Franklin SEPAC Monthly Meeting – February 24, 2010

The Franklin Special Education Parent’s Advisory Council (SEPAC) had our fifth monthly meeting on February 24, 2010 in the 3^rd floor training room at Franklin’s Municipal Building.  The SEPAC President, Sharon Miller called the meeting to order at 7:10 PM.   There were 22 people in attendance in addition to the 4 officers and speaker. 

Officers and Beth Fitzmaurice, Franklin’s Director for Special Education were introduced.

The schools are going GREEN next month, so you will no longer receive our blue flyers.  Please go to our website and sign up to be on our email list so you will be informed of future meetings. 

Our application for getting a 501(C)(3) tax exempt status has been mailed in.

We need volunteers for the finance committee to help decide and execute a plan with spending the money we raised at our November fundraiser.  We will be having our first meeting within the next couple of weeks.

Sharon is attending the MASS PAC Leadership Institute meeting this weekend.  MASS PAC (Massachusetts Association of Special Education Parent Advisory Councils) is an umbrella organization linking area SEPAC groups in Massachusetts.  She hopes to get new ideas on what we should be doing in our PAC.

Should we still do our July 4^th food/beverage booth on the Franklin Common?  We have had one for many years, but do not make tons of money.  Should we continue so we get our name out in the community?  Should we team up with Franklin’s Special Olympic Swim Team? Do the Harvest Festival instead?  Does anyone have other ideas on how to get our name out there?

Gunstock Mountain Resort in NH offers a disability program to help teach kids how to ski.  Please contact them directly for more information.  www.gunstock.com

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, March 17th and will be on Executive Dysfunction: Helping Your Child Succeed academically and socially.

Our next Parent to Parent Social is Thursday, February 25^th at Panera Restaurant in Franklin at 9:30am.  For more information on these discussion groups please contact call Terri Morgan at 508-541-7475

Speaker:

This interactive presentation provided an overview of the 8 functions of the brain and how they impact learning -- specifically in reading, writing and math.  Wendy Van Gyzen, M.Ed, from the Dunn Institute for Learning Differences, provided strategies for supporting successful homework completion for students with a variety of learning styles, and provided a framework for decreasing the nightly struggle around various assignments.

We started off with a fun small group exercise, where we had to really think out of the box.  We learned about how we all have our own strengths and weaknesses within the exercise, just as our kids do when it comes to homework & learning.

“People who struggle with homework do so because of hoe their mind works…not because of flaws in their personalities.”

Summation from her hand out:

Workshop Goals:

• Appreciate that there are all kinds of minds
• Increase awareness of the eight building blocks of learning
• Understand that the challenge of homework is affected by one’s neurodevelopment strengths and weaknesses
• Learn strategies to help children take on and master the challenge of homework

Eight building blocks of learning:

1. Concentration (Attention): Planning, staying alert, checking your work, and picking out the most important things on which to concentrate
2. Remembering (Memory): Storing, finding, and suspending information for a short time, a long time, or while you’re using it
3. Language: Understanding what we hear and read and communicating out thoughts and feelings (orally and in writing)
4. Using Space (Spatial Ordering): Organizing information by the way it looks (visually) or fits together (spatially)
5. Keeping track of time/order (Temporal-Sequential Ordering): Organizing information by putting it in order (sequencing) and understanding time
6. Thinking Skills (Higher Thinking): Thinking creatively, trying new thins, understanding and using steps to solve problems
7. Motor Abilities (Neuromotor Function): Using the connections between your brain and the different muscles for activities such as maneuvering a pencil, outing things together, and playing sports
8. Getting along with others (Social Cognition): Understanding and using appropriate words and actions to get along with others

All of the above are needed for learning!

We then saw a video on “Understanding All Kinds of Minds.”  We learned how it is important to create a Learning Profile for your child.  This is a set of learning strengths and weaknesses, unique to each child.

It discussed Neurodevelopmental strengths and weaknesses.  The learning capabilities that are a result of both the ways a person’s mind works and his or her stage in life (development).  (It is great when kids learn their own so they can help themselves better).

Management by Profile was also discussed.  This is a learning plan based on a child’s learning profile that offers procedures and strategies to guide children toward a healthy and productive learning experience.  Consists of five parts:

1. Demystification: A process by which Adults:  Help a child understand his or her learning strengths & weaknesses.  Teach a child to recognize where the learning breakdown occurs.  Give a child the exact words for the specific ability that needs improvement.
2. Accommodations: Practices used to work around a child’s problem so that he or she can continue to progress despite a weakness in learning (also called “bypass” strategy).  Accommodations include: changing the rate, giving more time, giving fewer problems or letting a child use a tape recorder.  Also maybe typing on a computer instead of hand writing.
3. Interventions at the Breakdown Point: Using strategies to overcome (or strengthen) specific weaknesses.  Interventions can include:  Games, Breaking down tasks, time limits, checklists, organizing the workspace, phasing in tasks/reviewing work in progress, getting child started in bigger projects, scaffolding (putting an organizational framework around an activity), exercises to automatize sub skills, determining best structure & consistency for homework.  (Other suggestions added: flashcards at bed time (best time), sqeezeball, headphones, breaking things down into steps and using a timer after 15 minutes of working to give them a break).
4. Strengthening Strengths (Acknowledge their strengths)
5. Protection from Humiliation (Encourage confidence, may need privacy to learn areas of weakness)

Resources for parents & caregivers:

All kinds of Minds website provide resources to help parents, educators, and clinicians understand why a child is struggling in school and how to help each child become a more successful learner. www.allkindsofminds.org

The Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health has a website which specializes in the understanding and managing of attention deficits, worry/anxiety, and child and adult learning difficulties.   www.drhallowell.com

Respectfully submitted,
Sara Madden