[blindkid] IEP Questions

SCDUFFLEY at aol.com SCDUFFLEY at aol.com
Wed Feb 13 01:39:25 UTC 2013


My two cents:
 
The tics may be because of anxiety.  We found a small does of  medication 
helped tremendously (given only for school).  I resisted for two  years but 
it was night and day at school.  It is just a thought,  I am  not promoting 
medicating,.. but in my case it was helpful.   My PCP  was wonderful as we 
explored this option due to his behavior of rocking, poking,  etc...  
 
YES, movies should be either audio described or aide described, that is  
unjust to not have description.  If there was deaf child, you bet  the closed 
captions would be on.  Again, for a professional to not  treat this with any 
sensitivity is unprofessional in my opinion.  
 
Sound.... my son was sensitive to sound for the first three years and  
eventually needed his headphones less and less.  Christopher has Ryobi  
Construction Sound cancellation headphones (from Lowe's I think) that he uses  
during assemblies and out on the playground (not as much now in 5th grades, but  
all the time in 1st).  The noise with these headphones CAN be adjusted, so  
they hear what is going on without blocking everything.
 
Books, yes, story boxes are great! (and preteaching is put in our IEP)  or 
if the teacher tells me ahead of time, I can help expose him to a topic  
ahead of time.
 
I have to remember that my child was the first totally blind child to enter 
 their school.  I calmly bring issues to them and ask for a reply.  We  are 
always educating, we are always being educated by our kiddos!!  I am  pro 
at notes, emails and visits now.  Whatever I bring up to my manager or  team 
is taken seriously and they provide a timely response to me about it.   
Sometimes it is in the IEP, sometimes not, but whatever is going on, we work on  
it together and I am successful  98% of the time.
 
Good Luck!
 
 
In a message dated 2/12/2013 2:14:26 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
lanesims at gmail.com writes:

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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