Autism Spectrum Disorder Prevalence Rises in New CDC Data Report

About 1 in 68 children in 10 states monitored by the Centers for Disease Control have been identified with an autism spectrum disorder, the highest prevalence of the diagnosis since the CDC first started monitoring this in 2000.

In 2008, the estimate was that approximately 1 in 88 children in the monitored states had been diagnosed with an ASD. In 2006 the ratio was 1 in 110, and in estimates for 2002 and 2000, it was 1 in 150. 

Read more of Christina Samuels On Special Education article HERE.

Special Ed. Grants Awarded for Data, Parent Assistance, School Climate

The Education Department has announced grant awards for several areas related to special education:

Data: Westat, Inc. of Rockville, Md. will receive $6.5 million to create the NationalTechnical Assistance Center to Improve State Capacity to Accurately Collect and Report IDEA Data (one hopes that the name will eventually be something catchier than NTACISCACRID). Westat will work with states to upgrade their ability to report high-quality data under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Part of the center's work will also be to help states with their state performance plans and annual performance reports, which is already seeing changes under the department's shift to "results-driven accountability."  

Parent Assistance: More than $14 million will be used to operate eight special education parent technical assistance centers that work with families of children with disabilities. The Education Department already funds 98 parent centers around the country; these newly funded entities will provide support and resources to the centers in a given region. The department has created a list of regional contacts.

Read more of Christina Samuels' On Special Education article HERE.

New 'Double-Testing' Flexibility and Students With Disabilities

My colleague Catherine Gewertz blogged earlier today that states have been given the option by the Education Department of suspending for one year their own state exams for the 2013-14 school year, if they are administering the Common Core field tests being designed by the two common-assessment consortia in math and English/language arts.

Digging further into the guidance from the department released Tuesday, this one-year flexibility waiver—intended to help states avoid "double-testing" their students—has some particular points relevant for students with disabilities. Among them:

Read more of Christina Samuels On Special Education article HERE.

Ed. Dept. Finds Areas to Improve in Review of Common-Core Test Accessibility

Both of the consortia tasked with creating assessments for the Common Core State Standards have made progress but need to work on accommodations and accessibility, according to a recent technical review conducted by the U.S. Department of Education.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, should consider expanding the training it provides test-item writers in the area of accessibility and accommodations, the department review panel wrote in a recently-released memo. PARCC, which comprises 21 states and the District of Columbia, recently released the first edition of its accommodations and accessibility manual, which is meant to guide school teams in figuring out the type of test assistance that is appropriate for students with disabilities. Technical reviewers from the Education Department said they appreciated seeing the manual.

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, made up of 25 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands, was told that it should increase the involvement of special education experts in the test development process. The consortium was praised for incorporating universal design into the item writing process.

Read more of Christina Samuels' On Special Education article HERE.

Florida Law Enhances Special Education Rights

Florida enacted a new law this week intended to reiterate the rights of parents of special education students, including a provision that parents must agree to have their child placed on a track to earn a non-standard diploma, and that schools cannot discourage parents from bringing an adult of their choice to individualized education program meetings.

The text of the law, Senate Bill 1108, has been helpfully summarized by Disability Rights Florida, an advocacy group. The advocacy group supported the changes, said Ann Siegel, the managing attorney for the organization's education team.

Many of the new provisions underline rights that were already a part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, but that parents nevertheless had a difficult time enforcing, Siegel said. Parents have always been a part of IEP team meetings, but Siegel said she has heard of cases where schools were shifting students onto special diploma tracks without giving parents an opportunity to object, or to even see the information that was prompting such a decision. The parents were then forced to shoulder the burden of proving that such a placement was inappropriate. Special, non-standard diplomas also cannot be used to enroll in college or the military, so a student with a special diploma can have limited options after graduation, she said.

Read more of Christina Samuel's On Special Education article HERE.

Special Education Essential to Preschool Plans, Says Advocacy Group

Boosting funding for young children with disabilities covered under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act should be a part of the Obama administration's plans to expand early-learning opportunities, says a letter from the Council for Exceptional Children's division for early childhood.

Most of the federal government's funding goes to what is known as Part B of the special education law, which serves students from 3 to 22 years old. However, another part of the law, Part C, helps pay for early-intervention services for babies and toddlers. While school-age children covered under the law receive "individualized education programs," the babies and toddlers get "individualized family service plans," which support that child's family. About 450,000 children were covered by the law in 2011, the latest year for which statistics are available. (In comparison, about 6.5 million students were served that year under IDEA Part B.)

The CEC's early-childhood division says that states applying for early-learning grants should explicitly involve the Part B and Part C programs in their ongoing implementation plans. "Partnerships at the state and local levels will ensure that: young children with disabilities and their families have meaningful access to early-learning programs; service providers that work with these IDEA programs have access to professional development opportunities; and state systems' efforts focus on all young children including those with disabilities," the letter states.

Read more of Christina Samuel's On Special Education article HERE.

Resources For Special Education And The Common Core

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), one of the two consortia tasked with creating tests for the Common Core State Standards, has released a list of resources for special educators who want to learn more about how the education standards may affect children with disabilities.

The list is not comprehensive, but it offers a good general overview, with links to basic information on the common core as well as lesson ideas and other tools. The education standards have been adopted by all but four states.

Read more of Christina Samuel's On Special Education article HERE.

Common Core Test Group Seeks Comment on Writing-Support Accommodation

A 23-state assessment consortium is looking for feedback on another piece of the test-accommodations manual it is drafting, this time focusing on proposed policies for the use of scribes and word-prediction software.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, is one of two groups that is creating tests for the Common Core State Standards. Earlier this month, public comment closed on two other draft policies, relating to the accommodations such as human read-aloud and calculators. The policies will eventually be included in a comprehensive "accommodations manual" that will guide schools and districts in how to administer the tests.

The scribe accommodation proposal says that scribes--a human or device that records what a student dictates--should only be used for:

•A student with a physical disability that impedes the motor process of writing, or,
•A student with a disability that significantly impacts the area of written expression.

The proposal goes on to state: "For students identified with a disability that significantly impacts the area of written expression, to be eligible for the scribe accommodation, a student must also meet the following conditions: Student receives ongoing, research-based interventions for written expression, as deemed appropriate by the [individualized education program] team and indicated as a specific instructional goal in the student's IEP; and student only has access to written expression during routine instruction through the use of a scribe, outside of time spent in direct writing instruction." 

Read more of Christina Samuel's On Special Education article HERE.

Disability Advocacy Coalition Criticizes ESEA Waivers

A coalition of groups representing people with intellectual and developmental disabilities outlined its concerns with the waivers from certain requirements in the No Child Left Behind law that the U.S. Department of Education has granted to states.

The Collaboration to Promote Self-Determination released its letter Thursday, the same day a Senate committee held a hearing on the waivers, which have been issued using the education secretary's broad waiver authority—and without much Congressional oversight. The collaboration, formed in 2008, includes groups such as the National Down Syndrome Society, the Autism Society, the National Fragile X Foundation, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Among its concerns are that states haven't made a strong effort to get meaningful from people who represent the disability community; the waivers diminish subgroup accountability by allowing states to consolidate them into so-called "super-subgroups;" and that states are failing to address in detail how they plan to transition severely cognitively disabled students who are taking alternate assessments to common college- and career-ready standards.

Read more of Christina Samuels' On Special Education article HERE.

Va. Special Educator Leader Forms Partnership For Students

Judy Sorrell, who coordinates special education services for students in six Virginia counties, says she first knew she wanted to be a special educator when she saw how a younger cousin with Down syndrome was isolated from other students at her school.

Sorrell, who is now the director of the Shenandoah Valley Regional Program for Special Education has spent 33 years in the field. Among her achievements is expanding the capacity of her districts to provide therapy to students with autism by partnering with a state organization that provides teacher training. That work, which was recognized by the state as an example of a successful collaboration, also led to Sorrell's selection as one of Education Week's Leaders to Learn From for 2013.

Read more of Christina Samuel's On Special Education article HERE.

More Students with Disabilities Attending College, Volunteering

The latest report from a longitudinal study of students with disabilities shows that these youth are attending college and participating in community and volunteer activities in far greater percentages than they were 15 years ago. (See Christina Samuel’s On Special Education article HERE)

Newspaper Examines Special Education Funding

The Asbury Park Press, in New Jersey, recently published an article that took a good, overall look at how school districts are struggling to reduce special education costs.

Read Christina Samuels’ article in On Special Education HERE

Career Development for Youth With Disabilities

See Christina Samuels’ article in On Special Education HERE.

Easter Seals Survey Offers Views From Parents of Adults With Disabilities

The advocacy and support group Easter Seals has released a survey that captures the feelings of the parents of adult children with disabilities, who are largely worried about their childrens' future.
Read Christina Samuels On Special Education article HERE

Twice-Exceptional Resource Manual

How should teachers and parents tend to the unique needs of a student who has a disability AND is gifted? How do you even identify such children? The Colorado Department of Education has produced a 118-page handbook (pdf) with information on these children, often referred to as "twice-exceptional," or "2e" for short. The audience for this handbook appears to be teachers and parents. (See Christina Samuel’s On Special Education article Here )