When children are forced to attend schools (by geographical location or lack of funds to attend others) and not receiving the education they require, they are missing out on windows to their future. Education is the first step in life....from the day you are born, you are learning new things. If a child's brain is not encouraged to grow and grow correctly, it will stagnate and the child's life will forever suffer. Here the scenario changes...there is a private school down the road that has excellent special needs teachers...but the parents cannot afford it. Or the neighboring school district has the best special needs teachers around, but the family lives just outside the borders. Guess who is ultimately negatively impacted by this? The child! Now, imagine if the parents and the child had the choice...wouldn't that be nice?

Funding solutions for children with autism

Gov. Matt Blunt signed legislation providing $5 million for the Thompson Center for Autism in Columbia on June 30. The significant investment will help those with Autism throughout the state and further demonstrates his commitment to these families.

His goals are to raise awareness and increase treatment options for Missouri children. For this to be possible, Blunt realizes the importance of adequate funding for places like the Thompson Center. The center was created in April 2005 to promote research, treatment and education to improve the lives of children with neurological conditions.

Autism cases are becoming significantly more common. One in 150 kids—and even more shockingly—one in 94 boys will be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder—which totals more then 4,200 people in Missouri.

Blunt has passionately fought for these individuals, obtaining $3.9 million in state funding last year for a day treatment program in Joplin (the first in Missouri), to expand staff and training therefore reduce waitlist for Autism diagnosis and treatments and $1 million for other Autism projects. Overall, Blunt has secured $17.6 million for the cause.

http://governor.mo.gov/cgi-bin/coranto/viewnews.cgi?id=EkEuluAFylniSUVCVP&style=Default+News+Style&tmpl=newsitem

A virtual school year wrapping up

By Bob Priddy
The state's first virtual school year is virtually over. The program has had its successes and its failures.
The virtual school program lets students study from home, working through the computer with distant teachers. Program Coordinator Curt Fuchs says 32-hundred students enrolled, but forty percent dropped out--perhaps because the courses proved to be tougher than they thought they would be. Some just flunked out, many of them doing so for the reasons students flunk regular classes.
But Fuchs says there were a lot of successes, such as the child of some missionaries in New Guinea who took four advance placement courses and a fifth course as a high school junior and passed them all. He will enter his senior year in high school with four college courses already to his credit, thanks to the Virtual School Program.
Fuchs says Missouri started with a much larger number of students than most other states have started with. Fuchs says the education department also learned it needs more policies to deal with the program.
Because students enrolled at various times, they will finish their work at various times. Fuchs says the last of this school years' students should finish next month. Enrollment already has begun for the next virtual school year.

Missouri Trying Alternate Schooling Methods...

Slowly, but surely, I am seeing innovative efforts in the great state of Missouri to branch away from the traditional and sometimes failing education program. The state implemented, for the first time, a virtual school year. This allows children to work from home or the neighborhood library...anywhere that has Internet. Courses are available 24 hours a day and seven days a week. This program allows all schools throughout Missouri to offer students equal access to a broader array of coursework, let alone allowing more flexibility and a potentially easier learning environment. The fact remains, not every child in the public education program in Missouri has access to a great education and this can be seen as one step closer to that...granting something to everyone, independent of where they live. Additionally, this program could help children with disabilities who may have problems physically getting to schools, or for those students who need to take classes in which their teachers are not able to teach well. The possibilities are endless. Of course, being the first year, there are always hurdles to jump through and lessons to learn. Either way...it is some sort of change!

Parents of Autistic Children Still Searching for Help

Having a child with autism is not only trying on parents emotionally, but financially as well. This past legislative session I watched as a bill went around and around...a bill that could have helped thousands of children with autism or other special needs. Unfortunately, the bill did not pass. Instead of looking out for those children, certain legislators seemed more concerned with how their vote would look to certain groups, such as the teacher unions. Below is an article taken from The Joplin Globe. Parents demonstrate how incredibly expensive it is to take care of and educate a child with autism. Hopefully this state autism commission will help combat some of those issues, however, I hope next session, a similar special needs bill will come about. Perhaps not being an election year will force those legislators to think about the issue...not how their vote looks to a small number of groups.
Lieutenant governor signs bill creating state autism commission
By Joe Hadsall
jhadsall@joplinglobe.com
A statewide commission on autism spectrum disorders will be assembled and, by July 1 of next year, will produce a plan for Missouri to offer treatment, training and other services.
Trisha Buerge, of Joplin, said she appreciated hearing the news. She is the mother of Jaxon, a 5-year-old autistic child who receives treatment from the Ozark Center for Autism.
“I think it’s important for the commission to provide information to the Legislature,” Buerge said. “They should know what autistic kids need to grow into successful adults.”
Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder visited the Ozark Center for Autism in Joplin on Monday and signed Senate Bill 768, which calls for the commission’s creation. The commission will be made up of representatives from the General Assembly, health-related state agencies and autism-related organizations, and parents. Kinder was filling in for Gov. Matt Blunt, who is out of state.
The bill also creates the Office of Autism Services within the Department of Mental Health.
Paula Baker, chief executive of the Ozark Center, said one of every 150 children today is diagnosed with some form of autism.
The state has spent more than $15.3 million in new money on autism over the past two years. The Ozark Center on Autism was created as a result of that funding.
Tysha Van Becelaere, of Pittsburg, Kan., said her son, Xander, has benefited from the center.
“The school district wasn’t able to provide enough of the speech therapy that he needed,” Van Becelaere said. “We tried to supplement that cost with insurance, but we were denied.”
Children at the center receive applied behavioral analysis, an intensive form of one-on-one training. But the treatment is expensive: A year of treatment at the center costs about $72,000.
Baker said the center offers a sliding scale to parents based on their income. Other costs are paid for by state allocations and private gifts. But it is enough for only 13 children to be admitted into the program this year, she said.
Kinder spokesman Gary McElyea said members of the state commission should be chosen fairly quickly.
Buerge said the commission’s top priority should be to address the cost of applied behavioral analysis, and that health companies should help cover it.
“Insurance coverage should be mandated,” Buerge said. “We’ve paid about $70,000 a year over the last four years.”
But Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, said he wasn’t sure whether that extra money should come from the state’s general revenue or from insurance-premium payers.
“It won’t come from the insurance companies, that’s for sure,” Nodler said. “It will come from premium payers. But as the state gets a grasp on the issue of uninsured citizens, a system that relies on forcing insurance to cover costs will likely exacerbate that problem.”
Missouri currently is focused on using money for treatment of autism, Nodler said. But as the commission develops a plan, the state should focus more on researching the causes of autism, he said.


Financial impact

Senate Bill 768, which was signed Monday by Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, will cost an estimated $630,504 over the next three fiscal years.

Autism...So Many Unknowns

My child has autism. This condition throws you curve balls out of nowhere, keeps you on your toes 24-7, tries your patience all while you love your child more and more everyday. I do not have an opinion on how children get autism, the research is not stable. I have not seen the one magical cure come about yet, but I know there is progress. Neurofeedback is something new, although I have heard about it some of the years. As it turns out, the University of Missouri is conducting a study on it! This project makes my light at the end of the tunnel a little brighter.

University of Missouri researcher testing neurofeedback for autistic children

Playing a video game called ‘Space Race’ that requires nothing more than brainpower to make rockets on a computer screen move forward is more than just fun and games. A University of Missouri researcher is using video games to see if the brainwaves of children with autism can be ‘retrained’ to improve focus and concentration.

“We are trying to awaken their brains. Often children with autism disconnect and we want to use neurofeedback to teach them how it feels to pay attention and be more alert. We want to teach them to regulate their own brain function,” said Guy McCormack, chair of the occupational therapy and occupational science department in the MU School of Health Professions. “The ultimate goal is to lay down new neural pathways and, hopefully, see changes in focus and attention span, social interaction, improved sleep, and appetite.”

Neurofeedback is a way of observing how the brain works from moment to moment. While the children play the video games, their concentration and focus are rewarded by movements on the screen and special sounds. If attention wanes, the rocket on the screen slows, sounds stop and the color changes until more attention is given to the image. As this occurs, researches watch another screen that monitors brainwave activity. The brainwave activity is measured by placing sensors on the scalp.

“The more neurofeedback training given to a child with autism, the more often the correct brain pathways are used and the stronger they become. It’s like a ‘tune-up’ for a brain that is out of sync,” McCormack said. “The brain has a lot of plasticity and, as children continue this training, it becomes engrained and spills into other parts of their lives.”

Neurofeedback technology was designed by NASA for flight simulations. It also is used to help high-powered executives achieve peak performance and to help athletes train their brains to ‘get into a zone.’

“The aim of neurofeedback is to enable children to consciously control their brainwave activity by being rewarded for their ability to focus,” McCormack said. “Neurofeedback can be compared to physical conditioning for the brain.”

McCormack says a body of evidence already exists that has found the use of neurofeedback training helps with other neurological disorders such as traumatic brain injuries, strokes, seizures, depression, anxiety disorders, alcoholism and premenstrual syndrome.

The Sinquefield Charitable Foundation gave $213,511 to fund McCormack’s study of neurofeedback for treatment of autism. The study is being conducted at the MU Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Video: Today and Tomorrow Foundation scholarships offered in St. Louis