It is part of federal law that students with special needs should have their strengths identified and described in their IEPs (IDEA 2004 Section 1414(d)(3)(A)).   And yet, when I search the special education literature online, I find virtually nothing dedicated to identifying strengths in these students. If a student is having difficulty in school,...Read More

When I was a special education teacher, most of my students had difficulty with academic tasks involving either words or numbers (or both).  However, many of these kids were gifted artists, cartoonists, Lego experts, mechanics, visualizers, and in other ways demonstrated competence in visual-spatial thinking.  Now, an exciting new article by a Duke researcher makes...Read More

I just finished watching a PBS documentary (part of the POV series) entitled ”Neurotypical”that focused on the lives of a number of people at different stages of life who have been diagnosed with autism or Asperger’s syndrome.  I thought the show was a beautiful depiction of the lives of these individuals;  their hopes, fears, loves,...Read More

A New York Times article that appeared April 12, 2013 reported that a high school teacher in Albany, New York recently gave an assignment to students asking them, presumably as a lesson on the Holocaust, to write a persuasive essay arguing from the Nazi point of view that Jews were the source of their problems.  The assignment...Read More

The establishment of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for students nationwide represents a particularly robust challenge for teachers of students with special needs.  On the one hand, advocates for students with disabilities have made it clear that they want these students to be held to the same high level of achievement as typically developing students.  On the other...Read More