MyGreatKid.com » Speech Therapy

MGK Radio: Special Education Law Questions w/ Wayne Steedman from Wrightslaw

Steve — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 02:46:41 +0000

We’ve had the good fortune to have special education attorney Wayne Steedman provide us with high quality, professional answers to complicated special education law questions (IEP, ESY, LRE, AYP, MET, NCLB … if all these letters are leaving you feeling l-o-s-t, check out our “Special Education Terms” section of the Education tab) on our show as part of our “Wrightslaw Tip Of The Week” feature since shortly after the show started.

After a bit of tweaking with our schedules we were finally able to get him on the show live for a more in depth discussion…

Mr. Steedman is a practicing educational law attorney and founding partner of Callegary & Steedman and special education law trainer for Wrightslaw Special Education Law Training, more from his official bio:

Wayne Steedman is an attorney and founding partner in the law firm of Callegary & Steedman.

Mr. Steedman’s practice is devoted primarily to the representation of children with disabilities. He has represented his clients in administrative due process hearings and state and federal courts.

In addition to a law degree from the University of Maryland, Mr. Steedman has a Masters Degree in Social Work. For several years, he served as a Due Process Hearing Officer in special education cases. He is an active member of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA).

Mr. Steedman is the author of “Advocating for Services: Legal Issues Confronting Parents and Guardians” in Growing Up with Autism: Working with School-Age Children and Adolescents.

Wayne and Pete Wright (Wrightslaw.com) have worked together since Wayne’s successful decision in Gerstmyer v. Howard County Public Schools. In Gerstmyer, the Judge found that a Montessori School was the appropriate placement for a child with dyslexia, a language learning disability. Read about this case in Parents of Dyslexic Child Reimbursed for Tuition at Montessori School.

We first met Wayne at a Wrightslaw Special Education Training that he was conducting in Toledo, Ohio a couple of years ago. Not only did we learn a lot from him that weekend but we were also impressed with his down to earth ability to help parents (like us) understand what the law means (in non-legalese) for our children.

On January 24th, 2010 we interviewed Mr. Steedman and spoke to him about the importance of tracking your child’s progress towards their educational goals over the course of the year, and what to do if your child ISN’T making appropriate progress.

While he’s a special education attorney, much of the advice he gave is useful for the parent of any school age child – special education or not.

While this country’s special education system has many weaknesses and deficiencies one of it’s great benefits (at least potentially great), is the emphasis on closely monitoring student progress. I say “potentially” because for many children this “progress monitoring” is done in such a generic, biased, sloppy manner that it has little value. However, for the children whose parents are educated and advocate strongly for their children this monitoring has tremendous potential for real understanding and progress.

Disappointingly though, this same degree of monitoring and exploration is not done with ALL of the children in the school. However, by using some of the practices and methods we discuss in our interview you can improve your child’s educational experience and insure that they’re truly making the progress that they should be (and know what to do if they’re not).

In addition to tracking your child’s progress we also discussed requirements for Extended School Year services and how to insure that the professionals working with your child are properly trained and qualified (automatically assuming that they are isn’t a good strategy).

In the second part of the show we spoke with Matt LaFontaine from the LaFontaine Automotive Group about automotive safety and automotive tips including getting the answer to a question we’ve had for a while about those “hydrogen” inflated tires.

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Articles Written By Wayne Steedman

MGK Radio: Nancy Kaufman, Speech Therapy

Steve — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:44:40 +0000

Guests

Nancy Kaufman – Director Kaufman Children’s Center

Speech challenges and speech delays are a hurdle that many children, and families, have to work exceptionally hard to overcome. Fortunately, if diagnosed early enough and treated properly many of these challenges can be overcome, or eliminated entirely. Nancy Kaufman is a nationally recognized expert in the area of Speech Disorders and has been working with children with speech challenges for over 30 years. Check out her bio below:

Nancy R. Kaufman, M.A., CCC/SLP is the owner and Director of the Kaufman Children’s Center for Speech, Language, Sensory-Motor, and Social Connections, Inc. (KCC), located in West Bloomfield, Michigan. She received her B.A. at Michigan State University and M.A. at Wayne State University, having been awarded a graduate assistantship. Nancy has dedicated herself to establishing a treatment approach to help children to become effective vocal communicators since 1979. She is the author of the Kaufman Speech Praxis Test for Children, (Wayne State University Press, 1995), the Kaufman Speech Praxis Treatment Kits for Children (Northern Speech Services, 1998, 2001), the Kaufman Speech Praxis Workout Book (Northern Speech Services, 2005), and co-author of the K&K Sign to Talk: Nouns (Northern Speech Services 2005) and the K&K Sign to Talk: Verbs (Northern Speech Services 2009). She lectures locally, nationally, and internationally on the subject childhood apraxia of speech. Families from around the globe travel to the KCC to participate in intensive and specialized programs created to meet the needs of their children. Nancy is highly regarded as an expert in her specialized field, and consults with parents and professionals across the globe. Nancy also serves on the Professional Advisory Board of the The Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association of North America (CASANA) and is the recipient of the MSU College of Communication Arts & Sciences Outstanding Alumni Award for 2010. Many specialists in the field of Applied Verbal Behavior (AVB) have adopted the The Kaufman Speech to Language Protocol (K-SLP) into their protocol for children with autism spectrum disorders. A recipient of the Clinical Service Award from the Michigan Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the KCC continues to grow and has earned a reputation for excellence, warmth, and successful outcomes. Nancy has three grown children and resides with her husband in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

We had the good fortune of finding Nancy in the early days of our son’s diagnosis and the work that she, and her center, did with our own son changed his life. In this interview we were able to cover what speech challenges are and how to go about finding a QUALITY, EFFECTIVE speech therapist and therapy program for your child.

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You Missed A Show? Quick, Get Caught Up!

Steve — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:31:15 +0000

You Missed A Show?

Missed a show? How could you?

Okay, besides you have a family and the show is on early Sunday mornings.

Then here’s your chance to catch up. I’ll be posting full breakouts of all the shows we did in 2009 but in the meantime check out any of the shows that you might have missed below:

Many (and soon) all off these shows can also be downloaded at Itunes in the Podcast section under “My Great Kid”.

Thank you for listening to the show and following this blog and please let us know if there are any topics, or guests, you would like us to speak to in the future.

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