The documentary will air again on Tuesday, September 20th at 10 pm (EST) on NJTV (public television in NJ) then again Thursday, September 22nd at 4 am (EST), Sunday, September 25th at 5 am (EST) ) and Sunday, September 25th at 11 pm (EST), Tuesday, September 27th at 10:30 pm (EST) on WLIW21 (public television in metropolitan and suburban NYC and NJ)

After the broadcast, it will be on this website for a limited time: http://watch.thirteen.org/.

So where in your student’s 504 Plan or IEP has the school team addressed any safety concerns?

See the article on this site on ADHD and safety, if you haven’t read it already.

Description:

Neurological disorders that emerge in childhood often have significant impact on students’ academic, behavioral, and social-emotional functioning. Participants will learn about the cardinal features of Tourette’s Syndrome, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Executive Dysfunction, Mood Disorders such as Depression and Bipolar Disorder, and the memory deficits, sensory issues and “storms” that sometimes accompany them. Strategies and assistive technology to accommodate symptom interference in activities such as handwriting, homework, math calculation, and written expression and big projects will be described. Pitfalls in behavioral interventions, and simple social skills and problem-solving interventions will also be identified.

For more information on the workshop and registration information, download the brochure or register online at www.iod.unh.edu.

Hope to see you there!

Remembering that our goal is to prepare the student for independent functioning post-school, it is not enough to lend them our frontal lobes to chunk their work or to prioritize it for them. We need to teach them how to generate prioritized to-do lists, how to monitor their progress towards a goal, how to pace themselves, how to plan, how to sequence, how to organize their materials, time, and space, etc.

It’s a lot. And we need to ensure that we have goals for each deficit area. So here are some terrific resources to help you formulate goals, objectives, and accommodations for students with EDF:

Tigers, Too: Checklists for Classroom Objectives and Interventions (Dornbush & Pruitt, Parkaire Press, 2010). Tigers, Too Checklists provides an easy format to identify necessary and appropriate goals for the student. The book is a supplement to Tigers, Too: Executive Functions/Speed of Processing/Memory – Impact on academic, behavioral, and social functioning of students with ADHD, Tourette syndrome, and OCD: Modifications and Interventions by the same authors (2009).

Need some accommodation ideas for students with EDF in a convenient format organized by issue? See my book, Find a Way or Make a Way: Checklists of Helpful Accommodations for Students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Executive Dysfunction, Mood Disorders, Tourette’s Syndrome, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Other Neurological Challenges (Packer, Parkaire Press, 2009). This book contains some of the great classroom accommodation ideas that are explained in more detail in Challenging Kids, Challenged Teachers (Packer & Pruitt, 2010).

The conference is open to all Palm Beach County and Regional Educators, Service Providers and Professionals.

Sign up for the FREE full day conference. Click here for more information (PDF™ format)

The paper handed to each freshman at Oak Lawn Community High School recently was filled with blunt and uncomfortable questions. Had they lost interest in everything? Did they feel they weren’t as smart or good-looking as most other people? Were they thinking about killing themselves?

A squad of counselors stood by to interview those who, based on their answers, might have been struggling with depression or contemplating suicide. By the end of the day, more than 50 teenagers had come to see them.

Read the full article in the L.A. Times. As the article makes clear, it is not clear whether this type of initiative is really effective in reducing the suicide rate and there are significant privacy concerns to consider that require allowing students or their parents to elect not to participate.

That said, and as uncomfortable as it may be, I am generally in strong favor of teaching students about teen depressions, its signs, and what to do if they feel that they are depressed or that a friend is depressed.

If your teen’s school hasn’t provided information, feel free to download these 2001 handouts for teens from the National Institute of Mental Health: Let’s Talk About Depression. The articles are in the public domain and you can reproduce them and share them with others or use them in class to start a discussion.

As a comment: parents who are somewhat familiar with federal education law may be surprised to read the guide’s statement that students with Bipolar Disorder may qualify for special education under the category Emotional Disturbance. The Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice provides the federal definition of that educational disability category and discusses the differences in state laws as to how that category is defined.

Click on “Behavior” to get to a listing of the many files and articles dealing with behavior issues in the classroom.

The “Miscellaneous” section contains a number of reference files as well as other topics of note.

The “About” section provides some information about me and about the professional services I offer.

On April 26, I will be giving a talk with my colleague and co-author Sheryl K. Pruitt, M.Ed., E/T, “Basal Ganglia Spectrum Disorder: Recognition and Remediation.”  And on April 27, I’ll be presenting, “Pitfalls in Behavior Intervention Planning When the ‘Behavior’ is a Neurological Symptom.”

I’ll also be available to sign books during the conference. If you are planning to attend, please come say hello.

Knowing that most educators welcome practical knowledge and tools that they can use, I created this site to help educators learn about a number of neurological disorders that may impair a student’s functioning and that can occasionally create chaos in your classroom. On this site, you will find overviews of a number of disorders such as Tourette’s Syndrome, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Executive Dysfunction, Sensory Defensiveness, “Rage Attacks” or “Storms,” Anxiety Disorders, and sleep disorders. You’ll also find some tips for classroom accommodations or strategies for these conditions. Clicking on the name of the disorder in the pull-down menu at the top of each page will take you to a table of contents for that disorder.