Useful+Parent+Resources+for+Students+with+Special+Needs

Help me to Understand!

If you have a child with special needs, abilities, or disabilities it can sometimes be very hard to understand their condition or steps necessary for teaching and working with them. As the 3rd grade Intervention, or Special Education teacher I would like to provide resources for parents and teachers to use if they would like more information regarding their child/student. I will try to have a variety of websites on here as well as the Ohio Department of Education Definition for some disabilities. Some may be informational, others may be for support. If you would like information concerning a specific condition please email me or post on my discussion page and I will try to get that information on here. I hope you find this helpful.

__Special Education:__ Specially-designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability, including instruction conducted in the classroom, in the home, in hospitals and institutions, and in other settings, and instruction in physical education. [|Ohio Department of Education-on Special Education] [|Children with Special Needs]

__Inclusion:__ Inclusion is defined as "the action or including or being included within a group or structure". An inclusion classroom is a classroom where there are students with learning disabilities or other handicaps included. In these classrooms there are usually two people sharing the responsibility of teaching some or all of the students assigned to the class. This classroom involved the distribution of all aspects in the classroom such as planning, instruction, and evaluation for all the students in the classroom. Co-teaching in an inclusion classroom is a fun way for students to learn from two or more people who may have different ways of thinking or teaching. It is a creative way to connect with and support others to help all children learn. (Teresa Jones, 2nd grade Intervention Teacher) [|University of Northern Iowa- on inclusion]

__Learning Disability (LD, or SLD):__ A disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write spell, or to do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. [|Specific Learning Disability (SLD)] [|LD Online-Learning Disabilities] [|National Center for Learning Disabilities] [|NINDS- on Dyslexia] [|Mayo Clinic- on Dyslexia]

__Other Health Impairment (OHI):__ Having limited strength, vitality or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment, that is due to chronic or acute health problems such as asthma, attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), diabetes, epilepsy, a heart condition, hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia, nephritis, rheumatic fever, and sickle cell anemia; and adversely affects a child's educational performance. [|CDC-on ADHD] [|Mayo Clinic-on ADHD] [|Children and Adults with ADD/ADHD] [|NINDS-on ADD/ADHD] [|Epilepsy Foundation] [|Narcolepsy]

__Gifted and Talented:__ Students who perform or show potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared to others of their age, experience or environment. [|Gifted] [|Family Education]

__Autism:__ A developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age 3, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. [|Autism Society of America] [|NINDS- on Autism] [|Autism Research Institute]

__Cognitive Disability (CD) or Mental Retardation (MD):__ Significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. [|Kids Health] [|Wikipedia-Cognitive Disabilities]

__Deafness:__ A hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, and that adversely affects a child's educational performance. [|Deaf.com] [|American Society for Deaf Children]

__Emotional Disturbance (ED):__ A condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child's educational performance: (i) an inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors; (ii) an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers; (iii) inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances; (iv) a general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; (v) a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems. [|Mental Heath Matters] [|National Mental Health Information Center]

__Speech or Language Impairment:__ A communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. [|Children's Speech Care Center] [|Speech and Language Disorders] [|Speech and Language Impairments]

__Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI):__ An acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force or by other medical conditions, including but not limited to stroke, anoxia, infectious disease, aneurysm, brain tumors and neurological insults resulting from medical or surgical treatments. [|TBI.com] [|NINDS-on TBI]

__Visual Impairment:__ Including Blindness, means an impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child's educational performance. [|Wikipedia-Vision Impairments]