Life Skills Para Academy - Billings

September 26 (8:30AM to 3:30PM)

Overview: This academy provides the paraeducator with knowledge and skill in instructional methods and life skill support for youth and young adults who have moderate to severe cognitive, communicative, physical, or affective needs. The content addresses the role of the paraeducator in assisting the professionals on the team with transition planning and needs of students who are transitioning from school to community life and to adult roles and responsibilities.

Objectives:
1. Identify domain areas and embedded skills as they apply to elementary and middle school students.
2. Demonstrate how to support students in their efforts to set goals, create plans, solve problems, identify and access resources, and make decisions.
3. Define domain areas and embedded skills for high school and transition students.
 

Presenter: Libby Johnson
6 OPI Renewal Units
Cost is free
Registration LINK

All About Navigating Locker Challenges

Lockers can prove pretty challenging for kids with learning and attention issues. Some kids have trouble manipulating the lock. Others struggle to keep their lockers organized. And some kids just have trouble figuring out when they have time to make a locker stop, or what they need to take each time they visit. Check out these videos and tips, plus a handy download to help your child navigate locker challenges.

See more here.

How one man built a $51m theme park for his daughter

Gordon Hartman had just got out of the swimming pool on a family holiday, when his 12-year-old daughter Morgan went up to some children playing in the water. She tried to make friends with them but they quickly left the pool.
Hartman thinks they shied away from her because they didn't know how to react to someone with a disability - Morgan has the cognitive understanding of a five-year-old as well as a form of autism.

The incident played on his mind.

"Morgan is just a wonderful young lady. When you meet her you will always get a smile and she will always want to offer a hug. But there were so many times we couldn't take her places," he says

Hartman and his wife Maggie asked other parents where they could take their daughter - somewhere she would feel comfortable, and others would feel comfortable interacting with her.

"We realised such an inclusive place didn't exist," says Hartman.
So in 2007 he decided to build it himself. A former property developer, he sold his homebuilding businesses in 2005 to set up The Gordon Hartman Family Foundation, a non-profit organisation that seeks to help people with disabilities.

Then he set about creating the "world's first ultra-accessible theme park".

"We wanted a theme park where everyone could do everything, where people with and without special needs could play," Hartman says.

He brought together doctors, therapists, parents and other people with and without disabilities to consult on the facilities. These were built on the 25-acre site of a disused quarry in San Antonio, Texas.

Read more here.

TEACCH - Fundamentals in Autism 2017

Great Falls – October 23 and 24, 2017 Bozeman – October 25 and 26, 2017      The Fundamentals in Autism is a two-day workshop that will provide participants with an overview of the learning styles of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Structured TEACCHing strategies.   Structured TEACCHing is based on the understanding of the symptoms and learning styles of individuals with autism and the use of visual supports to provide meaning, promote independence and capitalize on the individual’s strengths. Participants will also learn behavior management strategies using Structured TEACCHing principles. The format of this workshop will include presentations, videos, interactive discussions, and small group activities. At the completion of the training, participants will be able to: Identify characteristics and learning styles of Autism Spectrum Disorder Develop individualized schedules and work/activity systems Develop meaningful visual structure that promotes independence with educational activities Problem solve behaviors using Structured TEACCHing principles  This course is designed for educators, paraeducators, psychologists, and speech language pathologists.  Go here to register. Attendance is limited to 50 people. Six OPI renewal units will be available for this training. This training is FREE from the OPI Montana Autism Education Project. NOTE: This is a different, shorter training than the TEACCH trainings we have previously provided.

'Social Camouflage' May Lead To Underdiagnosis Of Autism In Girls

Girls appear to have mastered what some call "social camouflaging," says Amanda Gulsrud, clincial director of the Child and Adult Neurodevelopmental Clinic at University of California, Los Angeles. Gulsrud develops school interventions for children with autism. The interventions are based, in part, on earlier research done by colleagues at UCLA, who did a study looking at how boys and girls with autism interact with their peers on the school playground. The boys clearly stood out as being different, Gulsrud says. They were very isolated from the other boys, who were in a large group playing sports. The boys with autism were the ones "circling the perimeter of the yard, or off by the tree in the back."

Girls with autism, on the other hand, didn't stand out as much, she says. They stuck close enough to the other girls to look as if they were socially connected, but in reality they were not really connecting. "They were not having deep, meaningful conversations or exchanges," Gulsrud says. They were flitting in and out of that social connection.

Read or listen more here at NPR. 

Transition Tools for Life

A Workbook & Guide for Transitioning Through Life Students & Families of Students with Disabilities 

With 240+ pages it seems to have a lot of resources. 

Rethinking regression in autism

The loss of abilities that besets some toddlers with autism is probably less sudden and more common than anyone thought.

Chawarska’s view echoes the findings of numerous studies that reveal a “range of onset patterns,” as University of Melbourne autism researcher Amanda Brignell and her colleagues explain in a 2016 paper, from ‘early onset’ (early developmental delays, no loss of skills) and ‘delay and regression’ (some early delays, then loss) to ‘plateau’ (no early delays and no loss, but a failure to gain) and ordinary ‘regression’ (no delays before a clear loss). These trajectories differ so much in their timing, speed, depth and effects that it requires a tangle of words and parentheticals to try to squeeze them into a binary framework.

Given all this, Ozonoff argues, we should speak not of regression, but of a variety of onsets: The true clinical picture of how autism begins to present is not two-tone or even spectral, but a complex kaleidoscope of possibilities. “I don’t even call it regression anymore,” she says. “I just think of it as onset: how symptoms start.”

Read more here at Spectrum. 

There is also a podcast. 

Archived Webinar - A Techie Approach to Addressing Behavior

Whether you are a teacher, a parent, a school administrator, or an education professional, successful behavior management is key to success in school and all other settings. Whether you prefer to manage (or self-manage) behavior through strategies and low-tech supports, or you are keen on going all digital, there is a tech tool for that! Join us to explore techie resources and strategies for addressing unwanted behavior for all age groups and all settings!


Register here. 

Archived Webinar - Pediatric and School-Based AAC Evaluations

When evaluating and treating someone a child with a communication disorder therapist can have a long and tedious process in helping secure a device for a pediatric patient or a school based child. There are several steps involved from the initial evaluation to submitting a device submission report. What tools are available to help us streamline the evaluation process? What are the dos and don’ts report writing when we are completing a device submission report? How can our treatment plan on the report and IEP help the user acclimate to their device? 

In this presentation, participants will learn what needs to happen before, during, and after an AAC evaluation for pediatric and/or school based communication device user. The resources, tools and strategies learned during this presentation can help a therapist during each stage of an AAC evaluation and treatment plan. During the presentation tools and strategies for having the most effective AAC evaluations and device submission reports will be discussed and demonstrated. These resources can be easily implemented into a clinician’s evaluation process when working with school based children or pediatric therapy.


View the archived webinar here.

Accommodating Disabilities in the School Meal Programs: Guidance and Questions and Answers (Q&As)

This Question and Answer (Q&A) memorandum is designed to provide practical guidance related to accommodating disabilities in the School Meal Programs.

The attached questions have been grouped under the following headings: General Information; What is a Disability?; Procedural Safeguards; Requesting a Modification; Making a Meal Modification; Reimbursement for Modified Meals; Accommodations to the Meal Service; Non-Disability Situations; and Miscellaneous.

Read more here.