Wednesday, November 27, 2013

7B- Danielle Hackett - Respone to Kelly Semple



Kelly,
                The topic of your paper, New Transitions, really caught my attention and is an area that really needs to have more attention focused on.  

                The paper was very thorough and most importantly included the current laws.  I like how you pointed out that all of the laws are constantly changing and that is causing confusion for educators.  I feel that when teachers can take a step back and look at the whole picture as you did in your paper, they clearly see what the problems are and what can be done to improve upon them.  The slides in your PowerPoint that covered early childhood intervention, self-advocacy, and transitional coordinators are very straightforward and gives very important information.

                You wrote of the crucial step of building a strong support system and I would hope that schools can have a system in place to help students with special needs access the resources available to them so that they can move forward in their lives.  I believe it is necessary that these support systems be developed while the child is in school so that the transition can be smooth.  Although these issues are usually addressed in a child's IEP, it seems that some students with disabilities are not getting all of the assistance they need.  I read an article on Disabilityscoop.com titled Feds: Transition Services In Need of Improvement which points out that transitions are very hard on families and students with special needs and a report by the Government Accountability Office finds the path to independence is overly complicated.

                Your paper definitely opened my eyes to an issue that one might not put much thought into and has made me aware of the issues faced by these young adults as they make these transitions in their lives.  Thank you and good job!

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