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Adapted maps for low vision - school use
School District for Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder
El Cerrito Daycare/ preschool for special needs child
Broken Door Opener in Richmond school
This is actually a response to the January 19th question of 'Daycare/ preschool for special needs child'. My child who is 3.5 years old and has moderate autism. He attends Montessori Community School on Cutting in El Cerrito every afternoon and 1/2 a day on Fridays. He doesn't arrive until after his special ed classes, so that means he arrives around 3:15 in the afternoon and I pick him up about 4-4:30. On Fridays he arrives at 12:00noon. He is doing very well at MCS - especially considering his condition. They are very loving and supportive of him and were actually the ones who very gently pointed out that there might be problems. Had it not been for them I don't know if I would have gotten him into early intervention in time. Montessori Community School is at 7075 Cutting Blvd. in El Cerrito and their telephone number is: 510/234-1185. I know that there have been a couple of other children in attendance that are on the spectrum, but I believe it's been a bit frustrating for MCS since those children's parents don't avail themselves to the school district for services. So, if your child is already in services through the school district and getting as much assistance as is possible, it might be a good place to give your child some "typical" child play experience
West Contra Costa County School District has an Early Intervention Program for infants to 5 year olds. If you have concerns about baby's development or milestones reached or if you think your toddler may benefit from speech language intervention, you can call Cameron School - 510-233-1955. Parents bring their infants to the school and learn specific interventions to help their baby reach milestones: interaction, play, socialization, gross motor activities, and speech. Home visits are also offered. Preschoolers who qualify for services attend small group classes (4 to 5 children) at Cameron School and receive speech language therapy and socialization. When you call Cameron about your child, the Front Desk clerks will interview you to determine if you should bring your child in for an evaluation. There is one Front Desk clerk who is a Bilingual Spanish speaker. This is a free service for residents living in West Contra Costa County.
Your school district may have services through a program in Richmond, but you'll need to look at it to decide whether it's a good fit for your child. It's likely that he's entitled to services such as pragmatic speech (social skills) from the district but that's another story. Otherwise, you may have some luck with religious preschools, as they try to teach acceptance and tolerance as core values. You can also try Mills College' preschool. It would be helpful if he has a shadow aide to help with the socialization etc. Most of the ABA agencies can train staff to be aides.
Hi, I live in Albany and have a PDD daughter, who is nine now. (Wow, time
flies.) Please give me a call sometime, I have some ideas to share. My daughter
attended a small preschool in Albany off & on and had a good experience.
Do you also realize you are entitled to preschool via the West County School
District, if your child qualifies as a special education student? Kate
You could call Steve Collins' office at 741-2800 (He's the Special Ed director
for West Contra Costa) or you could send a written complaint on the district's
very own "William's Universal Complaint" form - available at :
http://www.wccusd.k12.ca.us/williams_ucp_form_121704.pdf
All the districts are required to use this form as a result of a lawsuit.
I'm not a legal expert but I believe that this problem falls under the area
covered by this form. The district is legally bound to investigate any complaints
and respond to you within 60 days.
I would check out the following web site: http://www.bayareaasresource.org/ This site, maintained by the mother of a student with Asperger's Syndrome, has some great local resources. Check out her 'Programs and Placement' page. Hope this helps.
My son (diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder) attended Albany Children's Center special day class for 2 years. He recently moved to a special day class for K-2 at another Elementary school in Albany. The class teacher of his preschool class at Albany Children's Center is terrific. We also only have good things to say about the speech therapist, occupational therapist, APE specialist and classroom aides. They really work together as a team. My son has been in his new K special day class for only 3 months, but I am already very impressed with the teacher and aides. Overall I feel that Albany is still a good school district, and have had a good experience with them so far. The catch is, just about everyone seems to want to move into Albany, so the housing prices are insane.
You have to look at the program to know whether it's going to fit your kid. Some people have been very happy with Albany's special ed preschool, which has an autism classroom, others like Tilden in Oakland. Piedmont has a preschool program and some decent services. Although theoretically you could get Piedmont's schools if you live anywhere within the North Region SELPA, an intra-SELPA transfer is difficult. Alameda often boasts of its 'integrated preschool,' which combines all special ed kids with kids pulled from the state's low-income preschool at Woodstock Child Development Center. However, staff lack the training and support to be successful. The district's school-age offerings for ASD are pretty bad, too.
Your ability to find electronic versions of textbooks is going to depend heavily on which publisher the school textbooks come from. Prentice Hall is one of the best publishers for having the textbook fully online. See http://www.phschool.com/successnet/preview_it.html for their science, social studies, literature, math, and Spanish texts. Holt also has online text books as well as extensions of the text on their internet site. See http://go.hrw.com/gopages/index.html. McDougal Littel is known for having good CD companion materials that allow electronic highlighting and supports for the struggling writer. One is called 'Bridges to Literacy' Glencoe (McGraw Hill) Online has extensive web support for many of their textbooks, including chapter summaries and quizzes. http://www.glencoe.com/sec/index.phtml Glencoe Literature: The Reader's Choice, Grade 6-12 has text selections online. http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/index.html interactive reading practice (questions embedded in the text) reads very well, using the system text to speech in Mac 10.3. It also can read the questions, because they are also highlight-able. Of possible interest is Google Scholar, released in a “beta” version which allows focused searching of scholarly and academic work, including journal articles, books, and book chapters. (When at Google, click on 'more' to the far right.) Another great resource for summaries that can brought into your talking word processor (or used with a talking browser) is http://www.sparknotes.com. They have summaries, character lists, discussion of themes, and questions for the Harry Potter series and many other novels. You will also find study guides for history and math. Lisa Wahl
My advice is to get an IEP rather than a 504 plan. It sounds to me like your son would qualify for one and there are better (although not always great) enforcement mechanisms. Assigning briefer homework is certainly a reasonable accommodation that sounds related to your son's disability. My daughter (who has CP with no cognitive impairment) was able to reduce homework assignments based on the amount of time it took her to complete them and fatigue. Generally I just wrote a note on the assignment when she did less than everything that was assigned. This was an accommodation that was part of her IEP.
Is the accommodation for less homework written into the 504 plan? You may want to have this accommodation in writing if it is something your child needs to succeed. Teachers probably aren't required to do something unless it is written in a legal document. Also, if your child's disability is seriously impacting his ability to learn and succeed, you may want to consider special education and an IEP. Having an IEP does not necessarily being in a special education classroom, it just MAY help your child get the support they need. With limited information in a forum like this, I am not saying that is what your child needs, but merely making a suggestion. As for home suggestions, people with Asperger's or autism are often visual learners. You may want to try writing all of your child's homework in a list with each assignment broken into individual tasks. Your child could then cross off each task as it is finished. You've probably already tried rewards (which may or may not work for an 11th grader!!) It could be powerful for your child to see what they have accomplished (by crossing off what they have done) and by seeing exactly what task to do next. I know every situation is complex, so I apologize if my suggestions don't relate to you and your child.
Here are some sites that sell tactile maps.
Dick Stein
I met a man at CSUN, the adaptive technology conference in Los Angeles, who makes tactile maps. His name is Joe Cioffi. You can email him at cioffijoe@msn.com He said he could give you some recommendations.
You could inquire at your local Independent Living Center to see if the Assistive Technology Advocate would be willing to go to the IEP meeting with you. It would be especially good if the Advocate had experience in the type of equipment your child needs. It sounds strange that the school district was so against purchasing the software -- it is inexpensive.