Dr. Lynn Koegel's appearance on Supernanny demonstrates how PRT techniques promote progress for children with autism

In the ASHA Leader article on In the Limelight: Through One Televised Family, a Chance to Help Many, writer Bridget Murray Law explains how Dr. Lynn Kern Koegel's appearance on ABC's Supernanny demonstrated Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) techniques that motivate children with autism to socialize and communicate.

What do educators need to understand when it comes to RTI in mathematics?

Teachers: Be aware of warning signs that a child may be struggling with executive function skills

If you don't know better, you may peg a child as lazy, absentminded, disorganized, or as a behavior problem. But in fact, says Christopher Kaufman, in an interview with The Inclusive Class Radio Show, these may be hints that children have executive function deficits. Dr. Kaufman, a licensed psychologist and the author of Executive Function in the Classroom: Practical Strategies for Improving Performance and Enhancing Skills for All Students, advised teachers to keep an eye out for students who show these signs:

TPRI gets highest rating for accurate identification of students at risk for reading disability

The National Center on Response to Intervention has given TPRI, a highly reliable reading assessment system for K–3 students, its highest rating—Convincing Evidence—for "classification accuracy." Classification accuracy indicates the extent to which a screening tool is able to accurately classify students as "at risk" or "not at risk" for reading disabilities. Read the full press release, and learn more about TPRI, and its Spanish-language counterpart Tejas LEE.

Congratulations to the winners of 4 inaugural NAECTE graduate student scholarships

In partnership with the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators, Brookes is pleased to announce the winners of 4 NAECTE annual memberships. The winning graduate students completed essays discussing how they might engage in advocacy efforts related to issues in early childhood education.

State leaders in early childhood:

Meet the goals of the Race to the Top–Early Learning Challenge with trusted resources from Brookes. Download this free handout demonstrating which resources will help you meet explicit Early Learning Challenge requirements.

On the brink of adulthood with autism

Get a good look at what families face when their child with autism "transitions" out of public education and into adulthood, in this poignant New York Times article about Justin Canha, the young man who illustrated our story Pedro's Whale.

Brookes receives Marc Gold Award for innovation in transition services

Brookes is honored to receive the Division on Career Development and Transition's (DCDT's) Marc Gold Award for innovation in transition services. The award is named after Marc Gold, whose innovative "Try Another Way" approach opened the door to employment for many students with disabilities. See the Brookes Transition to Adulthood Series.

Download a copy of the CSBS-DP Infant–Toddler Checklist mentioned in the Parents article on "Understanding Autism"

Using the checklist has been shown to be part of a promising approach for detecting possible signs of autism (as well as language and other developmental delays) in children at an early age. Download a copy of the checklist here.

Optimistic Parenting named Mom's Choice Awards Gold recipient

The Mom's Choice Awards (MCA) has named Optimistic Parenting: Hope and Help for You and Your Challenging Child among the best in family-friendly media, products, and services. This strategy-filled guide by top behavior expert V. Mark Durand was honored as a Gold Recipient in the Parenting – Special & Exceptional Needs category for books. The Mom's Choice Awards is an awards program that recognizes authors, inventors, companies, parents, and others for their efforts in creating family-friendly media, products, and services. Read an interview with the author of Optimistic Parenting.

CSBS DP™ Infant-Toddler Checklist critical element of promising approach to detecting autism early

A recent study on "Detecting, Studying, and Treating Autism Early: The One-Year Well-Baby Check-Up Approach" reported in The Journal of Pediatrics shows a promising way for physicians to detect autism in babies at an early age.

Support a grieving student: See the webcast

Every teacher will encounter a situation where one of their students experiences the death of someone close to them. What the teacher says or how school personnel respond can make a big difference in how a student manages. In a recent webcast, Dr. David Schonfeld, national child bereavement expert and co-author of The Grieving Student: A Teacher's Guide, offered advice on what you can do in those situations to best support a child.

Pre-K students more ready to learn once they reach kindergarten

Charlene Ianonne-Campbell, director of Early Learning for Baltimore City Public Schools, emphasizes the importance of pre-K in delivering children to kindergarten ready to learn. "Pre-K is the engine that's driving school reform at this point," Ianonne-Campbell said in a recent interview with WJZ, Baltimore's CBS affiliate. The report referenced a recent report showing that the number of city 4-year-olds ready to learn in kindergarten by the time they turn 5 is up by 18 percent this year from last school year.

The debate about inclusive education

If you want to hear the impassioned views of parties on many sides of the inclusive education question, tune in to the blog post on "Inclusive Schools" by Alexa Posny, Assistant U.S. Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. Read the heartfelt reality check by "Judy" posted on March 19 at 1:42 p.m. that likely represents the view of many classroom teachers.

Early assessment for children recovering from brain injury

The International Brain Injury Association recently asked Dr. Gillian Hotz, co-developer of the Pediatric Test of Brain Injury (PTBI) to write an article on PTBI for its NeuroTrauma Letter. The resulting article on "The Importance of Early Neurocognitive Assessment in Children Recovering from Brain Injury" outlines how neuropsychological testing is essential during the course of recovery from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) or acquired brain injury (ABI) and when developing rehabilitation goals.

Help an athlete understand the unwritten rules of sport

In the latest NCPAD blog by Gary Barber—physical education teacher, school administrator, father of two children with autism, and author of Different Speeds and Different Needs: How to Teach Sports to Every Kid—Gary writes about the unwritten rules of sports that signal bad sportsmanship when broken.

A place for pets with kids who have disabilities?

There is much anecdotal evidence of the benefit of pets to children and much discussion of "pet therapy" for children with disabilities. A recent USA Today article speculated about the benefit of animals to children with autism. James Griffin, co-editor of Animals in Our Lives: Human–Animal Interaction in Family, Community, and Therapeutic Settings, acknowledged the importance of more study to understand how animals help kids with autism. The book includes a chapter by Temple Grandin, autism advocate and animal scientist, about how animals can help people with autism.

Fun tips for building reading skills during storytime

To an onlooker, the activities Emma Moyer suggests you try when reading to emerging readers just seem like fun, but they will help you build children's critical reading skills.

Special Needs Planning Guide co-author honored

John W. Nadworny, co-author of The Special Needs Planning Guide, was selected as a FIVE STAR™ Wealth Manager for 2011. Five Star Professional is an independent research firm in the Boston area. According to the Melrose Free Press, managers were evaluated on customer service, integrity, knowledge/expertise, communication, value for fee charged, meeting of financial objectives, post-sale service, quality of recommendations, and overall satisfaction.

What is the right reaction, when someone with disabilities tells you about abuse?
In the past people with disabilities who reported abuse were often told not to be a troublemaker, not to get angry, or not to have an opinion. So says Nancy Fitzsimons, as reported in a recent StarTribune.com article on "New focus on sexual abuse of people with disabilities." Dr. Fitzsimons is an associate professor of social work at Minnesota State University, Mankato and the author of Combating Violence and Abuse of People with Disabilities: A Call to Action.

She recently participated in a webinar on "Sexual Violence and People With Disabilities" sponsored by the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault. If someone reports abuse to you, she advises, be careful with your reaction, make sure that you don't give the impression that the person telling you has somehow done something wrong. Learn other tips as well as what red flags to look for in Dr. Fitzsimons's book.

New author blog: Help every child participate in sports

Gary Barber is a physical education teacher, a school administrator, and the father of two children with autism. He wrote the book Different Speeds and Different Needs: How to Teach Sports to Every Kid when he realized that teachers and sports programs are unsure how to apply the principles of inclusion and universal design when it comes to participation in sports.

Gary has started a sports club for children with differences—the Islanders Running Club—which now has 35 members with a range of challenges and needs ("all of them wonderful kids"), and he shares tips from his experience at the National Center for Physical Activity and Disability's (NCPAD's) Endless CapABILITIES blog site. Read Gary's first post.

What makes a high-quality pre-K classroom?

If studies show that efforts to improve pre-K quality through regulation of class size, teacher credentialing, and teacher–child ratio are not working, then what does improve child outcomes? A recent University of California at Berkely study on "Lifting Pre-K Quality: Caring and Effective Teachers" highlights a number of research-backed initiatives that have shown progress—the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, for one.

CLASS was developed by Robert Pianta at the University of Virginia and colleagues after discovering that, while most teachers and aides were sensitive and responsive to children, their skills in organizing rich, challenging learning tasks—especially in the area of language and literacy—were weak. Pianta's team observed many children sitting quietly or waiting for the next task, across large numbers of classrooms. These weaknesses in classroom organization, in turn, slowed children's cognitive growth. Read how to start with the CLASS classroom assessment tool to remedy this imbalance.

Betty Hart talks about the discovery of the importance of talking to babies, in this NPR report

Decades after Betty Hart and Todd Risley conducted painstaking research that revealed the importance of engaging with and talking to babies a lot, early childhood professionals are acting on their findings. NPR recently conducted an interview with Betty Hart in which she talked about the surprising result that the key difference between children in impoverished homes versus children in professional homes was the quantity versus the quality of the talk. According to the NPR report on "Closing The Achievement Gap With Baby Talk," children in a welfare home heard about 600 words an hour while children in a professional home heard 2,100.

Read the original findings in Hart & Risley's Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children. And get specific guidance about how to talk to and play with young children in Talk to Me, Baby! How You Can Support Young Children's Language Development.

Newsweek article explores: Can Schools Teach Empathy?

With a rash of stories in the media about cyber-bullying and school violence, Newsweek recently asked the question "Can Schools Teach Empathy?" Weighing in on the question is Barbara Gueldner, a colleague of Kenneth Merrell at the University of Oregon. Dr. Merrell is the developer of Strong Kids, a series of social-emotional learning curricula for children from pre-K through high school. Dr. Gueldner talked about what goes into learning kindness. Read more about social and emotional learning and explore the individual Strong Kids curricula.

Get daily differentiation tips from Paula Kluth

Paula Kluth is known to many as an autism expert and inclusion advocate, but she has increasingly become a champion for differentiated instruction. When working with general and special educators to create positive, productive environments for students with disabilities, she began to recognize the efficiency of collaborating on strategies to optimize learning for all students.

In her new "Differentiation Daily" blog, Paula provides links to websites featuring ideas or resources that will "help educators reach and teach all of the learners in their diverse classrooms." For those working to incorporate differentiated instruction into their day, these posts provide welcome reinforcement and reaffirmation.

Paula is the co-author of From Tutor Scripts to Talking Sticks 100 Ways to Differentiate Instruction in K–12 Inclusive Classrooms.

Get plainspoken advice on college for students with ID

Meg Grigal and Debra Hart, authors of Think College!, are often approached by people at conferences with a question on their minds. Even if they do not come right out and ask, they seem to wonder whether post-secondary education for students with ID is a valuable investment. In response to those queries, Dr. Grigal and Dr. Hart offer a resounding, Yes!

As for any student, college represents a valuable opportunity to "explore, define, and redefine personal goals related to adult learning, employment, and social connections" in a way not necessarily afforded in high school. Read more in the Think College! brief on "What's the Point? A Reflection About the Purpose and Outcomes of College for Students with Intellectual Disabilities."

What next, after you have the results of a reading assessment?

Find out in a workshop with the authors of Next STEPS in Literacy Instruction: Connecting Assessments to Effective Interventions. Using the book as a guide, participants will get hands-on practice translating the results of reading assessments into interventions that will make a real difference. You'll return from the 2-day workshop ready to recognize what kind of instruction your students need to succeed. Learn more at http://www.nextstepsreading.com/training/.

Get the FAQs about PrePS: Preschool Pathways to Science

UCLA has a series of FAQs about Preschool Pathways to Science, the teaching approach behind the book of the same name and the PBS series Sid the Science Kid. Get answers to your questions about what PrePS is, how PrePS is unique, who is best suited to teach the program, and how much science is needed to teach the program. UCLA also has this spotlight of co-author Moisés Román and his role in Sid the Science Kid.

New Bringing ABA into Your Inclusive Classroom blog

Debra Leach, author of Bringing ABA into Your Inclusive Classroom, has started a blog by the same name. The ultimate goal of the blog, according to Dr. Leach's first entry, is to "help educators successfully include students with ASD in general education classrooms by using ABA interventions and other evidence-based practices." She opens with a discussion of Chapter 1 of her book, highlighting the characteristics of students with ASD. Read more at her blog.

PTBI co-author awarded first David Hovda Angel Award

The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation has named Dr. Gillian Hotz, co-developer of the Pediatric Test of Brain Injury (PTBI), as recipient of the first David Hovda Angel Award. The annual award is presented to a leading clinician who exemplifies compassion for and commitment to children and young adults with pediatric acquired brain injury (PABI) and their families.

Brookes receives Merit Award for "Whale"

Brookes Publishing has been awarded the Merit Award—representing "the very best in book publishing in the United States"— for excellence in book design, book production, and book manufacturing for "Just Give Him the Whale! 20 Ways to Use Fascinations, Areas of Expertise, and Strengths to Support Students with Autism" by Paula Kluth and Patrick Schwarz. This award was presented at the 23rd Annual New York Book Show, sponsored by the Bookbinders' Guild of New York.

AAIDD's 2009 Media, Early Career, and Leadership Awards

Brookes Publishing has received the AAIDD 2009 Media Award in recognition of the company's "commitment to publishing excellence and for advancing a better quality of life for people with significant disabilities and their families through knowledge dissemination."

Brookes author Erik Carter also received AAIDD's Early Career Award and Wendy Nehring received the AAIDD Leadership Award. Dr. Carter is the author of Peer Support Strategies for Improving All Students' Social Lives and Learning and Including People with Disabilities in Faith Communities. Dr. Nehring is co-editor of Promoting Health Care Transitions for Adolescents with Special Health Care Needs.

Lifetime achievement recognition for Head Start founder

This August, Edward Zigler, Head Start founder and editor of The Head Start Debates, will receive the American Psychological Association's highest honor, the APA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology. Dr. Zigler and colleagues Walter Gilliam and Stephanie Jones have also received the 2008 Grawemeyer Award for outstanding ideas in education for their book, A Vision for Universal Preschool Education.

Webinar: Plan transitions to prevent challenging behavior!

How can you optimize transition times to reduce challenging behavior? Mary Louise Hemmeter, co-author of Blended Practices for Teaching Young Children in Inclusive Settings, and Michaelene M. Ostrosky offer tips in this free NAEYC webinar on "Moving Right Along: Planning Transitions to Prevent Challenging Behavior." (See an article on the same topic in NAEYC's Young Children magazine.)

You can also find plenty of pointers in the new book Engagement of Every Child in the Preschool Classroom, which tackles the question of how to engage children during transition times so they are not wandering aimlessly or tempted into trouble.

See if "zone defense scheduling" will work in your classroom

Use the tool that measures the real key to student success

Teachers who give both instructional and emotional support can raise the academic achievement of students at risk, according to a recent Education Week article by Linda Jacobson. In "Teacher–Pupil Link Crucial to Pre-K Success, Study Says," Jacobson reports that "the quality of the relationship between preschool teachers and their pupils might be more important to children's learning than such factors as class size and teacher credentials."

Learn how to measure teacher-child interaction using CLASS, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System referenced in the article.

Get a free download and see how CLASS works

Hear Chris Kliewer's compelling case for literacy for all students

Hear Professor Chris Kliewer's compelling argument in favor of literate citizenship for all, including children with disabilities, in this interview with Katherine Perkins of Iowa Public Radio's "Talk @ 12" (originally broadcast on June 3, 2008). Dr. Kliewer shares the story of Isaac, whom he introduces in his new book Seeing All Kids as Readers (read about Isaac here).

Listen to how Isaac moved from a segregated program with other children with very little language to an inclusive classroom where, within hours, he was thoroughly engaged in the story of Where the Wild Things Are, even playing a leadership role in literate understanding, to the delight of his new classmates.

Listen to the Iowa Public Radio interview with Chris Kliewer

See what Peer Buddies look like in action

In this chicagotribune.com article by John Keilman, see a video of peer buddies in action at a bowling alley as part of the Illinois "Best Buddies" program, which matches high school students who have disabilities with other teens. It's obvious that it's not just the student with disabilities who benefits from the friendship and understanding the program promotes.

Vanderbilt professor Carolyn Hughes, co-author of Peer Buddy Programs for Successful Secondary School Inclusion, commented on the lasting value of social cues learned through the experience. "There are plenty of studies," she is quoted as saying, "that show the main reason a person with a disability might lose a job is due to lack of social skills versus not being able to do the job."

See the video clip and the full chicagotribune.com article here

Learn the critical stages of special needs financial planning

In this interview with Your Money Radio, Cynthia Haddad and John Nadworny, authors of The Special Needs Planning Guide, explain to host Chuck Jaffe that families who have a child with special needs have to plan not only for the traditional milestones of one generation, but they must also plan into a second generation as well.

Haddad emphasizes the importance of pulling all the "financial, legal, emotional, support, and government benefits" pieces together to ensure security for the child's future. She identifies the stages when it is especially important to address these needs (the "planning pressure points"): when the child turns 3, 15, 18, and 22, once the parents turn 65, and again at the time of the parents' death.

Gain more insight in the Your Money interview (mp3: 4.3 MB)

What's the key to working with an unmotivated child?

Sam Goldstein and Robert Brooks, authors of Raising Resilient Children, weigh in, in this Times Online article. Musing whether it was too late to turn her "whatever" kids into "sure, why not" kids, writer Michele Kirsch asked whether motivated and self-disciplined kids were just born that way.

According to the article, Goldstein and Brooks argue that even if a child is not predisposed toward being self-disciplined, it is possible to encourage him or her through empathy or by seeing things from the child's point of view. They recommend helping children find their "island of competence"—something they're good at—and then encouraging them in it.

See what other pointers they shared in The Times article

Dr. Thompson offers ready-to-use tips for parents of children with autism

Dr. Travis Thompson's book Making Sense of Autism (see below) explains what autism is in easy-to-understand language. His new book, Dr. Thompson's Straight Talk on Autism, tells parents what to do with that information. As a professional with 40 years' experience working with autism and as the grandparent himself of a child on the spectrum, he understands what it means to see children in a professional setting as well as to live with a child who has autism. Discover what's in the new book in this article from the Summer 2008 issue of Pacesetter ("A news magazine of PACER Center, Inc. by and for parents of children and young adults with disabilities").

Also, in this Metro Spirit article, writer Jason E. Sumerau sums up Dr. Thompson's Straight Talk on Autism as "[d]ispelling false tales, providing clinical expertise for many activities, and delivering inspirational as well as practical advice." You can learn more about Dr. Thompson's views and peruse other readers' comments at his new autism blog on AmazonConnect.

Check out Dr. Thompson's AmazonConnect blog now!

Students with autism often are fluent readers, but do they comprehend?

Teachers of students with autism often remark that their students read the words on the page, but do not necessarily grasp what the words are saying or detect the underlying meaning.

In this webinar by Paula Kluth, co-author of "A Land We Can Share": Teaching Literacy to Students with Autism, shares specific techniques you can weave into your instruction to ensure your students with autism (and any other student who might be struggling!) really comprehend and can process what they're reading.

Ensure your readers are "getting it" with the tips in this webinar

What essential skill does imaginative play develop?

According to a recent NPR article, providing opportunities for children to engage in imaginative play helps them develop essential "executive function" skills. These skills help them regulate their own behavior and are key to controlling emotions, resisting impulses, and exerting self control and discipline.

In this Q&A by NPR writer Vikki Valentine, Deborah Leong, chapter author of Critical Issues in Early Childhood Professional Development, and Adele Diamond explain that when children improvise props or make up stories, they are developing critical cognitive skills. Acting out a story or creating games requires them to stop and think, and revise their first impulse when it appears it would not lead to the best result—effectly refining critical executive function skills as they play.

Read the full Q&A on "The Best Kind of Play for Kids"

Use screening and monitoring tools for instructional planning

One of the pillars of the multi-tiered early intervening system known as Recognition and Response is the use of universal screening for possible learning difficulties in early childhood settings. In this NECTAC webinar, Virginia Buysse, co-author of Consultation in Early Childhood Settings, explains how to take screening and monitoring tools one step further, and use their results to guide instructional planning.

View the NECTAC webinar on "RTI Goes to Pre–K"

Home visitors make a difference!

New research suggests that, in the course of their usual activities, home visitors enable mothers to better use health information and services to maintain and promote their health and their children's health.

Home visitors can further their effectiveness by using the Life Skills Progression™ (LSP) planning instrument. LSP helps professionals identify the needs of the families they serve, monitor their improvements, and vividly demonstrate the effectiveness of home visiting programs.

Learn more about the importance of mothers' health literacy

What is the key factor in a "high quality" teaching environment?

Is it the teacher's credentials? That may be an indicator but not a guarantee. In fact, the most influential factor in student development in the classroom is the interaction between teacher and child. You can now use CLASS—a valid and reliable observational tool—to assess the elements of high-quality classroom teaching.

Find out more and get your free CLASS tip sheet!

See side-by-side video clips of children with typical and delayed development in the ASD Video Glossary!

Accelerate your ability to recognize red flags of autism spectrum disorder and help children get intervention early when they most need it with this FREE new resource.

Created in collaboration with First Signs, Florida State University's FIRST WORDS Project, and Autism Speaks, the new ASD Video Glossary contains more than one hundred video clips to help you spot the subtle differences between typical and delayed development in young children.

Many of the clips were drawn from the work of co-developer Amy Wetherby, co-author of the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales™ and The SCERTS® Model: A Comprehensive Educational Approach for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

See the ASD Video Glossary now!

How do you motivate students who have difficulty writing?

Find a wealth of insight from Brookes authors Steve Graham and Karen Harris. Covering many topics from their forthcoming Powerful Writing Strategies for All Students, the Writing Better authors answer parents' and teachers' pressing questions about "LD and Written Expression" in an online talk hosted by LDtalk.org.

Read a transcript of the chat

What's so great about the new AEPSinteractive™? See for yourself!

Let our hosts walk you through the key features of the web-based management system for AEPS® in a free 30-minute demo. You'll see how much easier it is to use AEPSi™ to score the AEPS Test, generate an online Child Progress Record, and create OSEP reports.

Sign up for a demo now!

Get your instructor's guide for Young Children with Disabilities in Natural Environments

An Instructor's Guide e-book is now available for free to faculty members who have adopted Young Children with Disabilities in Natural Learning Environments.

(An Instructor's Guide and PowerPoint slides are also available for faculty members who have adopted Life Beyond the Classroom, Fourth Edition.) Request the supplemental materials for either of these textbooks now.

Find out what's behind math difficulties and disabilities

Read a transcript of the 2007 LD Talk online chat with Daniel Berch and Michéle Mazzocco. Drs. Berch and Mazzocco, editors of Why Is Math So Hard for Some Children?, answered viewer questions in the National Center for Learning Disabilities talk on "Summing Up the Evidence on Math and LD."