[blindkid] IEP Questions

Brandon and Sarah lanesims at gmail.com
Tue Feb 12 19:12:27 UTC 2013


Julie, there are folks here who know alot more about this stuff than
I, but here are my thoughts on your recent questions:

1. My only concern with touch typing would be that it does not
re-enforce the developing braille skills in a young child. Its hard
enough to get enough braille under the fingers as it is. A computer
set-up with braille keyboard and refreshable braille display would
re-enforce braille skills AND give your child the same level of the
computer access as the sighted children.
2. --
3. Like Carol said, a lot of movies have descriptive audio now. If I
remember right, all Disney movies have it now (new movies). I'm amazed
at how well this actually works, and it tends not to be disruptive for
sighted viewers...or maybe our family is just used to it.
4.--
5. Repetitive behaviors: I think this is really common. Everything you
wrote has applied to our daughter with only minor variations in detail
- rocking, eye poking, clapping, tapping. I think we've tried a little
bit of everything over the years - verbal reminding, physical barriers
(eye poking), benign neglect,...the only thing I think has really
helped has been excercise (trampoline and stationary bike for
independent indoor excercise) and simply growing up a little. None of
these behaviors have anything to do with getting attention.

Brandon



Thank you so much for sharing your stories with me and for all the
great advise! Our meeting is set up for next week so I am trying to
get everything together. I have a few more questions for you guys.
1. Is it reasonable to ask for my daughter to be started on a regular
commenter keyboard like the other students or should she just stick
with the Perkins brailler and introduction to braille lite?
2. what about asking for real objects to explore classroom lessons.
For example, when the class is reading a book about trees. All the
other kids are looking at pictures etc of all tree parts while it is
just described to my daughter. Couldn't she hold a little plastic
tree?
3. When a movie is shown, could she have someone describe what s going on?
4. If something is too loud, for example, a rainy day movie at recess,
couldn't she be excused to read a book with her aide? She became
uncomfortable recently when this happened and the aide wanted to take
her out and read but the Gen ed teacher said, " she just has to learn
to deal with it".
5. have any of your kids had problems with unnecessary movements or
tic type behaviors? My daughter has started having some of these. I
was wondering if we could have her take a fidget toy in class to hold
in her hand? She used to hum and they wont let her do that in class,
then she started biting on the pencils, then when they stopped that
she started coughing and picking her nose, now we have a handle on
that and she has started shrugging her shoulder,  knocking on her
head, tapping her forehead with her palm and a finger exercise type
movement that interferes with her braille skills. So, I am thinking
every time we stop a small movement or fidget, she just replaces it
with a different ad increasingly bigger movement. Any advise on this ?
her teacher seems to think she is just doing these things to get
attention, but I don't think so, I think she needs to move for
stimulation.
Thank you again for all your help! Julie




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