Coming back to school after winter break can be difficult. The 2022 school year will be no different with its plethora of unique circumstances. Students and families across the country will be returning to school and will need time to adjust to the upcoming semester like never before. Choose Your Mindset We know that returning to …
When students engage in challenging behaviors it can be frustrating, confusing, and elicit other unwanted feelings. At times these feelings may interfere with our ability to look at the behaviors with clear eyes and ask: Why is this behavior happening? To answer this question and understand the behavior, one must consider a few fundamental concepts …
What are milestones? Milestones are skills and behaviors that children gain as they grow up and continue to develop! Milestones are broken up into “stages” and/or “age ranges” because all children hit milestones at slightly different times. Language milestones include articulation, receptive language, expressive language, social communication, cognitive-communication, and literacy expectations. It’s important to remember …
Using visuals at home is an effective and costless way to improve children’s speech and language skills and abilities. Visual aids have been shown to help advance communication. Visual aids can be broken down into any object that is viewed – it could be an object, picture, or sign. Visual aids can fall under the …
Play is an important part of development for all children. It allows them to explore the world around them, communicate with others, share, problem-solve, and develop many other foundational skills. Language is one of the skills children learn during play. There are strategies we can use to support language growth during play and facilitate learning …
Phonological awareness is a foundational skill that is defined as the ability to manipulate oral language. It involves word structure and includes blending, segmenting, judging, and recombining words. It is a necessary skill because it relates to the individual’s developing literacy skills. Early phonological awareness skills are demonstrated by using rhyming, clapping out syllables, and …
Serve Others As a special education teacher, you will have the opportunity to serve students with disabilities and their families an incredibly rewarding and humbling experience. Make a Difference One of the biggest rewards of being a teacher is the ability to make a difference every single day. As a special education teacher, you will …
Even though the start of a new school year is an exciting time for many students, there are several important habits to establish at home to promote success. By following these simple tips, students will maximize their chance to succeed both in school and during non-school-related activities. Nutrition Breakfast: Don’t let your kids skip breakfast in …
For parents of neurodiverse learners, the “back to school” season usually brings with it one consistent emotion: feeling overwhelmed. Any kind of abrupt change, in general, can be difficult for learners with autism, attention deficit disorders, oppositional defiant disorder, or other neurodiverse diagnoses. Tack on navigating a post-pandemic world, and we are all facing challenges that are unprecedented, …
ACES, or Adverse Childhood Experiences, come in many forms, from physical and mental abuse to neglect and household dysfunction. In 1998, CDC-Kaiser Permanente published a groundbreaking study that investigated the impact of ACEs on physical and mental health problems in over 17,000 adults. Now that we understand how toxic stress affects the minds and bodies …
