MENTORS AND MENTEES. That's the subject of several articles in the newest issue of the Educators Guild Newsletter from the Davidson Institute. Included are an interview with a mentor to one of the 2010 Davidson Fellows, tips for students on finding a mentor, and a pointer to the 41-page document Mentorships: A Guidebook, from the Institute. See the newsletter.
HEALTHCARE REFORM CHANGES. Families of 2e children often depend on healthcare professionals for assistance in terms of diagnosis, medications, and therapies. On September 23rd, some of the U.S. healthcare reform changes went into effect. Changes affect preventive care, exclusions for pre-existing conditions, and lifetime limits. WebMD has posted a new section on the reform on their website; find it.
GRADE-SKIPPING is the topic of a Jay Mathews column in the Washington Post. Although it's now out of fashion, he's for it. He cites a Belin-Blank study on acceleration, and points out that acceleration could provide academic challenge in the absence of gifted education classes, which may face budgetary constraints. Read the column.
STRESS, DEVELOPMENT, AND DISORDERS. Researchers now say that stress can affect our bodies by altering gene activity, for example turning on genes that are supposed to be silent. This affects fetal development but also the body's functioning in later life. Find out more.
NEED A SERVICE ANIMAL FOR YOUR 2e CHILD? Regulations have changed, and CEC points out that the state of Florida has developed guidelines for evaluating requests for service animals. Find the CEC comment.
SCHOOL REFUSAL. We posted about this topic on September 16, but a recent Wall Street Journal article also covers the topic. As many as 28 percent of children may exhibit this behavior at one time or another, according to the article. If your 2e child is one of them, check out the article.
ON RTI. UCLA, in the newsletter Addressing Barriers to Learning, has published an article called "Moving Beyond the Three-tier Pyramid: Fitting RTI into a Comprehensive System of Student and Learning Support." And that title pretty much lets you know whether or not the article will be of interest to you; if so, find it here.