Reader Response- Discipline Tips for Foster Parents. Part 1/3.

Hello Everyone,

This is Michelle.  A couple weeks ago Kristin wrote a great article responding to the reader question:  “I was wondering what the best techniques for discipline are and if they differ from a child that does not have a disability or exceptionality?”

While the information she gave can really apply to all children, I wanted to also write from the specific point of view of how foster parents can effectively discipline.  I’m actually going to post three blogs on this subject.  This first post will be on some effective preventative strategies, the second will be on specific discipline strategies, and the third  will be on what the research says regarding involving the child’s biological parent in discipline (as well as some foster parenting strategies when the ultimate goal is parent-child reunification).

In regards to the reader question, I think the best techniques for discipline are the same for “normal” children and children who have special needs- it’s just especially important to parent children with special needs more mindfully.

One of the things that stood out to me the most in my child development classes in regards to discipline is the idea that you really can pick your battles.  There are times to teach a child how to handle a stressful situation, but there are also times to recognize what situations are stressful for children and see if you can modify those situations.  Again, this is useful with any child but I think it’s especially important for children who often feel that they don’t have a lot of control of their world.  There are several ways to accomplish this:

1.     Establish a routine and stick to it.  People appreciate knowing what’s going to happen in their day, it gives us a sense of control.  So, if you’ve planned something, follow through.  If you want to do something new, give your child advance warning so they know what to expect before they’re being loaded into the car.

2.     Include the child in setting rules and consequences, then follow through.  When you let the child help in this step, they’re more likely to understand why they’re expected to do certain things and it gives you an opportunity to decide together what fair consequences are.  Many children in foster care who have experienced neglect or abuse may not have experience with what a consequence really is.  Even in many healthy homes, a parent may choose a consequence that has nothing to do with the behavior.  An example of this would be:

You didn’t clean your room so you don’t get any dessert.

What does cleaning have to do with dessert?  Children better understand rules when the consequences are related and explained.  An example of this would be:

When your room is messy it’s easier for things to get lost or broken, so we can’t play with more toys until the room is cleaned.

If you already have family rules, make sure you explain what these rules are and why they’re important.

3.     Try to observe what situations are difficult for your child and see where you may be able to make changes.  For example, my nephew will not brush his teeth with “spicy” (minty) toothpaste.  Rather than fighting about it, my sister has chosen to by fruit or bubblegum flavored toothpaste.  While not all problems are this simple, I think many every day hassles can be- it may be worth it to let your child wear mismatched socks or to wash the pink plate because that’s the only one your child wants to eat off of even though it’s dirty (maybe have the child wash it!).  There are times you have to say no, but it’s valuable to say yes whenever you can because it shows your child that you value their desires as well as their needs.

 

These steps won’t eliminate hard times, but they can help families manage the daily inconveniences and have a happier home.  In my next post I’ll talk more about specific strategies and consequences to help foster children adjust to a new environment. Thanks for reading!

Siegler, R., Deloache, J., Eisenberg N. (2006). How Children Develop. (2^nd ed.).  New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

Felker, E.H. (1975). Foster Parenting Young Children: Guidelines from a Foster Parent. New York, NY: Child Welfare League of America.

Special Education and Assessment

Are you concerned that your child might have special needs or might be struggling in school? Are you wondering how to or whether or not you should have your children tested? How about when to have them undergo tests?...These might be some basic concerns shared parents who are concerned about their child's academic success and it is important for parent's to stay as involved in their student's academics as possible. 

          One way for parents to learn about child success is by meeting with teachers and other school personnel and go over assessments, which is a tool most teachers use to help document a child's progress and “refers to almost any form of measurement and appraisal of what children know and can do, including tests, observations, interviews, reports from knowledgeable sources, and other means” (McAfee & Leong, 2011). In other words, assessment basically is the process of evaluation and includes all information about a child, which is used to measure child process, individual strengths and weaknesses and communicate any concerns to parents.

            Used for multiple purposes such as “to monitor children’s development and learning, to guide classroom planning and decision-making in order to help children learn, to identify children who might benefit from special help and to report and communicate with others” (McAfee & Leong, 2011), assessments are generally seen as a valuable tool.

            However, assessments that involve standardized testing have not been without criticism. Commonly referred to as “standardized one-way-of-assessing tests”, many people “have raised concerns about how heavily they are relied on for feedback about student performance. Most critics of standardized tests care very much about children and the education that they receive, but feel that standardized tests alone cannot accurately convey whether or not a child is learning and progressing” (wiseGeek, 2011). Despite this, many advocates maintain that standardized testing is “practical” and “objective” (eCampusTours.com, 2009).

Despite this, most parents of special needs children might be concerned that the same assessment expectations and practices that are typical of a non-impaired learners, might be unrealistic and even unethical when concerning a child who is impaired.

There are some assessments in effect that are used to identify children who may benefit from special help. “Teachers may be involved in screening, pre-referral strategies such as response to intervention (RIT), or other processes to identify children who might need an in-depth assessment to see if they could benefit from specialized services” (McAfee & Leong, 2011). Programs such as No Child Left Behind and Head Start are geared towards improving student achievement in schools and school readiness. However, “[a special education student’s] lack in ability to achieve on these standardized achievement tests is not due to laziness or lack of academic studies, but disabilities that interfere with their abilities to sort through questions, and in most cases, study at grade level. While it is always the goal of a special education teacher to ‘catch’ his or her students up to grade level, the reality is the resources and funding for programs and technology that would make this possible are simply not available” (Cecchetti, 2009).

            Even with all of the criticisms surrounding traditional standardized testing and special education, assessments are necessary in order to determine those children who are at the greatest risk and would benefit from additional services. “Testing is necessary for children suspected of having a learning disability because: Learning disability testing is required by federal and state regulations to determine eligibility for special education, provides important information about the child’s suspected disability and if the child qualifies, learning disability testing provides specific data for use in developing an Individual Education Program (IEP)” (Logsdon, 2011).

The reauthorizing of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA allowed schools the opportunity to utilize other approaches in determining children who may need special services, the most common of which is the “Response-to-Intervention” approach (GreatSchools Staff, 2004). “In the RTI approach, a struggling student is provided with increasingly intensive instruction in his areas of academic weakness, such as reading. Based on frequent progress monitoring, if the child is not responsive to these instructional interventions…then an evaluation may be conducted to determine if he has a Special Learning Disability” (GreatSchools Staff, 2004). Before this reauthorizing, many schools were required to use standardized tests or general education classroom instruction to determine whether there was a discrepancy between the child’s ability and his achievement, which was often done “before evaluating a child as a ‘pre-referral’ step.” Therefore, I maintain that the ways in which a special education student is assessed should be different from that of “typical students.”

Since most children with disabilities think differently, the key to assessing these children is through alternative assessments that focuses on creativity and imagination. “The primary objective is to give the child a chance to demonstrate new learning, integration of ideas, and mastery of new concepts” (Making accommodations…). This gives the child the chance to demonstrate strengths.

One assessment technique that I feel is highly effective is the portfolio, which is a type of assessment that includes “a collection of student work that exhibits the student’s efforts, progress, and achievements” (Special Connections, 2005). Portfolios ultimately allow students to view themselves as a learner by allowing them the opportunity to “see their accomplishments” because this assessment process emphasizes what students can do. For the portfolio assessment to work, students must be given the opportunity to “determine meaningful work, reflect on their strengths and needs, set learning goals, see their own progress over time, think about ideas presented in their work, see the effort they put forth, feel ownership and pride in their work, and realize their work has personal relevance” (Special Connections, 2005). In other words, it gives an impaired student the chance to have more of a control over how they are learning and what they are learning.

Overall, I maintain that assessment is necessary when determining whether a child has a learning disability and requires additional services; however, it is unrealistic to expect these students to develop and progress at the same pace as that of traditional students. Special care needs to be taken when performing assessments, as teachers need to maintain realistic expectations when evaluating a student’s progress and understand what the priority in the education of the student is and parents need to be as involved as they can be in their child's success. Do not be afraid to ask the necessary questions. The ultimate goal is to allow a child with a disability or with special needs, the chance to shine.

Please email with questions, comments and concerns.

-Kristin L.

Reference

Cecchetti, K. (2009, April 13). Standardized tests for special education students [Web log message].

Retrieved from http://www.merrow.org/ed_advice/2009/04/standardized-tests-for-special-education-students/ .

eCampusTours.com. (2009, February 3). Arguments for and against standardized testing in college admissions. Retrieved from

http://www.ecampustours.com/collegeplanning/testtakingsatact/argumentsforandagainststandardizedtesting .

GreatSchools Staff. (2004). Special education evaluation: an overview. Retrieved from

http://www.greatschools.org/special-education/legal-rights/666-special-education-evaluation-an-overview.gs .

Logsdon, A. (2011). Understanding testing for a learning disability: what does learning disabilities testing involve?. Retrieved from

 http://learningdisabilities.about.com/od/assessmentandtesting/a/spedtesting.htm .

McAfee, O., & Leong, D. J. (2011). Assessing and guiding young children’s development and learning. (5

                ed., pp. 2, 31-32). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Making accommodations and modifications: what are they?. (n.d.). Retrieved from

                http://www.hishelpinschool.com/adaptation/modadapt.html#using .

Special Connections. (2005). Portfolio assessment. Retrieved from

http://www.specialconnections.ku.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/specconn/main.php?cat=instruction§ion=main&subsection=udl/portfolio.

wiseGeek. (2011). What are some criticisms of standardized tests?. Retrieved from

                http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-some-criticisms-of-standardized-tests.htm

1-Autism Blog: www.theautismblog.seattlechildrens.org

2- I selected this blog because of the professional authors. There are doctors and therapists who write on differing topics in relation to Autism. I was able to locate this blog through a simple Google search. Then I looked through the search results to find a more professional site on Autism.

3-The target audience is the parents and caregivers of children and adults with Autism. That would include a wide range of parents who are just getting the diagnosis to parents who have had an Autistic child who has grown into an adult. The professionals write the blog from a caregiver’s perspective and have many different ways to accomplish the same thing. That enables parents to find the right method for them.

4-I like the overall design, it is simple and easy to find different topics. They have soothing colors of blue and green. Also lists on the sides of that offer options to find out about the blog, overview, and where there are classes and events relating to Autism.

5-Then they have a list of topics or categories of different blog posts on multiple topics, a very wide range. They cover so much areas of worry or curiosity for parents of Autistic children. With each topic they have there is a class or lecture recommendation to learn methods of coping, discipline, or numerous other skills. They post about once a week. There are a few reader comments on each of the blog posts. When the topic is more controversial there seems to be quite a bit more. You can tell there is a larger group reading this blog because of the “like button” which has about 20-40 on each post and the more recent ones so far and it has only been about a week.

6-Since there are multiple authors they have each one listed next to the topic of the posts. You can tell they are qualified since their qualifications are listed next to their names. They cycle through doctors and therapists and parents as writers. So they all seem extremely qualified due to are of study and personal experience.

7- From the posts I have read I noticed already a great deal of use of theories. They used a theory on punishment and reinforcement, then proceeded to describe the elements involved are positive or negative.

8- They frequently use research in their article. They have prepared references and alluded to them for further understanding. They also have research button that allows you to look specifically at the research itself. I feel the writings a based on quality information to back up any personal opinions that may be used.

9- I love this blog it was simple to use for a parent and was full of information I would be interested in. I would definitely recommend this blog to parents of children with Autism. Because it has the perfect layout for answers and lots of professional people to advise along with great research. They also have programs they offer to help apply the research and advice offered. For its purpose I do not see how it could get any better.

 -Crystal-

Play Therapy

Hello readers, thanks for taking your time on our blog- children are so great.  This is Michelle and I want to share some information about a book that I read recently.

Any child who has been taken out of their home and placed with a new family has experienced a “crisis”.  Leaving a home, a family, a neighborhood, a school is a hard experience for a child even when it is in their best interest- and a child who is taken out of their home has probably also experienced neglect or abuse.  Because of this, almost all foster parents are expected to take their child to counseling.

  One method of counseling that has been extremely helpful for young children has been “Play Therapy”, a therapy where the therapist or counselor engages in different methods of play (painting, puppets, sandbox, etc.) to help the child to express feelings and work through hard experiences.  When adults go for counseling, the therapist can usually learn about their needs by talking with them, but children are less willing (and cognitively able) to explain what they went through.  I’d heard that play therapy was excellent but didn’t know a lot about it, so I went to the library.

At the library I checked out Play Therapy with Children in Crisis: Individual, Group, and Family Treatment.  The first part of the book gives a “theoretical overview”.  So it talks about what is a crisis, what is play therapy, and how play therapy can be effective.  The rest of the book looks at general themes and specific case studies of children in crisis.  The book covers a lot of different kinds of crisis experiences, but the chapters are broken up in such a way that you can hone in on what’s relevant for you.  For example, a few of the chapters that seem especially relevant for foster parents are:

            

            Child Exposure to Parental Violence

            Parental Abuse and Subsequent Foster Home Placement

Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Child Sexual Abuse and Exposure to Domestic Violence.

This book is primarily written for therapists and students, so it isn’t a “how to” book for foster parents, but it’s full of great information based on a lot of research. I would recommend this book to foster parents because:

1.     It can teach you a little more about why your child benefits from going to counseling and why they do some of the activities that they do

2.     It can encourage you to actively work with the counselor to stay aware of needs and better meet the needs of your child

3.     It can help deepen your understanding for what your child has experienced.

I think it’s this last point that really matters.  I’m amazed at how understanding can help increase our patience and love.  I’m also afraid that some potential foster parents get nervous when a child needs counseling but it really is excellent that we live in a time when we’ve found a way to help these young children open up and work through their experiences.

Let me know if you have any questions or stories where you've interacted with play therapy before. Thanks for reading!

Webb, N.B. (2007). Play therapy with children in crisis: Individual, group, and family treatment. (3^rd ed.).  New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Treatment for Special Needs Children with Autism:

ReaderQuestion: I am wondering if you could give some advice about what parents should do once there child is diagnosed. Never having a child with special needs in my family, I just have no idea what additional steps parents need to take. Are there support groups? Do parents need to find a specialist? Do parents need to make any changes to their home environment? Where are some places to find information about how to best raise a child with special needs?

                Once you a have diagnosis for your special needs child that is when the hard work begins and you must move forward. We were able to find our son treatment through the local University who had an Early Intervention program for children under two with Autism. Now in other cases of special needs the kind of treatment required depends on first the disorder or delay and second the age of the child with the special needs. One thing that most delays or disorders have in common is that early diagnosis, intervention, and treatment can reduce severity of delays, behavioral struggles, and future issues. This is strongly supported by the Journal of Pediatrics, who in their article stated “positive outcomes for early and intensive behavioral and developmental intervention in cognitive performance, language skills, and adaptive behavior when delivered over substantial intervals of time (i.e., 1–2 years)” (McPheeters, et al., 2011). To simplify, the duration, the speed, and intensity of treatment all contribute to better results for your little one.

          Now I would like to go over some of the best treatments for young children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). I do have to cut my response down to one disorder and a few treatments since there is way too much information to fit into one Blog post, so I do apologize for that. With Autism there can be more that one area in development that needs treatment. Motor skills can become delayed, speech, and there may also be a lack of appropriate social skills. To find the areas that your special one needs help with you can meet with the regular pediatrician. They will evaluate whether they have met the age-appropriate milestones. If not they will then point you in the right direction for the required therapy or perhaps you will need to locate them on your own.

 Motor Skills- Some areas that children with ASD my need help with are poor muscle tone, balance, posture, and coordination, these are large motor skills. Next would be the small motor skills, these skills are used to coordinate the movement with the hand or wrist. When children struggle with small motor they need help with writing, cutting, coloring, and perhaps even feeding themselves. For these skills to be mastered it will require physical therapy with a professional.   

Personal Example: I loved the use of hand on hand practice of fine-motor skills with my son. By guiding him he understood better what I wanted him to do with the paper and pencil.

Language Skills- Early intervention in this area can help your little one to talk, use more words, use words appropriately, process what you are saying, and to express feelings and thoughts. This therapy is done with a speech and language pathologist.

Personal Example: Demonstrating sign language to our son was very helpful when he couldn’t speak. By showing him the sign while saying the word gave him two options of communication, show us or speak to us. Although it took him till he was age 4 to speak I believe it was due to this method that he eventually mastered beginning speech.

 Social Skills- ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) is the best tested method of help for social and other skills when it comes to Autism.  In a study done in the Pediatric Journal they compared differing treatments for ASD and found ABA to have “revealed greater improvements in cognitive performance, language skills, and adaptive behavior” (McPheeters, et al., 2011). Also in The Autism Sourcebook the ABA method is supported by more research than any other Autism treatment to date (Siff, 2005). This therapy uses a handful of different procedures to help children with ASD learn new skills. They break tasks into small pieces and when the child responds appropriately they will be rewarded. If they don’t respond then there is no punishment, but the child will receive no reward. This therapy can be used by therapist when they are directing the play, or when the child wants to direct the play. Through ABA children can learn how to play with others appropriately, how to communicate in to others, and how to form a relationship with others. They use peer-modeling, activity schedules, and aides for support during treatment according to the Autism Sourcebook (Siff, 2005).  Every state has an early intervention program, but in different states there are differing offices that run the program. So if your pediatrician doesn’t have a clue, you can contact the school district they will tell you who to contact.

          Parent training is another method for treatment of ASD. When a parent knows how to help their child  they feel more control over the situation and the child reacts more positively and more frequently when their parent is the one doing intervention. “Less-intensive interventions that provide parent training also may be useful for younger children with ASDs, particularly for improving social communication, language use, and, potentially, symptom severity and family functioning”, according to Pediatric Journal (McPheeters, et al., 2011).

Personal Experience: I was able to attend therapy with my son where we had parent training in ABA. I remember trying to get eye contact while saying his name. Over and over I would say “Leo, look at me. Leo, Leo, Leo, look at me.” with no response. Then one day he suddenly looked me in the eyes and I started clapping and handing him the toy he had earned, followed by hugging and kissing. From then on every 3^rd of 4th try he would look up. There was of course more resistance and struggles but I knew ABA was the answer we had been looking for after that. I knew this because he had never willingly looked into my eyes before, I loved that moment.

            In conclusion I just want to restate that the earlier you get treatment and if you stick to it long enough you will get results. Also I do realize that not every treatment works the same for every child. So you have to find what fits best for you and your special child. There are countless other interventions and treatments out there I simply listed my favorites and the ones with strong research to validate their methods.

Good luck and hang in there, you will see results.       

  -Crystal-

Works Cited           

McPheeters, M. L., Sathe, N. M., Warren, Z. P., Foss-Feig, J. H., Glasser, A. B., & Veenstra-VanderWeele, J. M. (2011). A Systematic Review of Early Intensive Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorders. Pediatrics, 1303-1311.

Siff, E. K. (2005). The Autism Source Book. New York: HarperCollins.

Parenting Special Needs - Blog Review

The internet is the place to get a lot of information quickly. However, this can be more overwhelming then helpful. There is a ton of information on parenting children with special needs, such as support resources, disability laws and policies, advocacy, education and therapy resources, and topics by needs. However, it seems almost impossible to organize the mounds of information into something clear and understandable. I feel that a major issue most people encounter while seeking information and support from the internet, is where to even start. How many people have hours to sit and look through a Google and a half of sites and web pages and still meet the needs of their children, whether they have special needs or not?

Well I am here to tell you that a great place to start is by looking through blogs geared towards special need topics, which can encompass anything from foster care and general family processes to specific development, intellectual and behavioral disabilities. One blog I found particularly useful focused more on disabilities and is titled 5MinutesforSpecialNeeds.com Support. Insight. Inspiration.

The blog exceeded my expectations. The authors are all mothers of and some type of educator, life coach, or advocate for children with specials needs. Overall, it is a great place to turn for information. The site’s contributors have written the blog in such a way as to make the reader feel that they are talking directly to them, as they share their own stories and personal experiences. The site is also broken down into user friendly categories, such as topics by needs, therapy, education and family life. This is useful, so you can instantly jump to a specific archive topic. The writers are also concise in their writing. They did not waste time “beating around the bush,” but instantly started into their topics and it seemed like they were solely interested in giving real life advice. This helped to make reading the blog more enjoyable and personable.

It is difficult to determine if the blog is based in research or just personal opinion and experience. The authors all have the educational background to backup their arguments and posts. However, I did not see any research citation or reference to research. Despite this, I still maintain that this site is a great place to start looking for information. They claim that their site “is all about bringing you the support, insight, and inspiration you need to be the best parent you can possibly be.” In addition, they also have listed other blog sites that can be useful and have links to other 5MinutesforParenting topics, such as forMom and forMe.

I really enjoyed what I read and learned while looking through this site and I feel that it would be a great place to start looking for information if you do not have any place in mind.

Some other great blogs to look up are:

http://www.disabilityscoop.com/ -Contains articles on developmental disability news.

http://www.lovethatmax.com/ -Is a personal blog by a mother with a child who has cerebral palsy.

http://thinkingautismguide.blogspot.com/ -Is an advocacy blog for people with Autism and supports autism research.

http://pediatricotblog.blogspot.com/ -Contains advices, information and resources from a Pediatric Occupational Therapist.

http://thespecialparent.com/about-2/ -Is a personal blog about a parent of a child with autism and contains topics for early intervention and resources.

http://alongcamethebird.blogspot.com/ -Is another autism resource blog written from a personal family perspective.

http://onlycasualobservations.blogspot.com/ -Contains “thoughts on family life and interests, experience living with Special Needs individuals.”

Please email with questions, comments, concerns.

-Kristin

References:

5 Minutes for Special Needs. (2008). 5minutesforspecialneeds.com: support. insight. inspiration. Retrieved from http://www.5minutesforspecialneeds.com/

Disciplining - Reader Question Response

A question was asked,  "I was wondering what the best techniques for discipline are and if they differ from a child that does not have a disability or exceptionality?"

One of the most challenging but essential responsibilities of parenting is disciplining our children, and this is especially true for special needs children. However, our understanding of the word “discipline” varies across cultures and between people. Many people equate discipline with a physical reaction to bad behavior, such as spanking. What we fail to realize is that discipline constitutes what we do to promote good behavior. In other words, a parent’s ultimate goal is to teach self control.

Overall, research on disciplining special needs children from a parental viewpoint is limited in scope. Despite this, it is critical to understand and know as much about the disability your child has. This will help you with making informed decisions, many of which will deal with discipline.

For many special needs children, communicating needs is a challenge and may be an underlying cause for misbehavior. It then becomes the responsibility of the parent to acknowledge that their child is having a hard time coping with their emotions. Statements such as, “I can see that you are frustrated and I am sorry if I have caused you to feel this way. I am going to give you some time to calm down and when you are ready to talk about what it making you feel this way, I will be here to listen,” can help in giving the child the break they need to redirect themselves in to a more controlled attitude.

According to an article from My Child Source, “gentle discipline will eventually receive a better response from our children” (mychildsource.com, 2011). The site lists several strategies for promoting “gentle discipline,” such as:

• Self Discipline or inner discipline, which is provided through “good role modeling and guidance.”
• Safety
• Partnership- “By understanding their feelings and needs we can help them in a positive way.”
• Respect Goes Both Ways- “If children sense that there is a mutual respect then it will be easier for your child to listen to you because they know that you respect their feelings as well” (mychildsource.com, 2011).

I have worked a lot with children and teens with developmental and cognitive disabilities; I feel that these techniques are especially important to remember with disciplining children with and even without disabilities. Research will re-enforce the idea of positive reinforcement, which is the focusing on a good behavior instead of a bad behavior, with the hope that the good behavior will be repeated in the future, and from personal experience, I can confirm that it works. Although, I am not a parent, I feel that it is important to remain empathic when disciplining children. It not only helps the child to feel that they are being understood and encourages them to communicate their emotions and feelings, but it can also help them to feel that they have some control over their lives and the decisions they make. With all children, I feel it is important to have clear expectations and consequences for behavior. Your goal should be to provide your child with the tools necessary to succeed, even if they have a disability or not. 

“What defines us is how well we rise after falling.” –Author Unknown

Please respond with questions, comments, or concerns.

-Kristin 

Reference:

mychildsource.com. (2011, December 23). What is discipline?. Retrieved from http://mychildsource.com/what-is-discipline/