The approach is very individualized and, as they say, “person-centered.” Students who are non-verbal are still able to make their needs known, they just do so in more subtle ways and it’s important that everyone working with the students know how to read them.

Perkins just launched a new area of their site that promotes accessible science and teaching all the sciences to students with vision impairments and other disabilities.

They say their goal is “to show that all students can fully participate in science.”

Sounds like a great resource!

In Tanzania families and children know that an education can mean the difference between a good life and a hard life. But the teacher to student ratio is so high that children with special needs often fall through the cracks.

The BBC has published a piece with an accompanying video on a new school for the blind in Tanzania where children are learning braille, have access to tactile maps, and learn other daily living skills that will help them be more independent.

BookBole doesn’t just want to give you access to tons of books online, they also want to create a community. It sounds like a great idea.

I recently read an article about a mom, Cindy Mitchell, who has devoted her life to advocating for her daughter, Karen, who was born with William’s Syndrome. Cindy’s story is a lot like many parents I know: Her daughter was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition, she found herself thrust into the world of Early Intervention, IEPs, and state services, and she didn’t always get what she felt her daughter needed.

And Cindy didn’t stop there. She advocated, joined school boards, and taught classes on disabilities. What I love about Cindy’s story is that she isn’t a super mom, she’s just a mom of a special needs child doing all she can to help her daughter. She’s always pushing and as her daughter has grown she’s found new battles that need to be fought.

I know you know someone just like Cindy, too.

From not making requests in writing to allowing for rushed IEP meetings, even the most experienced parent can fall into these common traps.

The non-profit charity, Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D), has been providing audio texts for students for over fifty years. Their mission is to record school text and literature books for students so that everyone can have access to the curriculum.

Thanks to government and private funding, RFB&D is now able to provide individual memberships to the public for free!

Member benefits include:

• FREE access to the nation’s largest audiobook library of textbooks and literature titles
• Human-narrated audiobooks with descriptions of images, tables and graphs
• Easy-to-use online catalog
• 24/7 online member services and phone support
• Various audiobook downloadable formats, including DAISY and WMA (Windows Media Audio)

Titles are available to download immediately from the website and some students use RFB&D audio text books while waiting for their braille text books to arrive in the mail.

On July 24, President Obama signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This convention hopes to raise awareness of and quality of life for disabled persons around the globe.

A main focus of the convention is to provide education services to disabled children and adults in order to allow them to participate in their societies as much as possible.

This pdf dictionary defines terms and acronyms commonly used in evaluations or on insurance forms, specifically focusing on terms used in the fields of…

This is a great idea!