District Administration - May 2008 - (Page 52)

RESOURCES for DISABLED LEARNERS “You can go right to a speciﬁc page, and the software will read it for you and highlight it and enlarge it.” —Christopher M. Lee, director, Alternative Media Access Center, University System of Georgia RESOURCES Alternative Media Access Center www.amac.uga.edu Assistive Technology Industry Association www.atia.org Autism Society of America www.autism-society.org CAST www.cast.org Center for Alternative Learning www.learningdifferences.com Council for Exceptional Children www.teachingld.org Don Johnston Inc. www.donjohnston.com Failure Free Reading www.failurefreeonline.com Inspiration Software www.inspiration.com International Dyslexia Association www.interdys.org LD Online www.ldonline.org Learning Disabilities Association of America www.ldanatl.org National Center for Learning Disabilities www.ld.org National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities www.nichcy.org National Research Center on Learning Disabilities www.nrcld.org SparkTop.org www.sparktop.org Spectrum K12 School Solutions www.spectrumk12.com Yellin Center for Student Success www.yellincenter.com Response to Intervention One approach to helping students who are learning disabled is a research-based process known as Response to Intervention (RTI) that promotes early identiﬁcation of students who may be at risk for learning diﬃculties. RTI involves tiers of increasingly intense levels of service for students who are learning disabled depending on their needs, according to the national learning disabilities center. First, parents or teachers identify students as possibly having learning disabilities. In the RTI approach, these students receive special services in general education classrooms, with a special teacher who works with the regular classroom teacher. Teachers monitor their progress, and if the students continue to do well, they remain in regular classrooms. But students who need additional attention and help get higher tiers of service, which could include tutors, special education teachers, reading specialists, speech-language pathologists and even school psychologists. The National Center for Learning Disabilities in the U.S. Department of Education last year launched an RTI Action Network to boost the concept as a way to improve educational outcomes for all students. The Response to Intervention hypothesis, according to the federal agency, is that the sooner ﬂoundering students are identiﬁed and given appropriate instruction, the higher the likelihood they can maintain their class placement. Technical Training Experts in teaching special needs students believe there still is a long way to go as technology continues to evolve. “One of the most challenging issues we face in this 52 May 2008 country is having schools keep up with the technology. It’s a breeze for students to keep up, but I don’t know that teachers and schools keep up with it fast enough to support the students they have in front of them,” says Dikter. He suggests that the costs of buying hardware and software and training administrators and teachers to use it may be among the limiting factors. Per-pupil expenditures for students with learning disabilities range upward from $10,558 annually—1.6 times the amount spent on regular students, according to a national study conducted in the 1999-2000 school year by the American Institutes for Research. Funding from IDEA grants covers about 20 percent of the additional cost of providing special education services, leaving the remaining cost to states and districts. “Assistive technology provided to an individual student can be expensive,” says Brown. Districts “may get a better bang for their bucks if they implement systemwide purchases of technology,” adds Dikter. Lee suggests districts could “do a better job” in training teachers to use the new technologies. “Training in technical systems is huge, and not a lot of districts put a lot of money into training,” he says. “Teachers have their hands full as it is, and to add to that, they have to know about this adaptive software. That’s a lot for teachers to learn.” But regardless of the challenges, such resources open up new worlds to disabled learners of all grades and abilities. “When some of us were in school, we were taught to read something and then tell the teacher, often in writing, what we understood about it,” Dikter says. “For students who struggle with reading and writing, the technology gives them ways to show their teachers what they know and understand from what they are taught.” DA Alan Dessoﬀ is a contributing writer for District Administration. District Administration http://www.amac.uga.edu http://www.atia.org http://www.autism-society.org http://www.cast.org http://www.learningdifferences.com http://www.teachingld.org http://www.donjohnston.com http://www.failurefreeonline.com http://www.inspiration.com http://www.interdys.org http://www.ldonline.org http://www.ldanatl.org http://www.ld.org http://www.nichcy.org http://www.nrcld.org http://SparkTop.org http://www.sparktop.org http://www.spectrumk12.com http://www.yellincenter.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - May 2008

District Administration - May 2008
Contents
Editor’s Letter
Letters
News Update
Security Update
Curriculum Update
Inside the Law
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Book Excerpt
Addressing Food Allergies
Algebra: Changing the Equation
Stopping MRSA
Resources to Support Disabled Learners
Web Tools: The Second Generation
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
New Products
Speaking Out
Supervisor’s Opinion
Professional Opinion
Leadership Books
Research Center
Calendar of Events
Products Showcase
Understanding the Times

District Administration - May 2008