Education | Served First

Top Schools for Disabled Students

The U.S. has the most educational opportunities for disabled students because of the American Disabilities Act. Canada, legislatively, supports educating students with disabilities in regular classrooms as a first option. Laws vary from province to province in Canada. The level of specialized services for students with disabilities in public schools is not standardized across the nation as it is in the United States.

According to the government’s website, Statistics Canada, Prince Edward Island has 73% of their disabled students in regular classrooms while Quebec has 48%, but the site also states that this is most likely a result of specific services not being available rather than intentional programming. There are a few other options to consider. There are schools that cater to specific disabilities and can be found by searching with canada 411. Below are some of the possibilities.

Deaf Education – Canada has deaf education schools K-12, mostly in the province of Ontario. The Clinical and Educational Centre for Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing Children in British Columbia is a top program as well.
Schools for the Visually Impaired – Institut Nazareth is a music focused school for blind children in Montreal. The Alliance for Equity of Blind Canadians is working to increase the number of educational and work opportunities for all visually impaired Canadians. Programs are scattered and few.

Schools for Autism -There are few public school programs for this condition. There are many nonprofit organizations filling the gap. AutismOntario is a full service website that gathers information across Canada on research, treatments, education, and chapters that give parent support.

Filed Under: Addictions, Disability Tagged With: Disability, Education, Hearing impairment

Living With a New Disability

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A disability can be hard to deal with for both members of the disabled individual’s family, as well as for the individual. When the disability is sudden and unexpected, a whole new plethora of problems manifest themselves that do not necessarily apply to those who were born disabled.

A tragic occurrence that causes a person to be disabled not only affects the individual but everyone connected to her. It disrupts her whole life and the way she interacts with the world. A new disability can be fraught with frustration and anguish. There is a huge learning curve for any disability, but even more so when the individual is used to doing things for herself. Suddenly having to rely heavily on others can be a struggle.

The physical aspects aside, the more drastic change may be emotional and mental. The acclimation to the fact that they may never walk, see, or hear again puts an almost insurmountable strain on people. No one can be prepared for it, and no one can foresee the reaction to such an event.

The most important thing is to make sure and get all the help you deserve. Once a person accepts the situation, the real healing and learning can begin. There are many disability intervention programs that can help individuals and their loved ones to accept and thrive in their new-found environment.

The programs also allow people to witness others living with their disabilities and thriving, which can be a tremendous mental boost. The key to successfully transitioning into a life with a disability is to remain positive and to understand that great successes come from small steps. You don’t have to make the transition alone, there are people who can and want to help.

Filed Under: Disability, Health Care Tagged With: Department for Work and Pensions, Disabilities, Disability, Disability Living Allowance, Disabled, Education, Maria Miller, Social security

Improving Substance Abuse Treatment for Persons With Disabilities

Persons with disabilities are at an increasing risk for substance abuse. Recent studies show that people with disabilities may have a number of risk factors, including a lack of ability to identify potential problems with addiction, additional health problems and medication interference, poor access to rehabilitation and treatment programs, and increased societal enabling.

Reducing substance abuse improves the quality of life of many thousands of people every year, and all groups at risk, including those with disabilities, should have fair access to treatment and prevention programs. To learn more about all types of treatment options, and how to provide support to anyone going through rehabilitation visit lapalomatreatment.com.

The disabled population suffers from substance abuse more often than the general population, with an estimated 1.5 million people with disabilities needing treatment each year. About 4.7 million disabled people struggle with dependency on drugs or alcohol in conjunction with their disability.

Current substance abuse prevention and treatment services do not adequately address the needs of people with disabilities. Access to much needed services can be difficult, and the programs themselves may be incomplete, or limited. Educational materials in formats accessible to people with visual impairment are largely unavailable, and other materials may be written for too high of a reading level for those with learning disabilities. Treatment centers may be physically inaccessible for many with disabilities and verbal communication may be hindered by lack of interpreters for the hearing impaired. All of these factors make it difficult for the disabled population to receive adequate treatment for substance abuse.

In order to improve services for all people struggling with addiction, persons with disabilities need to be included in research and data statistics. Access to appropriate educational materials is being improved, and there are a growing number of substance abuse treatment professionals focusing on special education.

Filed Under: Disability, Health Care, Medication Tagged With: Drug rehabilitation, Education, Substance Abuse

Reasons Why Dyslexia is Considered a Learning Disability

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Dyslexia is a commonly occurring situation that affects children in disproportionate numbers. Although contrary to widespread public ideas, dyslexia is not an intellectual disability, meaning that the person does not have a challenge with their intelligence and/or thought pattern. But rather, it is a learning disability that is found mostly in children and too often diagnosed as a disability because of its elusive characteristics.

Dyslexia affects between five to twenty percent of the general population and is sometimes difficult to diagnose in young children. The main reason that it is thought of as a disability is because in children, their learning and cognitive development is still growing and maturing, and if they are doing so at a rate that is not on par with their counterparts, they are often misdiagnosed as having a disability.

The dyslexic child will often have challenges and difficulties in learning new words and attempting to pronounce long words. They may also have trouble writing their names and learning the letters of the alphabet, or even get the letters mixed up or out of order. Although children in kindergarten and first grade are often known to write their names the wrong way or with incorrect letters for a brief time period, they may be too diagnosed too soon with what is perceived to be a disability. When a child presents with challenges in certain areas of their learning and development, dyslexia may often be one of the first diagnoses that comes to mind when they are observed or tested.

Dyslexia can sometimes be misdiagnosed as a disability also if the child scores low on tests compared to other students or has difficulty in grasping basic concepts. Only a thorough examination by professionals can reveal if their challenge is actually a learning delay or a disability. Premature speculation of characteristics or behavioral patterns can be dismissed or confirmed through proper testing.

Filed Under: Disability Tagged With: Child, Disability, Dyslexia, Education, Learning Disabilities, Learning disability, Mental retardation, Special education

Math Disabilities in Children

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The basic math functions like adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing are fairly easy for students to grasp. These basic concepts are taught in school settings and for the most part, only require a short amount of time to develop the understanding to navigate mathematicl problems. But for those children and/or adults who suffer with math learning disabilities, basic functions can be quite a challenge and a hindrance in moving the person into categories or higher learning.

Usually in children, math disabilities of any kind are detected at an early age, typically in kindergarten or first grade. If the child struggles with mathematical problems or shows any inhibted challenges towards working through equations, professioanl help is often sought in order to proerly assess whether or not there is a problem. Math disabilities can manifest in several ways including:

1.) Innacurately adding or subtracting numbers that can seem like a careless mistake, but the individual feels like they’re reasonably sovling the problem. This can include simple things like 2+2=5 or more sophisticated problems where there are multiple instances of adding stacked numbers or sets of three numbers together.

2.) Slowly grasping rote methods like counting or multiplication tables that would normaly take a short amount of time to grasp.

3.) Great difficulty in solving and working through word problems. Even though word problems involve an element of reading and comprehension, the student with a mathematical disability will have an even greater challenge in being able to take the numbers out of the problem and solve the equation.

A school counselor or child psychologosit can accurately determine whether or not a child has a learning disability by preparing a battery of tests to determine their knowledge and understanding of basic math functions. If there is indeed a disability found, they can usually treat the individual with math therapy or place them in classes where they can receive individualized help with their studies.

Filed Under: Disability Tagged With: Child, Disability, Education, Learning disability, Math, Mathematics, Multiplication table, Student

Conflict and its Effect on Disability

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Disabilities are commonly known to surface as physical and emotional disturbances. Whether it’s directly related to a person’s daily routine or if it’s something that causes them to behave differently when in a social situation, a disability can have several triggers to it.

One of the lease commonly known triggers to disabilities is conflict, both physical and mental. Conflicts are very commonly-known to be the trigger in disabilities in times of war or unrest between countries or communities. Because there is so much unrest at these times, there are disabilities that erupt and can last for long periods of time.

Although it is common, conflict is still one of the more preventable causes of disability, therefore it doesn’t get as much attention or research because of it. Those in many medical settings feel that since conflict can be managed better on an individual or group level, there are very few resolutions to it that can also reduce the occurrences of it any any setting.

In time of post-war conflicts, countries typically focus on the the re-building and strengthening phase and often give less attention to the long-term causes of disabilities in individuals. As a precautionary method, it would be far better for war organizations to devise a system that is proactive to disabilities rather than an after-math approach which essentially addresses the problem AFTER it has occured. There has been in recent years attention given to this area that will hopefully offset any future problems. This includes data collection, fine tuning emergency medical care and providing ongoing medical care.

In order to be proactive in the case of conflict and disabilities, organizations are now instituting departments and practices that work to offset and hopefully avoid any disabilities that would be as a result of conflict. One example would be through data analysis and gathering information on the mental result(s) of war-time situations on the soldiers involved in a war. Psychologists, doctors and military officials work together to devise methods that will help the military cope with conflicts in healthy ways before they’re faced with war, rather than treating their symptoms and conditions once they’ve returned from war.

Filed Under: Disability Tagged With: Disabilities, Disability, Disabled, Education, Health care, Individualized Education Program, Organizations, Student

The Need for Community-Based Rehab

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Disabilities can affect all classes, types and economical conditions of individuals in any capacity. Although disabilities are often classified within its own group, there are resources and organizations that are dedicated to helping individuals who suffer with challenges to reach better potentials and to raise their circumstances. Various communities have implemented systems and resources to help the disabled community moreso from a standpoint of enabling them rather than pitying them. This not only greatly strengthens the community, but it also provides a foundation for the community to come together and help people on both an individual level and a group level.

Community Based Rehab (CBR) is a very popular strategy that is used within communities to help implement rehabilitation systems for the disabled. It includes a social inclusion and an equalization of resources and opportunities for children and adults who suffer with disabilities of any kind, whether those challenges are physical, psychological or emotional.

A Community Based Rehab program is generally implemented through the efforts of the people in the community who suffer with the disability themselves. They, along with their families and other community supporters are able to provide resources in several general areas including health, educational, social and vocational services.

Because the resources are all pooled together, the strength of the community is heightened and the disabled population no longer operates at a disadvantage, but are more equally involved. It also helps to boost morale and strengthen the compassion and appreciation from the community as a whole.

This type of rehab in the community is so productive because the community works together and combines their strengths and resources to provide a total solution for those in the community who are disabled and need the help. Because the community works together as one functioning unit, families are strengthened and there is a greater appreciation and respect for those in the community who may have certain challenges.

Filed Under: Disability Tagged With: Disabilities, Disability, Disability Resources, Disabled, Education, Health, Organization, United States

Employing the Disabled

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For the disabled, to be gainfully and productively employed is one of the most important goals for those who suffer with challenging disabilities. For them, it serves as more than a way to generate income, although that is a large part of it. Being gainfully employed is a key for the disabled person’s self-esteem, their social and economic integration with the family, their impact and contribution to the community and to society as a whole.

The right to work and to be employed for the disabled is related to other lending factors that can make a difference in being employed or unemployed. This includes:

1. Access to Education
Without access to education and educational resources, the disabled community is severely limited in options and opportunities that can be afforded to them. With adequate education and the opportunity to improve themselves through education, they can expand their resource pool and their chances at securing quality, gainful employment. If these things are unavailable, they usually have to resort to unemployment compensation, disability income or welfare income.

2. Proper Vocational Training
On-the-job training is a key area for the disabled just as it is for the non disabled citizens. In some instances, job training would have to be customized to accommodate the person’s disability, therefore having adequate resources for this area is very important.

Filed Under: Disability Tagged With: Disabilities, Disability, Disabled, Education, Employment, Unemployment, Unemployment benefits, Welfare

Looking Out for Learning Disabilities: How to Detect Dyslexia in a Child

In children between the ages of two to six, signs of dyslexia can sometimes be detected in speech. A child with dyslexia might have difficulty learning new words and often has trouble rhyming words. She might learn to speak later than other children and struggle to pronounce long words. Some children have trouble writing their names. A dyslexic child may also have a hard time learning the letters or the alphabet, and may write a letter backwards. However, many young children write letters the wrong way until the first or second grade. And, actually, none of these symptoms alone is enough to diagnose a child with dyslexia–and even all of them together could indicate a different learning disability, another problem altogether (or no problem at all).

In early elementary school, children with dyslexia will typically have trouble with the sequence of the letters in the alphabet. Difficulty related to the sounds of letters and words is also common. Some children, for example, will struggle to distinguish between the different words on the page. As the child continues through school, the symptoms of dyslexia become more apparent. Organizational skills are often troublesome for dyslexic children, as well as reading out loud and spelling. And, not surprisingly, children with dyslexia also struggle with foreign languages.

Dyslexia is easiest to diagnose during elementary school, and that’s when most parents and teachers become aware of a child’s dyslexia. However, dyslexia is sometimes not apparent until the child is facing more complex reading and language comprehension tasks. It’s much better to catch dyslexia during the first six years of life, though, and simply being aware of a child’s language skills can make a significant difference in the early detection of dyslexia.

Dyslexia effects between 5- 20% of the population, and, contrary to popular belief, it is not intellectual disability. Rather, dyslexia is considered a "learning disability" or a "reading disability." For that reason, dyslexia is not correlated with intelligence, and may be difficult to diagnose in very young children.
In children between the ages of two to six, signs of dyslexia can sometimes be detected in speech. A child with dyslexia might have difficulty learning new words and often has trouble rhyming words. She might learn to speak later than other children and struggle to pronounce long words. Some children have trouble writing their names. A dyslexic child may also have a hard time learning the letters or the alphabet, and may write a letter backwards. However, many young children write letters the wrong way until the first or second grade. And, actually, none of these symptoms alone is enough to diagnose a child with dyslexia–and even all of them together could indicate a different learning disability, another problem altogether (or no problem at all).
In early elementary school, children with dyslexia will typically have trouble with the sequence of the letters in the alphabet. Difficulty related to the sounds of letters and words is also common. Some children, for example, will struggle to distinguish between the different words on the page. As the child continues through school, the symptoms of dyslexia become more apparent. Organizational skills are often troublesome for dyslexic children, as well as reading out loud and spelling. And, not surprisingly, children with dyslexia also struggle with foreign languages.
Dyslexia is easiest to diagnose during elementary school, and that’s when most parents and teachers become aware of a child’s dyslexia. However, dyslexia is sometimes not apparent until the child is facing more complex reading and language comprehension tasks. It’s much better to catch dyslexia during the first six years of life, though, and simply being aware of a child’s language skills can make a significant difference in the early detection of dyslexia.

Filed Under: Disability, Health Care Tagged With: Child, Education, Learning Disabilities