Special Education Law Blog
A special education legal resource discussing case law, news, practical advocacy advice, and developments in state and federal laws, statutes and regulations. Postings include insight and sometimes humor from Charles P. Fox, a Chicago, Illinois attorney who is also a parent of child with special needs, and other guest authors.
Many persons with ADHD have successful careers and stable home lives. However, the sad reality for many people with ADHD is that the impulsiveness which defines their disorder puts them at risk of committing crimes. Study after study hammers out the unfortunate fact that persons with ADHD are more than twice as likely to be arrested compared with a control group without ADHD (42% vs 24%), three times more likely to be convicted (42% vs 14%), and 15 times more likely to serve time in jail (15% vs 1%). Up to 40% of prisoners have ADHD, and their recidivism rate is astoundingly high—up to two thirds are rearrested within three years. But a study out of Sweden published in the New England Journal of Medicine strongly suggests that older teens and adults with ADHD who are medicated are much less likely to commit a crime than those who are not medicated. Because Sweden has a national health registry, researchers were able to compare the records of 26,000 patients who had been diagnosed with ADHD with those of individuals who had criminal convictions between 2006 through 2009. Researchers were able to use these records to determine if the person with ADHD […]
My biggest fear as an attorney representing families of students with special needs is losing a student to suicide. To date I have not lost one. Currently, we are on the cusp of the long, dark months of winter, in which many suppose that the risk of suicide increases around the holiday season when persons who are isolated or without strong social support systems may be more vulnerable to attempting suicide. Somewhat surprisingly, however, the risk for death by suicide increases not in the winter months but in the spring, according to the CDC. For those of us who suffer from depression, the bright promise of spring and summer only serves to exacerbate symptoms. And for those who suffer from this darkness, summer and springtime can be deadly. And our youth are not immune to this troubling trend.
I had thought that pinterest was only for wedding planning but recently discovered otherwise. It is true that a picture or graphic is worth a thousand words. Check out our new pinterest page and see if you agree.
Sensory integration therapy (SIT) has been one of the treatment mainstays for thousands of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, ADD/ADHD, or other developmental disorders. According to the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), approximately 5 to 15% of children in the general population have sensory processing issues.School-based and private occupational therapists and parents have brushed, swung, and bounced on balls countless children in an effort to improve their ability to process sensory input. Yet, the effectiveness of this therapy, despite accolades it has received from therapists and parents, has been questioned. Now a new study by Lang et al that assesses the benefits of SIT by reviewing 25 existing studies adds additional fuel to the debate. In a nutshell, the study authors state that SIT is neither effective nor research-based and that agencies (such as schools) that are mandated to provide research-based interventions should not be using SIT. Lang et al culled electronic data bases for different studies that purported to measure the effectiveness of SIT. To be included in the Lang review, the study had to meet certain inclusion criteria; namely, at least one participant had to be diagnosed with an ASD and some form of SIT had to […]
That you can’t fight city hall is a time-honored truism, but how much harder does it become when different city halls join forces to fight you? Parents in Orange County, California unfortunately are discovering just this fact as they advocate for services for their children with special needs. Since 2005, 28 school districts plus the Orange County Department of Education have formed an alliance, which among other functions, contributes financially to school districts engaged in legal battles against parents. The Orange County Special Education Alliance was ostensibly formed to ally school districts in their ongoing campaign against parents. A single school district is a formidable opponent but fighting a coalition of districts that gives me a headache just to contemplate. Again lets remember they are not the victims of parents in the vast majority of cases.
Even 6 months after the tragedy at Shady Hook Elementary School, we’ve all been asking what may have caused the horrific shooting. We may or may not agree that the ready availability of assault weapons and the playing of violent video games may have contributed to the rampage, but we can surely agree that failures in the mental health system also played a significant role. We don’t know if his mother struggled to obtain mental health services for her son, although we know that she had home-schooled him for a time. What we do know, however, is that for many families, providing mental health services for their desperately ill children is an extraordinary challenge. And many, many children, as well as adults, are falling through the cracks. I see the struggle for mental health services occur on a daily basis. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 4 million children and adolescents in this country suffer from a serious mental disorder that causes significant functional impairments at home, at school, or with peers. Additionally, 21% of children between ages 9 and 17 have been diagnosed with a mental or addictive disorder that causes at least minimal impairment. […]
The fundamental challenge in finding an appropriate placement for the student with higher-functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome is meeting the child’s emotional or behavioral needs yet not short-changing him or her academically. Notwithstanding the various challenges the student may have related to the disability, the student may likely be extremely bright. Many day therapeutic day programs are well-equipped to help the student develop social skills and learn to maintain a sense of equilibrium, but many programs lack academic rigor for the student. A recent due process case from Massachusetts recognized this placement tension for a student with Asperger’s whose parents had unilaterally placed him in an out-of-state private residential program that they believed better met his needs. The hearing officer, in agreeing with the parents, stated that although the school district was not required to provide a program that would maximize the student’s potential to ensure FAPE, the school still needed to consider the student’s potential in order to determine whether or not he was receiving “meaningful benefit” from the IEP. To be meaningful, the student must be able to progress, even when his potential is high. In this particular case, the student had challenges with reading fluency and poor […]
In December the U.S. Senate held hearings on ending the “School to Prison Pipeline.” As discussed previously in this blog and elsewhere, the “school to prison pipeline” refers to exclusionary disciplinary practices (e.g., suspension, expulsions, or even arrests) resulting from blind adherence to zero tolerance policies, which critics harshly state criminalize otherwise normal behavior and are disproportionately used on minority and special needs students. African American males are 3 ½ times more likely to be suspended or expelled than are their white peers, and students with special needs are twice as likely to be suspended or expelled than are their non-disabled peers. The Senate hearings, which were held before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights and chaired by Senator Dick Durbin, were the first ever held to address the overall question of school discipline and how it has gone so terribly wrong. But perhaps more importantly, the hearings discussed what needs to happen to “plug” the pipeline. So how many students are being suspended or expelled? According to data collected by the Civil Rights Project and released last March, 3 million students were suspended from our nation’s schools in 2009-2010. As graphically illustrated in […]
Although it seems almost a contradiction, children can be both gifted and have special needs, such as learning disabilities. Yet, because of their unique blend of talents and challenges, these students, known as “twice exceptional” or 2e students, can be difficult to identify and diagnose. Often their combinations of intelligence and special needs mask each other, leaving the child performing at grade-level. Other 2e children have been identified as learning disabled with teachers who may be unaware of the student’s high cognition. Conversely, those students who are identified as gifted but not LD may fail to meet their potential, leaving them underperforming, frustrated, and often with significant emotional issues. School districts may label these students lazy or unmotivated, and it can be difficult for parents to convince schools that the student has a disability that is affecting their performance in school. “Giftedness” is not recognized as a disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and it can be difficult for some families to obtain special programming for gifted children. Where families live can make a difference. According to the National Association for Gifted Children, only about half of states (28 in 2008-2009) had a mandate to identify gifted […]
I am still reeling from the depth and magnitude of what happened last week with the killing of so many young children and their heroic teachers and staff. I am not sure when, if ever, I will be able to make any sense of this extreme violence. However, in the media frenzy that always follows such events there have been irresponsible statements attributing autism as a possible explanation. Below is the Autism Society's reponse on this issue.