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Reporting on the Middle East, Science, and Education for September 16, 2008 - ט"ז אלול תשס"ח
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By Scott J. Cech, Education Week, September 16, 2008
There’s a war of sorts going on within the normally staid assessment industry, and it’s a war over the definition of a type of assessment that many educators understand in only the sketchiest fashion.
Formative assessments, also known as “classroom assessments,” are in some ways easier to define by what they are not. They’re not like the long, year-end, state-administered, standardized, No Child Left Behind Act-required exams that testing professionals call “summative.” Nor are they like the shorter, middle-of-the-year assessments referred to as “benchmark” or “interim” assessments.
Or they shouldn’t be, at least according to experts inside and outside the testing industry, who believe that truly “formative” assessments must blend seamlessly into classroom instruction itself.
“It makes me want to scream and run out of the room,” said Ray Wilson, the executive director of assessment and accountability for the 33,000-student Poway Unified School District in Poway, Calif., referring to off-the-shelf commercial products labeled “formative assessment” that major test-makers try to sell him. “I still contend that so long as a teacher doesn’t have primary control [over assessment content],” he added, “you will never have truly formative assessment.”
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Recent Posts, Special Education on September 16, 2008 - ט"ז אלול תשס"ח at 6:18 pm
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By Karin Kloosterman, Israel 21C, August 18, 2008
Spellcheckers on computer software did to language what calculators have done to math, unless you are one of the 15 percent of Americans who suffer from dyslexia. While Microsoft Word’s spellchecker can tell you how to spell your words properly, it can’t handle the complex language problems that dyslexics face on a daily basis.
"The problem they have is connecting the sounds of letters to the symbols of the written language," says Yael Karov, the CEO of Ginger Software who co-founded the Israeli company with her husband Avner Zangvil. They aim to give dyslexics software that can reduce spelling errors and improve their learning and communication skills dramatically.
Based in Tel Aviv, the company employs 15 and come October its software will be ready for Americans. Currently undergoing a Beta test, Ginger is available online for a free trial, or as a download, and will seamlessly connect to Microsoft Word as an add-on. After typing sentences, a screen will show users correct alternatives. They will also get an option to hear their sentences aloud.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Recent Posts, Science and Technology, Special Education on August 19, 2008 - י"ח אב תשס"ח at 6:35 pm
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Reprinted from News-Medical.net, July 29, 2008
The article from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (NBDPS), “Diabetes Mellitus and Birth Defects,” shows that pregnant women with pre-gestational diabetes mellitus (pre-pregnancy diagnosis of diabetes, such as type 1 or type 2 diabetes) are more likely than a mother with no diabetes or a mother with gestational diabetes mellitus (pregnancy-induced diabetes) to have a child with various types of individual or multiple birth defects. This includes heart defects, defects of the brain and spine, oral clefts, defects of the kidneys and gastrointestinal tract and limb deficiencies. This study is the first to show the broad range and severity of birth defects associated with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
“The continued association of diabetes with a number of birth defects highlights the importance of increasing the number of women who receive the best possible preconception care, especially for those women diagnosed with diabetes,” says Adolfo Correa, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., lead author and epidemiologist at CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. “Early and effective management of diabetes for pregnant women is critical in helping to not only prevent birth defects, but also to reduce the risk for other health complications for them and their children.”
Researchers also found that some of the pregnant women with gestational diabetes were more likely to have a child with birth defects. Because birth defects associated with diabetes are more likely to occur during the first trimester of pregnancy and before a diagnosis of gestational diabetes is made, the observed associations suggest that some of the mothers with it probably had undiagnosed diabetes before they became pregnant. However symptoms went unnoticed until pregnancy.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Special Education on July 30, 2008 - כ"ז תמוז תשס"ח at 10:54 am
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By Sue Shellenbarger, Wall Street Journal
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Health Sciences, Mental Health, Special Education on May 5, 2008 - ל' ניסן תשס"ח at 6:27 pm
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From Ann Logsdon,
Your Guide to Learning Disabilities.
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If your child shows signs of a learning disability, assessment can confirm a diagnosis. If a learning disability is diagnosed, your child may qualify for important special education programs for remediation. Most children with learning disabilities are diagnosed through the public school system during elementary years.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Special Education on February 4, 2008 - כ"ח שבט תשס"ח at 6:40 pm
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From Sue Watson,
Your Guide to Special Education.
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When you think about it, learning to read involves many tasks. I’ve listed 10 things that come to mind that a child must do in order to read.
1. The child must hear and be able to recognize the sounds that are spoken and determine the differences between the sounds. This is often referred to as the auditory perception and the auditory processing.
2. The child will need to recognize the different sizes, shapes, position and form of the 26 letters.
3. The child will need to have a sense of directionality and hold the book with the cover first and the opening pages to the right. Directionality is also needed to read from left to right and from top to bottom.
4. The child will need to remember the sequence of the sounds and the syllables in the correct order. Notice how some children will pronounce spaghetti as bisghetti.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Special Education on December 24, 2007 - ט"ו טבת תשס"ח at 3:04 pm
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BY DELTHIA RICKS,delthia.ricks@newsday.com, August 14, 2007
Attorney David Gould and his wife, Lauretta Murdock, the founder of a school in New Hyde Park, were not prepared for the phone call they recently received.
It was from a neighbor, someone they had never met. The caller was frightened. The Gould’s 16-year-old son, Bryan, had casually entered the neighbor’s house through an unlocked door, startling the home’s occupants.
“We were so lucky. God were we lucky,” said Gould, of Port Washington. Bryan was oblivious to the panic. At a time when home invasions are in the public consciousness - and homeowners might be armed - Gould feels fortunate his neighbors sensed something different about Bryan and were able to coax him to give them his home phone number.
The teen is autistic, as is his 12-year-old brother, Connor.
Yet, the Gould/Murdock household is not atypical. Families nationwide are facing the realities of autism, and sometimes with more than one child. Murdock is one of Long Island’s leading experts on the condition, having established Mosaic, a New Hyde Park school for autistic children.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Mental Health, Recent Posts, Special Education on August 14, 2007 - ל' אב תשס"ז at 5:58 pm
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New Model for Autism Suggests Women Carry the Disorder and Explains Age as a Risk Factor
Press Release, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, July 23, 2007
A new model for understanding how autism is acquired has been developed by a team of researchers led by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Autism is a developmental disorder, characterized by language impairments, social deficits, and repetitive behaviors. The researchers analyzed data on autism incidence and found a previously unrecognized pattern. The pattern can be explained by assuming that spontaneous germ-line mutation is a significant cause of the disorder. Parents, especially women, who acquire the mutation – but do not exhibit severe symptoms of the disorder – have a 50% chance of passing the mutation on to their children. Sons often show the most severe symptoms. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Mental Health, Recent Posts, Special Education on July 26, 2007 - י"א אב תשס"ז at 3:24 pm
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Researchers at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT have, for the first time, reversed symptoms of mental retardation and autism in mice.
The work will be reported in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of June 25-29.
The mice were genetically manipulated to model Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), the leading inherited cause of mental retardation and the most common genetic cause of autism. The condition, tied to a mutated X chromosome gene called fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) gene, causes mild learning disabilities to severe autism.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, FXS affects one in 4,000 males and one in 6,000 females of all races and ethnic groups. The prevalence of autism ranges from one in 500 to one in 166 children. There is no effective treatment for FXS and other types of autism. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Mental Health, Special Education on June 26, 2007 - י' תמוז תשס"ז at 11:21 am
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By Ruth Eglash, Jerusalem Post, May 31, 2007
A visiting British parliamentarian who has taken up the cause of improving life for families with autistic children is looking to Israel for answers on how to improve special needs within the UK’s education system, and to raise public awareness on the condition in general.
“I think one of the ways forward to understanding between two countries is where they can share things,” Lee Scott, Conservative party MP for Ilford North told The Jerusalem Post in an interview Wednesday. “If Israel has made headway in this subject, then there is no reason why other countries should not benefit and learn from it.”
Scott, who has been visiting this week as part of an organized delegation of Conservative Friends of Israel, told the Post that Britain has much to learn from Israel as far as legislation providing for families with special-needs children, and medical research on the subject conducted by the country’s various universities. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Middle East Report, Recent Posts, Special Education on May 31, 2007 - י"ד סיון תשס"ז at 5:54 pm
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