Shows
Making Special Education Actually WorkTechnology and the Intersectionality of Larry P.
Based on the professional peer-reviewed research, intersectionality can be understood as the phenomenon in which an individual person's social position relative to more than one socially defining characteristic, such as race, language, gender, disability, socioeconomic status, etc., come together to simultaneously impact a person's status in and access to society at large. Where a person fits into the world is a matter of multidimensional considerations.
When looking at the question of whether the current mechanisms of our system of government, and the behavioral rewards inherently built into them, truly serve the go...
2023-03-0919 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkOCR Complaint Results in District-wide Compensatory Education Click here for full text
I'm long overdue to post new content to the KPS4Parents blog, podcast, and social media, but it's been a busy school year. The continuing fallout from COVID-related school closures that disrupted the educations of most children, and had even more profound effects on our learners with disabilities, has kept me busy.
It's one of these COVID-related cases that brings me back to the blog and podcast today, because after over two years of waiting for a complaint investigation to get done that was only supposed to take 180 days, the...
2023-02-2112 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkInterview of Rose Griffin, SLP & BCBA
To see the text transcription of this podcast, including links to content discussed, go to: https://kps4parents.org/interview-of-rose-griffin-slp-bcba.
2022-09-2847 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkIs LAUSD Run by a Fascist Mafia?
LAUSD Main Offices - Downtown Los Angeles
The school year hasn't even started yet and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second-largest school district in the country, has already hit the ground running with illegalities left and right, not the least of which is the systemic policy issue that I'm focusing on in today's post. It's hardly the only violation, but its a systemic one that stands to continue hurting a lot of children with disabilities, particularly our kiddos on the autism spectrum.
What I'm about to tell yo...
2022-08-0921 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkInterview of Dawn Barclay, Author of Traveling Different: Vacation Strategies for Parents of the Anxious, the Inflexible, and the Neurodiverse
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Anne Zachry 00:00 Welcome to Making Special Education Actually Work, an online publication presented in blog and podcast form by KPS4Parents. As an added benefit to our subscribers and visitors to our site, we're making podcast versions of our text only blog articles so that you can get the information you need on the go by downloading and listening at your convenience. We also occasionally conduct discussions with guest speakers via our podcast and transcribe the audio into text for our followers who prefer to read the content on our blog. Where the use o...
2022-04-3027 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkInterview of George Bailey, President of ZPods
Anne Zachry 0:00
Welcome to "Making Special Education Actually Work," an online publication presented in blog in podcast form by KPS4Parents. As an added benefit to our subscribers and visitors to our site, we're making podcast versions of our text-only blog articles so that you can get the information you need on the go by downloading and listening at your convenience. We also occasionally conduct discussions with guest speakers via our podcast and transcribe the audio into text for our followers who prefer to read the content on our blog. Where the use of visual aids legal...
2022-04-021h 01Making Special Education Actually WorkPragmatic Language & YouTube Reaction Videos
Could YouTube reaction videos be used to teach pragmatic language skills?
I'm not a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP), so I'm not pretending to be an expert in the field of language processing. However, I rely on data from SLPs to inform my understanding of the communicative aspects of individual learners' respective abilities to process information and put it to constructive use.
I'm familiar enough with the concepts of language processing to have some informed questions about things I see in the world, every now and again. One of those things that just dawned on me...
2022-03-2212 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkFecal Smearing, Disability, and the January 6, 2021 Insurrection
This is not a pleasant topic at all, so I want to start out this post/podcast with the understanding that I know this isn't a pleasant topic. That doesn't make it something to avoid, however. Problems aren't solved by pretending they don't exist.
For those of us who work with people with significant mental disabilities, fecal smearing, otherwise knows as “scatolia,” is a behavior we usually encounter among individuals with significant developmental disabilities and dementia. These behaviors often happen among these populations very frequently alongside other bowel-related health issues, such as constipation and encopresis. Simp...
2022-02-0520 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkMysterious Special Ed Accountability Report Published in California
On January 13, 2022, after staying up late to finish my last post/podcast, I woke up to find a message in my inbox from the CAPCAA listserv that included a very comprehensive-looking report published by a group referring to itself as "The Office of Administrative Hearings Special Education Task Force," with the email address of oahspecialedreport@gmail.com. The members of this task force are not identified in the report. The report identifies its authors as follows:
Authors/Contributors: This accountability report is provided by the Office for Administrative Hearings Special Education Task Force, a coalition of concerned...
2022-01-1521 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkA Discussion of Instructional Apps with Zafer Elcik of Otsimo
Zafer Elcik - Otsimo
The following is the written transcript of the audio recording of my interview of Zafer Elcik of Otsimo, which you can listen to in the podcast version of this post. This transcription was aided by Otter.
SPEAKERS
Anne Zachry, Zafer Elcik
Anne Zachry
Thank you so much for being in this podcast with me today. I really, truly appreciate you making the time, especially since we're having to accommodate international time zones, and I'm here in the United States and...
2022-01-1340 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkRecent Uptick in Behavioral Challenges
Now that the Fall 2021 half of the regular school year has come to an end and all the students on my caseload are on Winter Break, I'm taking advantage of the break from back-to-back Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings to reflect on the most serious issues I've had to deal with so far during this first half of the current school year.
While I've had to deal with a lot of different challenges, it is the impact that the lack of appropriate services during shutdown, from March of 2020 to August or Se...
2021-12-2320 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkAn Appeal to My Colleagues
Urie Bronfenbrenner, Human Development Researcher
I have a million other things I need to be doing right now, but this is one of those moments where if I don't stop and purge these thoughts from my mind into print, they will torment and distract me until I do, so the sooner I finish this post, the sooner I can get back to work without continued torment and distraction. I wasn't intending to post, right now, because my caseload is blowing up and my other endeavor, The Learn & Grow Educational Series, is starting to require more of my attention lately...
2021-10-2930 minMaking Special Education Actually Work“Long COVID” Cognitive Impairments and Their Implications for the Special Education Community
Photo credit: Marco Verch
On July 22, 2021, The Lancet published an article by Adam Hampshire, et. al., in which the findings reported that COVID-19 causes long-term cognitive impairments among many of those who have been ill with it, particularly those who have been hospitalized with severe forms of the illness and those diagnosed with COVID-19 but not hospitalized. I won't rehash the entire article here. Follow the link to read it for the details.
In today's post/podcast, I'm summarizing the findings of this body of research and discussing their implications for the special education community...
2021-08-1112 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkUsing ABA Principles to Navigate the IEP Process
Photo credit: Joe Loong
One of the things I've been trying to get across to people for years is the understanding that Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) is a science, not a special education service, much less a service specifically for students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). The confusion arises from the fact that instructional strategies and behavioral interventions based on the principles of ABA, which work with all learners, just so happen to also work for students with ASDs and often it's the only approach that does.
As such, the demand for ABA-based programs for s...
2021-07-1021 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkDouble Disability Whammy During Distance Learning
One of the issues that I haven't seen discussed anywhere else, but am seeing first hand every day, is the impact that the shutdown has had on my students with disabilities whose parents also have disabilities. Given that so many learning disabilities, physical impairments, Autism spectrum disorders, and mental health conditions run in families, it's not surprising to find children on IEPs whose parents also have disabilities. It would be shocking for a professional in this field to not see that phenomenon.
The shutdown negatively impacted students and their families from all walks of...
2021-04-1316 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkSchool Personnel, Conspiracy Theories, & Child Welfare
Christine Priola, OT, on the right in the Vice President's Office of the Senate during the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, DC
On January 6, 2021, a group of people, radicalized by false propaganda generated by the 45th President of the United States and his co-conspirators, attacked the United States Capitol with the intent to kidnap and/or murder members of Congress and the Vice President. This is an event that will live in infamy for so long as America remains a nation, and be blamed for it if it does not.
I've be...
2021-01-1833 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkPodcast Interview: Catherine Michael, Attorney at Law & Author
Catherine Michael, attorney & author
On November 4, 2020, I interviewed attorney and author, Catherine Michael, of Connell, Michael, Kerr, LLP, a special education law practice with offices in Indiana and Texas (https://cmklawfirm.com). Catherine's book, The Exceptional Parent's Guide to Special Education, will become available on December 1, 2020 and can be pre-ordered at https://amzn.to/38euWaD.
The following is the transcript from the interview (transcribed using Otter):
Anne Zachry 00:00
First of all, thank you so much for being on this podcast with me, I...
2020-11-0654 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkFascist Trends in Special Education Non-Compliance
"Fascism" is a scary word that is far too often slung as an insult by people actively engaging in it who don't understand what it actually is. In today's post/podcast, I want to talk about what fascism actually is and how it shows up in all aspects of public agency functioning, but particularly how to recognize it in special education.
Unfortunately, these days, there are no better angels to appeal to within many public agencies, including public education agencies. It's not that the entire barrel of apples is spoiled, but enough of it is...
2020-10-2216 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkIntro Trailer: Making Special Education Actually WorkThis is our brief introductory trailer to our podcast, Making Special Education Actually Work.
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2020-09-1001 minMaking Special Education Actually WorkPublic Education Version 2.0 and the Power of Stay-Put
Photo Credit: Matthew Cipican
I'm pained to open with the platitude that these are unprecedented times. We all already know that and belaboring it for the purpose of a proper opening paragraph seems to belittle the magnitude of the moment.
The truth is that I've been having a hard time coming up with the right place to start the next conversation on this blog. I had developed a publishing schedule for Making Special Education Actually Work just before the pandemic hit and the schools in California, where we are headquartered, shut down.
...
2020-08-2631 min