My Experience Of A Special Needs School In NYC

It was a lot of digest at first when I realized that my child was specially abled. But with the continuous support of my husband and the fact that things in NYC are advanced enough to get a specially-abled child provide for himself at the later stages of his life, made things easy to large extent for me. However, choosing a special needs school in NYC was another big task that I still had to accomplish.

I started by preparing a list of best-known schools that could take care of my child’s ability. Now was the time to visit these schools in order to take first hand experience before sending off my child to one of them. I prepared my mind and drove to the first school on my list.

The school was beautifully decorated, taking utmost care to keep it child proof in every sense of the word. The teachers, principle and staff were very welcoming and put in every effort to make me feel at ease in the school. While walking past by the classes that teachers were only engaged with about 2 to 3 students at a time. These arrangements helped the students in getting one on one interaction with the teacher and learn lessons under complete supervision.

The play area had Labrador dogs playing in a congenial environment with the specially abled kids. At first this scared me but the principle explained that dogs were a proven way of acceptance for children who remained aloof. Also, animals tend to have a calming influence on children and I suddenly realized how happy kids were to play with the dogs.

The principle also informed me of the rewarding system they had started in the school. She explained that specially abled kids did not do well with a lot of criticism but rewards helped them get enthused about studying and performing well. So they instilled this information in their education system and gave stickers with beautiful cartoons to kids who did well in subjects. Collecting a certain amount could later be exchanged for a toy of their choice.

My first visit to the special needs school indeed made me feel special about the way my child would treated in future.

The Overview On DIR Model for Autistic Children

The Developmental, Individual Differences, Relationship Model or DIR model is one of the most successful methods of starting the schooling and learning needs of kids with special abilities. Out of all the ways and means developed by various institutes to help autistic kids lead a normal life and provide for everything on their own, the DIR model is the widely used ones with the best success rate. The model primarily involves helping the development of neurobiological factors that can otherwise create a barrier in between parents and kids.

The developmental defines making activities that can help in the communication of kids with their loved ones. The symbols, languages, and signs that can help them communicate the immediate needs are taken care of in this part. The individual differences include the use of things that catch their natural interest and attention and use them for learning.  R or Relationship refers to relationships with caregivers that are the vehicle for affect-based developmentally appropriate interactions.

The idea basically revolves around the parents, teachers, siblings and other loved ones engaging in a floor time therapy that is pleasurable and educational at the same time. Spending time in an environment that is comfortable for the child and doing things that are of his/her natural interest can open up their prospects of learning to a large extent.

This can further help the parents and the therapists to ensure that the steps taken in their learning and education are going in a positive way and develop lessons on the same path.

The sessions can either be taken in a formal environment or an informal one depending on the comfort level of the child. Most of the teachers in the special education school are very well versed with this model and adopt in on daily basis with their students to develop a long-term understanding of them.

The sessions also involve the presence of parents to a large extent so that they learn ways and means of communicating and learning with their kids in a constructive environment. This can open up a lot of barriers to communication that is otherwise present in between the parents and the child.

Here Is Exactly What Special Education Schools Do For Kids In NYC

If you have discovered recently that your child needs special education then chances are you have heard that he/she will have to go to a school that has SEIT or special education iterant teachers. They are qualified to take care of your child in every aspect of the word and can provide the building blocks for your child to be self-dependent and self-sufficient in the future.

But before you leap onto an opportunity of getting your child into a special education school in NYC, it is imperative to know the works of teachers over there and how exactly will they end up helping your child. Some of the details about these teachers have been mentioned hereby.

The basic idea behind hiring these teachers is to enable the specially abled kids to perform alongside the other lot in the long run. They are certified in this kind of task. The teachers primarily hold a bachelors degree and are supposed to have a state license in special education to give developmental skills to children. The course enables them to know the basic of handling specially abled kids and then they can specialize further in an area of their interest with more certified programs run by the state.

The special education schools work with kids who have speech delays and motor disabilities. The teachers have two primary functions to perform in such cases:

• To assist the students in keeping up with the happenings of the classroom and making them learn in their way of interest.
• To provide assistance in developing a schedule that works best for small groups who have similar abilities to grasp the learning in the class.

The teachers also develop an IEP or an Individualized education plan that takes into consideration the interest of these kids and thereafter formulate learning around their interests so as to expand their horizon and make learning an easy task to accomplish on daily basis. The teachers also assist the therapist in the upkeep of sessions for speech and other therapy that are helpful in boosting the confidence of kids and get their comfort zones to expand over a period of time.

An Insight into the Common steps used in DIR/Floortime Therapy

Developmental, Individual-Deference, Relationship-Based model (DIR) and Floortime Therapy model are one of the most popular models for helping build healthy foundations in children with learning disabilities. The Floortime therapy model focuses specially on building social, emotional and intellectual skills rather than focusing on isolated skills and behaviors. It was developed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan.

The DIR/Floortime model focuses on speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy involving specific educational programs tailored for children with specific disabilities. It can be described as:

• A method where 20 minutes are spent on parent-child interaction.
• Floortime therapy methods are incorporated into various education programs which include various therapy methods to achieve a set of specific educational goals.

Six Stages of Developmental Milestones in Autism:

• Stage 1: Self-Regulation and Attention: It involves improving and peaking a child’s attention with the help of interactive activities that involve movement, hearing, looking and touching to help improve their attention spans.
• Stage 2: Engagement: In involves developing a sense of engagement with the child to generate a feeling of security, intimacy, empathy and caring to improve their social interactivity.
• Stage 3: Two Way Communication: It involves gaining the child’s attention and interest in various activities and encouraging them to assist you in achieving a particular set of objectives specifically designed to induce the child’s involvement. It helps them gain a sense of fulfillment, thus encouraging them to act on similar tasks on their own or with others’ help.
• Step 4: Problem Solving: It involves building a foundation of problem solving skills to help them get along with their daily activities by walking them through a common task and then encouraging them to do it on their own. It enables them to do things on their own and ask for help if they get struck or do not know what to do next.
• Stage 5: Creating Ideas: It involves encouraging the child to relate to a general sense of life such as gestures, behaviors and conceiving ideas. It is usually achieved by prolonged communication to help them generate feelings and desires of their own.
• Stage 6: Logical Reasoning: It involves encouraging and teaching a child to help in logical thinking, which is essential for separating reality from fantasy by helping them plan, think and connect ideas.

Read More: DIR Model – The Preferred Model for Total Child Development

 

DIR Model – The Preferred Model for Total Child Development

In order to help young kids learn better, there are many schools in the US that employ a wide variety of proven learning methods. One of them is the wildly popular DIR model, which stands for Developmental, Individual Difference, and Relationship-Based model. It was developed by clinical professor and child psychiatrist Dr. Stanley Greenspan in 1979, and was first put forward in his book Intelligence and Adaptation.

So, how is it different from other educational models?

The main focus of DIR model is to build strong foundations for the development of intellectual, social and emotional capabilities of a child. The core of this model is Floortime, a unique technique that demands parent-child interaction in the grassroots level. It encapsulates the general philosophy of including other therapy, such as speech and occupational therapy, in-line with the features of Floortime.

Interaction is one of the key features of the DIY model, which can help the child gain focus and obtain insightful ideas on development and learning. It is widely believed that the DIR/Floortime model has a set of pre-defined milestones that must be achieved for effective growth of a child. These milestones include:

1. Evoking Interest: The child should be interested in his/her surroundings and follow it up with interactions involving movement, touching, sight and hearing.
2. Ability to Relate: The child should try to develop a sense of intimacy, caring and empathy in his/her relationship with family members, teachers, classmates and other people they come in contact with.
3. Ability to Communicate: The child should be able to respond to someone communicating with him/her, including ability to express emotions and desire, which should be reciprocated by the person he/she is communicating with.
4. Advanced Communication and Problem Solving: A child should be able to communicate in a series of steps, such as asking help in different stages to achieve a final need. It helps them develop social attributes and improve problem-solving skills.
5. Creating Ideas: Encourage the child to relate themselves to the real world, such as engaging in communication, invoking desires and emotions, creating ideas and collaborating on such aspects by the attributes of logical reasoning and concentrating on planning and modulating impulses.

Hence, the DIR milestones ensure that the child is on the right path in terms of complete development. These act as a developmental ladder, with each milestones adding a new layer of capabilities in children.

Read More: What Makes Floortime Therapy Effective?

Rights You Need To Know Before Sending Your Child to Special Education Schools In NYC

Education is important for all, irrespective of the state of mind of the child. No one has the right to take away what rightfully belongs to every child i.e. education. However, parents still remain unaware to a large extent about the rights that their child has in terms of education. Keeping this in mind the government made a few laws for specially abled kids. These are important rights that parents and teachers should know before sending kids to a special education school in NYC.

“The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was sanctioned in 1975 and revised in the year 2004 as the Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. The law mandates that the state provide an eligible child with a free appropriate public education that meets his unique individual needs. IDEA specifies that children with various disabilities, be entitled to early intervention services and special education.”

This law has basically worked towards establishing a combined approach for parents and teachers to help the child develop skills and educate them in order to prepare them to meet their own requirements in the future.

“In addition to the IDEA stipulations, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) sets forth, as a civil right, protections and provisions for equal access to education for anyone with a disability. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is another civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in programs and activities, public and private that receives federal financial assistance. Generally, the individuals protected by these laws include anyone with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more life activities.”

Free appropriate public education (FAPE): The IDEA demands that every special child gets the required education that is tailored for his/her understanding and a subsidized method that allows them to make progress in the field of learning.

Special education services: The special education schools in NYC must be fully equipped to cater to the needs of a specially abled child. The ways and means that are required in making the child learn must be tailored to each and every child’s needs. The teachers must ensure an overall development of the child without pressurizing them to learn.

Amenities Schools for Autistic Children Should Provide

Autism spectrum disorder includes a wide range of neuro-developmental disorders. Kids who have been diagnosed with Autism display two types of symptoms – drawbacks in social communication and interactions; restricted/repetitive patterns of behavior or activities. Schools that cater to autistic children need to pay meticulous attention to each child.

Needless to say that it’s imperative for each tutor and caregiver to must have a commendable amount of experience with autistic children. Because kids with autism suffer from more than one disorder out of the following:

• Social defects
• Sensory issues
• Communication difficulties
• Repetitive behavior
• And cognitive delays (in some cases)

Autistic children’s schools must provide some basic assistance and facilities to each child. Few of which are listed below:

Types of Therapies

• Music Therapy – music can be utilized as an amazing tool for therapy in schools for autistic children. It has a unique aspect of providing a deep stimulating effect on both (left and right) sides of the brain. A music therapist can effectively make use of songs and/or instruments to support and develop (or improve) the cognitive ability of the child. It can help in building self-awareness of the child and improve his/her relationship with others. Therefore, an autistic children’s school must have a professionally trained music therapist.
• DIR Floortime Therapy – one aspect of the Developmental Individual Difference Relationship-based model is ‘floortime therapy’. This assists the child in developing (or improving) the ability to communicate, relate, and think. Dr. Stanley Greenspan the founder of DIR-Floortime therapy suggests that the responsibility of schools should be to assist children to relate to others (caregivers, family, classmates, etc.) in a meaningful way, and become abstract and creative thinkers. DIR-Floortime therapy aims to achieve all these objectives.

Clinical Services

Clinical services largely include all therapies that a school provides to children with ASD. Apart from that, the school must realize that children need other support such as psychologists that hold one on one as well as group counseling on regular basis.

Additionally, the school must keep parents in the loop (and vice-versa) about the developments and improvements in the child’s abilities. Consultation and transitional planning should also be carried out by the combined opinion and agreement of the caregivers as well as the parents.

Importance of April as Autism Awareness Month

April is the month dedicated to Autism Awareness. 2^nd April is an internationally recognized day for members of the United Nations to take effective measures to create awareness about the people diagnosed with Autism.

The month of April has schools, non-profit organizations, governments and the public raising awareness, educating people, informing them about the manifestations of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and its effects, as well as about the potential of those who are on the spectrum.

About Autism

It is a condition wherein the diagnosed child or person faces challenges in communicating effectively, shows repetitive behavior and has underdeveloped social skills. The symptoms of Autism can range from mild to severe from person to person as this neurological condition can manifest itself in a multitude of forms.

The indicative symptoms of Autism usually become identifiable around the age of 2 and 3 years, but there can be cases where the symptoms are identifiable even earlier.

According to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in every 68 children across the United States of America is found to have an Autism Spectrum Disorder, which is a significant increase of 30 percent from the same value estimated in the year 2012.

When talking about Autism Awareness, the Autism Awareness Ribbon ought to be mentioned.

It was adopted in 1999 and is characterized by brightly colored puzzle pieces of different shapes and sizes. The puzzle pieces stand for the complexity of the disorder and the bright colors and unique shapes of these pieces serve as beacons of hope and remind us all of the diversity within the ASD community.

Educators in the special education schools of New York now have the opportunity to instruct and assist students diagnosed with ASD in the general educational settings. This has been made possible due to the increase in timely diagnoses along with the increase in the placement of students in the least restrictive environment (LRE).

In the present time, we can say that autism schools create environments that are accommodative towards the needs of the students, however minor they may be and the diversity among the students is celebrated.

Benefits of the DIR Model Used by Special Education Schools Explained

The DIR model or developmental Individual difference relationship model is one of the best ways to impart learning to autistic children. This model has basically been developed for detailed assessments of autistic kids. Clinicians, parents, doctors and therapists who attend to kids with autism use it.

Developed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan, the DIR model can help children become the best version of themselves by inducing recovery from two major autism related problem: communication and social skills. The D refers to developmental issues addressed by building playtime around the interests of the child. I refer to individualism that comes from deep study of the interest of the child based on activities that they like and can do for a long span of time. And R refers to developing a relationship on the basis of the study done with the child.

These floor time sessions basically provide many benefits to the autistic child as well as their parents. Some of these are stated as under: –

• With constant interactions and smooth flowing sessions with the therapist the child develops certain social skills and the ability to interact with a group without being greatly disturbed or uncomfortable in larger groups.

• These sessions are developed keeping in mind the likes and dislikes of the child that have been studies over a period of time. Hence, the learning sessions are based on the likes of the child to make it interesting and lasting impact on their mind.

• These sessions are developed to build the gap between the child and parents that is developed because of autism issues. The time that you spend as a parent with your child in these sessions help you learn the ways and means to make them calmer and keep them occupied in a constructive manner.

• Learning becomes easy with these methods. Even a child without any special abilities learns better when things of his/her interest are involved in the method of learning. Similarly, when an autistic child already has a bent of positive mind towards a certain activity or a thing then involving the same in the learning process makes their concentration level higher and learning is well etched in their minds.

Items Every Special Education Classroom Should Have

Special education schools aim to develop a comfortable and secure classroom environment that offers various learning opportunities for special students to utilize. This often includes the use of critical learning tools that promote social development and academic progress in students.

Although the purpose of such tools is to inculcate vital skills in students, the information can also be utilized by parents while selecting the ideal special education school for their child.

So, the next time you visit a special education school in NYC, some items that you might encounter in a special education classroom are-

Sensory Toys

The use of sensory items such as fidgets, wiggle seats and therapy balls is an effective way to target sensory skill development in special students, and help them gain better control over their environment.

Fidget toys engage children in hands-on activities which promote self-regulation, focus and tactile awareness in special students. This is beneficial especially for children with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) which affects their ability to concentrate and pay attention.

Moreover, children with sensory processing disorder have difficulty in receiving and responding to information that comes through their senses, and often need to feel intense outside sensations. Sensory toys offer quick and repetitive sensory response to children and help them calm down and focus their attention. Some effective sensory toys are light up toys, finger paint, and mini trampolines.

Visual Timers

Another item that should be a part of every special education classroom is a visual timer. The use of timers allows special educators in following classroom schedules and managing activities that suit the different learning needs of special students.

Visual timer is also effective in assisting children with autism to make transitions from a preferred activity to an unpleasant one and vice versa. Moreover, it encourages confidence, independence and natural capabilities like visual thinking in special students.

Manipulatives

Hands-on manipulatives are a critical learning tool for students in all classrooms. Many educators believe that learning is enhanced when children acquire knowledge through active processes that engage them.

The use of manipulatives allows students to physically investigate a math problem and reach a solution through concrete experiences of abstract reasoning. Manipulatives can be the key in providing effective, active and engaging lessons in teaching mathematics to special students.