Play contributes to the physical, cognitive, and emotional well-being of children. It is a holistic learning platform that helps kids understand their world.
This year, when I am planning my Passover seder, I have been thinking of ways to make it more child and sensory friendly. As you may know, Part of the...
Every Jewish Child Deserves a Jewish Education and the Opportunity to be of Service
Winter break is just around the corner. Yahoo! No school! Yahoo! Uh…Oh… remember last year’s meltdown? We promised never to do that again, but here we are and we need a...
As part of our month-long series dedicated to Jewish Disability Awareness Month, Lisa Friedman, a Jewish Special educator and advocate for inclusion, shares her guiding principals for creating a learning environment that is accessible to all students. In my role as an Education Director of a synagogue’s Hebrew school, I have the good fortune to […]
Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt the “Gift of the Nile” because the 5000-year-old Egyptian civilization depended on the resources of the great river.
Members of a Birthright group talk about the joys of seeing the country with people just like themselves
School is out and summer is in. The summer months provide for some of the most memorable moments for families. It can also cause some stressful situations for special needs...
Our son Evan is about to turn eight. He wants his birthday party at a roller skating rink but he asked that we make it “sensory friendly.” For Evan, sensory-friendly...
The upside of your autistic 9-year-old making crazy massive gains? Obvious, I hope. The downside? Realizing that one day in the not-so-distant future, when he’s made even more progress, you might get called out on all the crap you said and did when you thought he wasn’t tuned in–and when he wasn’t good enough at […]
How do you take the seven days we experienced together in Israel last July on our Special Needs Study Mission and neatly package it for a two-hour informative and motivational […]
I find language development quite fascinating. My first son started babbling at 10 months of age. He had his own language and would babble to imaginary people. It was quite...
Looking for something else to do in the waiting room while your child is working with a therapist? Check out these 27 resourceful ideas.
While most children live for the holiday season, it can be an extremely stressful time of year for children with autism and other forms of learning disability. The disruption to...
It’s a catch-22: do you leave your child with special needs safe at home, or do you take him or her with you on errands? Here are 6 ideas to make everyday errands doable for the whole family.
Every day, teachers make a thousand little sacrifices for their students. Sometimes they choose to make the ultimate sacrifice, too. The world witnessed this on Friday in Newtown, Connecticut, when...
To encourage the growth of play skills, some parents of children with special needs make an effort to arrange playdates. Special needs playdates are notoriously difficult to plan, and even more difficult to supervise due to unexpected behaviors. Here are 7 of the most common issues with special needs playdates, and some of the strategies that help families work through them.
When your child has special learning needs–or any kind of physical, emotional, or behavioral challenge that impacts learning–finding a suitable religious education can be a challenge. For the 85% of us who look towards an afternoon or Sunday Hebrew School, particular challenges may arise. First of all, show us a child for whom 4:00 p.m.–after […]
Dr. Maurice Elias makes the case for promoting inclusion of students in special education in all school activities.
Playdates are an emotional topic for all parents – not just for those of us who have children with special needs. Some parents don’t want anything to do with scheduled...
Crowdfunding has become one of the latest trends in the fundraising world. Websites like Go Fund Me, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo allow everyone a platform to raise money and make their dream...
Are you completely sick of me yammering about camp? Well, you’ll be glad to know that this is my last camp-related column of the summer. But while the others have been jokey, this one is anything but. Meet Ezra, the 12-year-old son of my friend Jeff Kress. Jeff is chair of the Department of Jewish …
Did you know that the presence of guinea pigs in a room can increase social behaviors in children with autism? Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia recently published...
“Without our traditions we are as shaky as a fiddler on the roof.” –Fiddler On The Roof, 1964 Tradition = Regulation I’ve been thinking a lot about traditions lately (both...
There's no question that foreign language study can be difficult for individuals with special needs. But it can also become a source of strength. Here are five reasons why foreign languages are a great idea for students with learning disabilities and delays in speech and language.
Image credit: Stefan Gosatti When my daughter Emily was around eight years old she asked me a question that I struggled to answer truthfully and without causing her to be devastated by the answer. She needed to hear the truth but at the same time, I didn’t want to answer, and I didn’t know how…
It’s road trip season. If you have a child with special needs, as I do, then you know it will take extra planning — and you have no idea if...
This is part one of a series of posts that will concentrate on the inherent benefits of play for children with special needs. In this post we focus on how...
Have you heard about the new ’ Global Entry’ Program that is now available in many airports around the U.S? My family and I used it for the first time last...
When it comes down to finding some of the best restaurants or professional services in your area, many people wouldn’t hesitate to research online by using sites like Yelp, Urbanspoon...
Visual timers can play a vital role in the lives of many individuals who have special needs, making participation in important events and necessary activities more tolerable and manageable for...
There's no doubt about it: gardens engage and inspire youth, allowing educators to reach students in fun, effective ways.
When we strive to make our religious schools and classrooms more inclusive, the sheer quantity of expectations, strategies and terminology can be overwhelming. So much so that many don't even know how to begin. More often than not, in conversations about religious school inclusion, I am asked to share specific strategies to adapt Hebrew lessons to include children of varying abilities. A terrific starting point is to focus on the concepts of accommodation and modification and their use in academics for individuals with disabilities as there are distinct differences to their application in a classroom setting. Here’s a terrific overview: Accommodation is a strategy used to help a student with learning challenges progress through the same curriculum as his/her peers. Modification is used to help a student with significant learning needs experience the same curriculum as his/her peers. Teachers in supplemental religious schools often feel untrained and ill-equipped to make this distinction, especially when it comes to Hebrew instruction. I can already hear these teachers saying, "Ok, so I am teaching the Avot to my students. The Avot is the Avot. I can’t change the liturgy. How can I possibly meet the needs of a wide variety of learners?" First, I need you to think about a different question: Why are your students learning the Avot? I’ll come back for your answer. Let’s return to the graphic I shared above. Here’s a little more explanation. We accommodate our students’ learning needs when we allow them to use varying modalities and/or different strategies to meet the same goals as other students. We modify lessons for those students whose goals are different than the rest of the class. Confused? Don’t be. Here are the examples. (Remember, you are working with the Avot, but you can do this with any prayer, text or Hebrew reading assignment). Accommodations could include: · Providing extra time · Listening to a recording · Partner reading · Breaking the prayer into manageable sections Modifications could include: · Identifying all of the alefs (or whatever letter(s) a student may be currently learning) in the Avot · Listening to a variety of prayers being read or chanted and the student identifies the Avot · Printing the lines of the Avot on strips of paper and the student arranges them in the correct order (either from memory or while looking at the complete prayer) · Finding the Avot each time it appears in your synagogue’s siddur (prayer book). Before you suggest that any of those modifications won’t work or worse, that such modifications aren’t fair, let’s get back to my initial question: Why are your students learning the Avot? I hope that your answer included: so that they become familiar with the liturgy, so that they become comfortable with worship, so that they can participate in worship services or so that they can lead part of a worship service. I would agree that those are all meaningful goals for teaching prayer in a supplemental religious school. Now, look back at the modifications I suggest. Each one of them helps to meet those goals. Students do not have to all be fluent Hebrew readers. Students do not all have to read & understand Hebrew perfectly. Some may not even read it at all. If our goal is to help our children to develop strong Jewish identities, pride in their heritage and a love of our traditions and faith, who is to say how that should be accomplished? Go ahead, make accommodations. Modify your lessons. You will enable your students to develop deeper connections to their faith. You may even help to cement their place in the community that supports them. Be sure you don't miss a post from Removing the Stumbling Block:
We finally have a Hagaddah that children with special needs can use, as well as the entire family.
