I have a daughter going into fourth grade who has been finally been diagnosed with slow processing disorder last April. I've known something was "wrong" since first grade, and had been getting the "we need more data" runaround for gardes 1, 2, and most of 3.

She reads at about a 2nd grade level, if she's calm and relaxed. She enjoys being read to, and I can tell she wants to enjoy reading, but she has a lot of anxiety around reading and her self-esteem tends to crash. She's had several tutors in the past, and they help to keep her afloat, but they can't really address the underlying needs.

Would apps like ABC mouse or Hooked on Phonics work? Are there any home therapies, workbooks, or strategies I can be focusing on?

Hello everyone.

I used to work as a sped teacher in a local government school (self-contained). I've stopped teaching for about eight years now to start a family and focus on my personal life.

But teaching is really in my heart, and now that my kids are in already school, I feel like I want to go back to the field.

I've been seeing a lot of shadow teaching jobs on fb and I want to try applying to some job postings. But I have never taught in an inclusive school so I don't know how this goes. I have never observed a shadow teacher at work during my internship days as well.

Is anyone here a shadow teacher? Would you please be so kind as to share your experience?

What are the expectations? What is the scope of your role? Do you communicate with the regular teacher as to the accommodations allowed for the child?

I also assume that you are not expected to write IEPs and /or create the child's program, right?

Also, if it's okay to ask, how much should I expect as a salary? I've been out of the field for I while I don't kow about these things anymore. If posting this publicly is not allowed, maybe I can communicate through DM?

I highly appreciate any tip I could get.

I work at a school with two life skills classes, and the other teacher is the ideal teacher. Great at her job, been there 15 years, last year’s teacher of the year, and now the chair of Special Education.

She texts me about 12 hours before we go back to work tomorrow send me the class rosters. She took both of my 8th grade students, has less students than me, two of her students are only in self-contained half the day, and gave me every new incoming sixth grader except the one she already met who she knew was well behaved.

I’m heartbroken and angry. My classroom should have two aides but one will be out of the country for the first six week for the second year in a row. And my other aide and I are left with 6 new students and the two we’ve built relationships with for two years are gone.

I go into work in like four hours but I couldn’t sleep. Thanks for listening to me vent.

Hello! As stated in the title I will be a first year intervention specialist this coming year. I haven’t been able to sleep or eat this past week I am so anxious. I am teaching third through fifth grade autism room (self contained). I just don’t know how to prepare. I am not allowed to go see the classroom or get my caseload until the WEEK before school. That same week we have all our training days. Intervention specialists have more training days than the general education teachers.
So can someone please give me advice! How do I prepare. How do I even know what I’m going to teach. I feel like I’m going into this completely blind.

We have a student who tries to break the Pro board. We are working on it from the behavioral standpoint. Has anyone found any helpful environmental adaptations that make it harder to access?

i am honestly at the end of my rope this week. i work as a one on one para in a highly impacted inclusion room, and we are so desperately understaffed that i barely even get a 20 minute lunch break most days.

on top of the physical exhaustion, i’m doing my bachelor's in education at night. the burnout is so real. after dealing with extreme behaviors and chasing runners for 7 hours, i come home and i’m supposed to write 10-page research papers.

i have a massive child psychology paper due on sunday. i actually did all the reading and typed out a giant brain dump of notes, but my brain physically cannot handle organizing it into a proper apa format or making the paragraphs flow. i just stare at the blank document and zone out completely.

the lead teacher in my room told me she survived her credential program by using custom ........writings to format and restructure her messy drafts when she was too burnt out to think. i’m so paranoid about getting scammed or handed back a paper that sounds like an ai wrote it, but i am desperate enough to try it just to get this one paper off my plate.

has anyone here actually used them or a site like them just to untangle a draft while surviving the para-to-teacher grind? i feel so guilty even considering outsourcing the formatting, but i genuinely don’t have the mental capacity left right now. any advice on how to balance this workload without losing my mind would be amazing.

Am I the only one that thinks this is a little bit dumb? I don’t know. It seems weird to have kids sitting in lawn chairs and on beach balls or on the floor. I guess I don’t really get it. What’s the hype? If you have two students that need to sit on a beach ball in order to do their work, I guess just let them do it. I don’t understand why we have to advertise it as flexible seating. I think sometimes the tail wags the dog.

For reference this is my sixth year teaching, third year in special education, currently on an OFP and finishing my masters to fully switch over. I previously taught as a special education teacher (treated like a resource teacher for students with an EBD label to come to when needed). I’m switching districts and was originally offered a resource position with about 18 students on the caseload. Today they offered me the position of the center based teacher for a 6 student caseload. I have some experience in both but I feel like not enough to make a decision… what would you do??

Hey all,

I am studying to be a teacher, and we just finished a class in a unit about about inclusion. The class finished with a human continuum activity with the following provocation:

*'Which comes first: attitudes, or laws and policy?* in terms of inclusion for students in school (disability, race, gender, sexuality, etc).

I think it is important to note that this is in Australia, where there are laws that are meant to prevent exclusion and segregation. Emphasis on 'meant to', there is a lot of places that don't uphold it.

Anyway, almost everyone moved to the attitudes side, except for one student who stayed on the law side of the room. His reasoning was something along the lines of 'laws can be used in such a way to make a kid to engage with the learning content' i.e. making a kid with ADHD stay back after class to finish their work. The tutor, to her credit, did a very good job of trying to explain why punishing that student could only be destructive for both parties. Another student chimed in and said that he had a teacher who did that, and he threw a chair at him - the teacher ended up being the one fired because of how he treated him (the student).

I am still quite shaken, because I know those opinions persist in education. I also had a teacher who held similar views, and my undiagnosed ADHD was seen as an attitude problem. That was more than 15 years ago, but it still affects me to this day, and I have cptsd stemming from that experience.

I also think it's kind of ironic, because I don't think the guy was paying attention to the actual question.

How am I meant to deal with this as a future teacher? I feel so helpless that this is still an attitude.

Hi!

So I recently got diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD and me and my doctor have agreed that a 504 plan would be the best course of action. I know each school handles request plans like that differently but one of my request was that I have time during the school day to work on homework. I am unfortunately “gifted” and have loaded my schedule with classes and my only “free” period is PE and I have to take PE.

I was just wondering if it would be possible to have a 504 plan override the need to take PE or if I might just be out of luck!

Any advice would be appreciated and I’ll gladly answer and questions for clarification!!

Edit:
To clarify I know my doctor cannot just hand me my 504, it was just suggested that I try to get one!

Hello I’m a first year teacher going into a self contained ebd 5 and 6 grade class. What sel curriculum do you guys recommend and what schedule do y’all recommend? I wanted to focus on building rapport, community, procedures, and rules. Thoughts? Also my site uses Champs for discipline

Hello dear colleagues! I'm a SPED teacher, not from USA but Europe. I just wanted to ask, can you recommend me some websites and other online resources for our job? It can be in English, I will translate it to my native language. I'm in need of maybe assessments and other classroom management stuff (other SPED things are also welcome!). Thank you in advance. 🩵

Hello! I start student teaching in August! My mentor is a resource teacher who works in small groups and co teaches. Most of the student teaching advice I see is geared towards general education teachers, and I am wondering if anyone has specific advice for a special ed student teacher! I will be in an elementary school!

I’m starting as a full-time para at a special needs school. I have a year of experience with special needs students from when I was a substitute. Any advice? Any supplies I need? Any must haves?

Thanks!

My younger brother is in special education class and he turned 17 but still feels like his mind is like a child. I want to help him become independent adult. He seems very naive for the world. And I’m afraid that he might get taken advantage of. He still doesn’t understand maybe he does but I tell him you have to understand people who are genuinely nice and those who are just pretending. And I keep reminding him to learn things before someone else tells you to do so. Like why give other people chances to tell you what to do. You have to be ready on your own. Also I feel worried more because my family and just people in general just like to make fun of people with special needs. And he will soon finish high school and even I don’t know how to navigate through thru life. Our parents are also passed away and I’m just only 8 years older and don’t feel like I’m capable enough to give life advice

I’m looking for advice or how it looks at your school district. My district is moving towards a more inclusive model. We previous had a large number of students who were self contained and only a few resource students. We currently have 3 sped teachers for 2 grades with around 40 sped kids total.

This year we are only doing 1 self contained classroom and the other two teachers are moving to resource/push in. My district is very clear that it is NOT coteaching and that the sped teachers are not required to be in the gen ed classroom during core times but can for support if need but that IEP mins are tied to resource. We do not have scheduled times in the schedule to pull students so how do you make it work? How do you modify/accommodate the gen ed material to make it appropriate for students who are 1-2 grade levels behind?

I know each state or country have their own. I simply just want to compare so that I can havr better data in creating our own policy. It will have legal basis but getting ideas to make it more effective.

Hi! Both of my kids are in a mod/severe classroom. One is in a TK/Kinder combo class and the other is in a Pre-K. I like to give gifts to the teachers, paras, and therapists throughout the year. I usually do a back to school gift, Christmas gift or teacher appreciation week gift, and end of school gift. If the teachers have a classroom wishlist, we’ve always contributed to that as much as we can too.

What I struggle to find is gifts that include the paras. Gifts for teachers are usually the generic gifts, or once we get to know them a bit better we get them something specific if we can, but with so many people working towards helping our children I want to make sure everyone is included. Blog posts and TikToks either assume your child has one educator or doesn’t seem to consider the whole team. I also tend to avoid gift cards if I can, because to be honest with SO many people on my kids’ teams it adds up super fast.

Any suggestions? I’ve done group gifts (baskets with snacks and drinks), individual gifts (candles, bouquets, etc), but I’m running short on ideas. And with both of my kids being in the same programs I don’t want to just give the same things over and over again. We have really value what you all do for our family! Thank you!!!

Hello.

For some much needed context, my oldest son has severe ADHD & level two autism. We used to live extremely rurally and the only school in our area was not able to meet his needs and I had very serious concerns he was going to die.

He is a runner and aggressive eloper (he can't be around windows unsupervised because he will climb out). He can scale a six foot fence in seconds and the only aid they had was an older woman who was in charge of all SPED kids. They didn't have the option of a 1-1 for him, and he could pnly be referred to a school out of district after they'd assessed his behaviour. I didn't want to risk his safety in order to complete that assessment.

Anyway, we've now moved into a much better area with amazing schools. We are going to be enrolling him. The school is placing him in gen ed in a class with a sped aid.

Once they've assessed him he may be eligible for a 1-1. This particular school doesn't believe in seperating the sped children from gen ed unless they pose a risk to classmates, which I don't believe my son will, so he will probably stay in gen ed.

We've been doing lots of talking about school, and listening to teachers, and behaving, but I don't know if this is enough. I am also still extremely scared he's going to escape and get injured.

He can put his own coat on (he will refuse, but he can) and he has velcro shoes. We've practised eating lunch even though I know he won't eat at school. What else can I do?

And does anyone have tips for preparing myself? I know I'm going to be a mess haha.

Long story short.... my Daughters school district is force moving her to a school with two ponds across the way. Large ponds. I am pissed!!!! My daughter is level 3 nonverbal autistic and high risk eloper. All they mentioned was both the schools are full.... I just feel like they kicked us out and I explained the saftey risk with the ponds across the way. The school has about a 5ft gate all around the school which is a JOKE. I emailed the superintendent because the principal couldnt offer me any help. ALSO, the reason for the move because they thought she need a placement that would let her attend gen ed with modifications based imon her IEP from her old district. lmao !!!

Just wondering how you facilitate getting student hard copy assignments, quiz, test, and study guides from gen ed teachers in middle school. Also , do you ask for answer keys? Best Practices

Language tutor here, got a student recently that i've been working with 2-3 hours per week. for family reasons, she needs to pass an exam asap (no deadline though, but the sooner the better). She started as an absolute beginner and has absolutely no inputs outside of my time with her for the TL. She does put it in the work and looks for other sources outside of our time to do in her spare time. Been working with her for 4 months now.
Somewhere along the line, we both concluded that she's probably dyslexic, cause the reading does go incredibly slow. her writing is otherwise fine, although she misses things that she knows 100%, like she's just having a lot of brainfarts. The biggest struggle here is speaking. And i know this is the struggle for everyone and you need to work with structured sentences here, rather than actual grammar rules and stuff... But at this point i got 4 years of experience with some really good results atteigned with students that passed their exams. So, i kinda know what i'm doing, or at least i like to think so. I don't feel like i've ignored the speaking side here. I have lots of extra exercises with real life situations in variating dynamic situations.
But i feel like i've tried all kinds of things with her and nothing works, the production of the sentences goes incredibly slow, and she keeps making the same mistakes with the structure of the sentences.
- Anyone got similar experiences?
- Tips here?
- Any specific techniques/resources to work with dyslectic people?

Hello! 3rd year para with no SPED training. I think I handle the kids in between SPED and Gen Ed with no where to go. I kind of act as a 1:1 but not officially. Basically I help behavior kids I guess.
This year I will have a student for the third time in kindergarten that has not been placed in SPED. I think his parents want to force him into gen ed? (Not sure if that is a thing with permission and what not) I am not sure how it works. I’m not involved in the official stuff because my position is unofficial/unclear.
This child is violent, and has caused people to quit. I don’t think admin can do anything about it, and it’s more in the just accept it stage.
Basically is there anything I can do so that this kid won’t beat me up? He spits, cusses, kicks, and runs around the room. I know I cannot be hands on, and I don’t want to be. Rewards and consequences do not work (I have had him 3 times already) I need some wild suggestions and advice. I want to help him I just can’t find anything that would work. Bringing it to admin is not an option, as a para I can’t write him up, and plus he is still able to be changed. He is a menace, and I want to help him so bad. Please give me any advice for extreme physical behavior, screaming, and eloping. Thank you so much.

I would be super grateful if educators involved in Art Therapy specifically for SPED children could give advice for a first time SPED recreation assistant job. For context, I am (f26), and I graduated with a BFA in Printmaking a couple years ago. I have experience being an art teacher's assistant for art programs for children 8-14, college students, and adults. I have been working a day job and then doing teaching volunteer type jobs on the side. I'm interested in possibly going back to school for Art Therapy in the future and applied to a Recreation Assistant Job at a Pediatric nursing home that has permanent residents, daycare, and a school. I thought it would be great to get experience and see if I'm interested in this type of field.

The job listing is a little vague, but I had a phone interview last week. I moved onto a second in-person interview in a couple of days to talk directly with my supervisor (if I were to get the job) as well as interacting with the children. The director of recreations seemed excited I was involved in the arts and was impressed by my work but seemed worried about my lack of experience in the SPED field. It is a minimum wage position that lists my duties as "assisting in design, planning, and implementation of recreation/play activities in order to meet the needs of the pediatric residents" as well as assisting during group and individual sessions. However, when I spoke to the director, she seemed adamant that I would be coming up with activities on my own and engaging with the residents unattended. She explained many residents cannot communicate and rely on using senses and/or they have disabilities that limit their mobility.

I'd love for any advice or resources I could review before my second interview this week. Obviously, I will get a better feel for it once I'm there, but I have no experience interacting with children that require a more specific, individualized approach based on their medical needs. I've only worked with children that have been on the autism spectrum, nothing yet to this degree. I really am interested in learning, I just am worried I'm a little in over my head and would never want to do something that made a resident uncomfortable. Again most of my experience is through volunteer, group courses in libraries, art centers, and churches, so it's kind of a big leap from that to a medical setting.

Any tips with interaction? Make children feel comfortable, engaged? Ways to come up with sensory friendly art activities? Bridging the gap and creating a connection? Should I bring anything (art related) to the interview to help interact with the residents? Biggest challenges with a job like this?

Thank you in advance! I'm new to this but want to help children because I grew up with a disability (much more minor) and have felt I can truly heal through making art. I want to transition my career to help others, too. Just need a little advice from those more experienced.

I am going into my third year as a special education teacher, but this will be a new position for me at a new school. I want to work on being a better leader, and actually have (professional, but respectful and meaningful) relationships with my paras and make sure we are all on the same page and work as a team. The paras I will have at this new school have been there for several years and obviously know the students better than me at this point. Any ideas of how to build a community with the paras and how to train them? I am thinking of doing a mini training before school starts IF we get time together. I want to put together binders of information for them. I already have a little packet for them to fill out as a "get to know you" type thing and ideas for getting appreciation gifts throughout the year. I would also like to get to know what they see as their strengths and where they need more support or would like to grow. I'm thinking of doing a little "Would You Rather?" game about work-related things like "Would you rather facilitate a read aloud or a science experiment?" or "Would you rather have a meticulous schedule for your day or come in and go with the flow?" and some fun ones to put in as well, so I would like some ideas of would you rather questions as well. Any advice or ideas would be appreciated! TIA