Bark Magazine responded to the AP story with a blog post:

What constitutes a service dog? Is it the old-fashioned definition of being a guide dog for a blind person or are we as a society ready to wholeheartedly expand our definition to dogs who alert people with diabetes or epilepsy to impending problems, dogs who provide people with emotional stability that they cannot achieve on their own, dogs who support people physically in case of loss of balance, dogs who protect impulsive children from running towards the road or other perilous situations and dogs who allow children to handle school when they might otherwise be incapable of doing so?

How do we distinguish between service dogs and dogs who are merely helpful but not in any official capacity?

A post I wrote here last year spelled out the legal way to distinguish service animals from companion animals:

To qualify as a service animal under the ADA, a dog must be “partnered with a person with a disability and individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of that person.”

A judge’s order in July allowed the dog to accompany the boy when school started last week, but an official trial is scheduled for November, 2009 to determine if the dog can continue doing so. Courts will decide whether this boy’s dog performs tasks for him or simply acts as his companion.

FRIENDS WHO CARE® is an interactive educational program designed to help children understand what it means and how it feels to be a young person with a disability. The program shows kids how their peers with autism and other disabilities adapt to live life, go to school make friends and play. The goals of the program are simple: to encourage typically developing children to accept their peers with disabilities as people first, and to find ways to include everyone in school and after-school activities.

Now you can read an Education Week interview where Patricia discusses the curriculum with senior columnist Michael F. Shaughnessy. As the national director of autism services for Easter Seals, Patricia is an old hand at these interviews. She knew just what to say when asked about what was included in the kit and where to find more information.

What types of ancillary materials are available?

The materials include a teacher’s guide, activity sheets, a poster, bookmarks, and online videos.

How can teachers can a copy of this free curriculum?

The fun and colorful components can all be downloaded separately for use at home or in the classroom at www.easterseals.com/friendswhocare.

And of course, she handled the final “Did we forget anything?” question perfectly:

What have I neglected to ask?

Let me tell you a little more about Easter Seals. Easter Seals is a leading non-profit provider of services for individuals with autism, developmental disabilities, physical disabilities and other special needs. For 90 years, Easter Seals has been offering help and hope to children and adults living with disabilities, and to the families who love them. Through training, education and support services, Easter Seals creates life-changing solutions so that people with disabilities can live, learn, work and play.

FRIENDS WHO CARE® is an interactive educational program designed to help children understand what it means and how it feels to be a young person with a disability. The program shows kids how their peers with autism and other disabilities adapt to live life, go to school, make friends and play.

The goals of the program are simple: to encourage typically developing children to accept their peers with disabilities as people first, and to find ways to include everyone in school and after-school activities. And best of all: it’s free!

FRIENDS WHO CARE® was originally developed in 1990 with a grant from Ronald McDonald House Charities. Now, thanks to sponsorship from our long-time partner, the Friendly Ice Cream Corporation, Easter Seals has significantly updated the resource and we’re re-introducing the FRIENDS WHO CARE® curriculum just in time for the new school year.

The curriculum explores a range of disabilities and includes specially-crafted learning activities, hands-on exercises, guided discussions and guest guidelines. It starts with an introduction to disabilities, and looks at vision, hearing and physical disabilities and then at learning disabilities — including a new section on autism, ADHD and intellectual disabilities. When students gain a better appreciation of what it means to live with autism or some other disability, they are more accepting of their classmates who have those disabilities. Our hope is that children quickly realize, “Kids with disabilities can be my friends, too!”

Download theFRIENDS WHO CARE® curriculum for free and check it out for yourself. The fun, colorful components can all be downloaded separately for use at home or in the classroom.

The case started in Oregon — the parents of a teenager who was refused special education services at a public high school transferred the student to a private academy during his junior year, then sued the school district to recover the $65,000 they spent on private tuition. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the parents.

Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said it would be wrong to reward the school district for refusing to find a child eligible for special services. Attorney David Salmons represented the family and pointed out afterwards that the family has won only the right to argue for reimbursement.

“Keep in mind,” he says,” that the decision today does not guarantee the parents reimbursement for private school tuition. The parents have the burden of showing that there was a failure to provide a free appropriate public education, and they have the burden to show that their private placement was appropriate.”

Still, Lindsay Jones of the Council for Exceptional Children worries that the majority decision will hurt school systems by removing the incentive for parents to collaborate with educators.

“Under that situation,” she says, “parents don’t have to even seek special education services or work with the district before they ask that the district pay for their private placement.”

There’s hope this decision will encourage districts to act quickly to identify students with learning problems so that future cases won’t end up in court. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Dan seemed on a normal developmental track for his first three and a half years until things went haywire. His speech suddenly stopped. He sat in a corner gnawing on his shirt. His parents first thought it would pass, then that it was a hearing issue, and finally the cold, terrifying diagnosis came.

The Mulvaney’s local Long Island school district didn’t know what to do with Dan. They told his parents that Dan would be better off at home or a “special school.” Dan’s parents thought differently. They didn’t want their son in an institution. They wanted him in a local school. They wanted him to live in his own house.

So instead, with the assistance of the district’s head of special education, Mary Tatem, they pushed and prodded, became total pests, made themselves and the district crazy but ended up with the best education Dan could hope for, one where he ate with other kids and became part of their world — good for him, good for them. And along the way, Long Beach transformed itself from a district that barely knew how to deal with special-needs kids into one of the best in the region.

Dan graduated from Long Beach High School last Sunday and will be moving into a group home with three other guys later this summer.

Dan and his parents, like so many this time of year, will start anew with both a new set of possibilities and unalterable ties to the life they’ve somehow suddenly, miraculously outgrown.

Congratulations to Dan, and congratulations to his parents.

The Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership (GRASP) is an organization led and governed by individuals with Asperger Syndrome. From their web site:

What makes GRASP unique, other than its proven four year-old support group network, its educational outreach, and its use as an informational clearinghouse on issues relating to the autism spectrum, are the stipulations GRASP must adhere to in accordance with our bylaws — that the Executive Director, 100% of the Advisory Board, and 50% of the Board of Directors of GRASP must be diagnosed with either Autism, Asperger Syndrome, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder.

Connecting with others for peer support during the high school years can be helpful, and the resources on the GRASP website allow people with Asperger Syndrome to see how others have accessed support to meet their needs.

Parenting a high schooler with Asperger Syndrome can be challenging, too. But just like any other parent, those with children who have Asperger Syndrome dream of their children growing into confident young adults. The Online Asperger Syndrome Information and Support (OASIS) is a wonderful website, full of resources specifically addressing the needs of individuals with Asperger Syndrome. Many resources on this site offer additional ideas on how parents can support their teenage children with Asperger Syndrome.

Know your options when it comes to occupational therapy

By Sandra Schefkind

It’s no secret that parents want the best for their kids. When they’re at home they know firsthand what’s happening … but let’s face it — kids can’t stay at home forever!

Parents of children with autism need to know that occupational therapy practitioners (OTs) are important members of the school team to support both the academic performance and social participation of their child. From addressing sensory concerns that impact learning, adapting tasks and the environment to enhance participation, and addressing the child’s ability to manage his emotions and facilitate his social skills development, OTs in schools support a child’s participation in the academic and nonacademic curriculum and engagement in daily school routines. Using evaluation and screening, OTs help to identify the child’s abilities and strengths and determine the need for occupational therapy services.

Since OT services in schools help students succeed in their daily routines, occupational therapy can be offered in a variety of settings including the classroom, playground, or lunchroom. The goal is to offer services in the natural environment to the extent possible in settings in which the child participates in school-related activities. Occupational therapy practitioners are part of the school team meeting the needs of your child; they provide service to and on behalf of your child through direct service and consultation.

Download the fact sheet on the role of occupational therapy under IDEA and share with your teacher, principal, and PTA. Also, refer to the consumer tip sheet entitled Understanding Autism. These two resources provide valuable information about the profession of occupational therapy and articulate our role to consumers.

And more than anything else, as a parent of a child with autism, know your options when it comes to occupational therapy. Know what occupational therapy in schools can do for your child, and know how occupational therapy services work in your school system. Talk to your child’s principal, teacher, director of special education in your district, and your state occupational therapy association — they can answer questions and concerns and help you determine the best options for your child.

A lot of the schools we went to prepared the kids ahead of time for our visit. They highlighted books about blindness, held reading sessions, did activities to give the children an idea what it might be like to be blind, or how they might assist a person who is blind.

So I was thinking: why not do this with autism?

It seems so much attention is given to making adults more aware of what autism is … wouldn’t it be good for kids to be more aware, too?

From my experience, I can easily imagine people with autism — or parents of children with autism — visiting classes to teach the kids about autism, explaining what it’s like to have autism. Classes could prepare for the visits by reading books ahead of time. Amazon.com features a terrific Listmania list for folks looking for children’s books about autism, and a fair number of the books on that list are available at our Easter Seals and Autism bookstore. Every time you order a book through our bookstore, a portion of that sale will go to Easter Seals.

One book in our bookstore that would be particularly useful during a classroom visit: The Friendship Puzzle, Helping Kids Learn About Accepting and Including Kids with Autism. Katy Neas recently reviewed this book on our Easter Seals and Autism blog.

The voice of the book is a typically developing elementary school girl — the story is about her journey to understand the new kid at school who has autism. The book presents information in a kind and factually accurate manner and offers activities that kids can do with kids with autism.

This would be a perfect book to recommend before a classroom visit about autism. Those of you who have autism or have a loved one with autism should consider visiting classrooms to teach kids about what it’s like. You’ll be surprised about how curious the kids are — and what fun you’ll have answering their questions.

The details of how states are going to allocate the economic recovery funds are just now coming out. That means that now is a perfect time for parents to identify the needs of their children and find out if these needs can be met with these funds.

For example, states are getting a significant amount of funds to support special education. School districts will be the recipient of the bulk of these funds. So if your child could benefit from a piece of assistive technology — or a teacher needs additional training to meetyour child’s needs — now is the time to push these ideas.

You can start by talking with your child’s teachers and principal. These new funding increases are a response to long-time demands — by teachers unions, school boards and others — to have Washington fully finance the mandates laid out in the federal law regulating special education.

* NIH Biomedical Research: $10 billion for increased research.

EDUCATION

* Special Education: $11.3 billion for the IDEA State Grant Program and $500 million for the IDEA Part C Early Intervention Program. $400 million for the pre-school program.

SOCIAL SECURITY

* SSI: A one-time emergency payment of $250 to people who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Social Security, disabled veterans, and other selected benefits. SSA Disability Backlog and Claims: $500 million to help the Social Security Administration reduce the processing time for claims and appeals decisions.
* SSA Modernization: $500 million to replace the antiquated National Computer Center.

Employment

*Vocational Rehabilitation: $540 million for VR State Grant.

For more information go to the DPC website.