Reply to I'm a new Para. What do you want me to know?

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Reply to "I'm a new Para. What do you want me to know?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I appreciate para-educators, but have been surprised how little they actually know about the disorders of the children they serve.   Educate yourself deeply about autism, ADHD, Down's syndrome, etc. And, when I say "educate yourself," I mean get your information from reliable scientific and educational sources, not popular websites.  Know not only about educational issues, but also about the medical and neuropsychological aspects.  Even though you are not qualified to recommend medical treatments, you should understand what else might be going on outside the classroom.

Don't minimize the abilities of these children.  You often have no idea what they are capable of.  Low academic expectations and the way they are non-verbally communicated to my child is one of the most emotionally damaging aspects of being served by special needs para-eductors.

Focus on providing proven, research-based instruction to my child.  My ADHD child doesn't need multiple prompts to respond to the same general education structures or instruction.  He needs an education tailored to him.  Instead of reminding/nagging him about forgotten homework, explicitly work with him to set up a highly structured environment in which you teach him the habits of organization he needs to succeed.  Then remind him gently when he forgets  step in the routine and work on fading your prompts over time.

[b]One line that troubles me somewhat, "Of course, the most common challenge I face is getting them to follow instructions or meet expectations."  I hear this kind of thing often from teachers -- " I tell them what to do, but they don't listen."  Your JOB is to figure out how the message needs to be conveyed so they DO hear and understand it.   Maybe the fact that the boy with autism is capable of completing a worksheet but "often doesn't even pick up his pencil," indicates a problem that needs a different solution -- would this child do the work if you acted as a scribe to his oral answers?  Many children with autism have expressive language problems.  Please don't interpret the failure of students to respond as "lack of motivation" or "disobedience."  [/b]

I know that this is not what you might have intended by your comments, but I mention it because it is the SINGLE BIGGEST misconception that general and special ed teachers and para-educators have.

My child was viewed as "not that bright" and "unmotivated" and "lazy" at his public school.  We got frustrated and pulled him and put him at a special needs school, where he excels in every way.  Frankly, he does not need a full-time sped environment, but that is the ONLY environment in which we have consistently encountered teachers who are knowledgeable about his disability and trained to provide appropriate instruction.  He now consistently scores above grade level, whereas at his public school, they thought that he was only capable of "meeting benchmarks".

Why do you not have access to their IEPs?  Are your para-educator hours being counted as hours on their IEP?  If so, you should have access to it.  I personally ask my son's teacher (in writing) to read the IEP and neuropsychological report every year.  It would save a lot of wasted effort, but the teacher is too lazy to even skim the executive summary.  Every year we have classroom problems that could have been solved if the educators had read the neuropsych and full IEP (PLOPS, coding explanation, all goals, etc.)

[/quote]

OP here. I couldn't agree with you more. I did not do a good job of explaining that situation. This child does not refuse in a defiant way at all. It seems clear to me that he needs different work, but that's not something I have any control over. He will sit in front of the worksheet for 30-45 minutes without getting anything done. He will just start imagining and sort of acting out a superhero scene or something. But, if something is interesting to him, like a toy or video that he gets during his break, he will easily focus and retain all of the info. I know that it seems like I am saying he's disobeying, but he's not. It seems like the work is a trigger that makes him shut down. The worksheets for that grade level are incredibly boring and redundant, IMO, so maybe that has something to do with it.[/quote]

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