Monthly Archives: January 2008

In “A true rite of passage: Unusual theater project prepares autistic teens for bar and bat mitzvahs,” James Ricci of the Los Angeles Times describes an unconventional approach to helping children and youths with Autism learn to interact with others. He focuses his story on Elaine Hall and her son, Neal, explaining how Ms. Hall [...] Continue reading →

Folks, your not-so-trustworthy administrator failed to update one of the side programs for this blog when he updated the basic software. So, the polls haven’t worked right recently. Thanks to those who let me know (through public and private channels). I’ve updated the polling software and I think it’s right now.
Please revisit What is [...] Continue reading →

As P. Z. Myers noted in a recent post, one of the plagues of blogging is handling the comment spam; not that Teach Effectively is anywhere nearly as popular as Professor Myers’ Pharyngula, but Teach Effectively does get hit with a lot of spam. People send robots to add comments to post for nefarious reasons [...] Continue reading →

The current Education Gadfly has a guest editorial by Shep Barbash entitled “Reading First’s Christmas massacre” in which Mr. Barbash decries the funding cuts to the Reading First program.
Reading First, funded at $1 billion per year, is among the most promising federal efforts to help the poor. Title I, funded at $12 billion [...] Continue reading →

There’s a bit of talk about “critical thinking.” A post over on Instructivist prompted me to consider alternative meanings for the adjective, “critical.” There are several connotations for it, so I thought, hmmm… it being the season of lots of news about polls and this being a democracy, let’s vote on what sort of critical [...] Continue reading →

Autism Speaks, the nearly 3-year-old advocacy organization that advocates for research and awareness of Autism, announced that it has awarded nearly $5 million for research to investigate the causes, biology, diagnosis, and treatment of Autism. According to Peter Bell, an executive vice president of Autism Speaks, “These grants will fund research projects that offer innovative [...] Continue reading →

Through ACT 4 Juvenile Justice (ACT4JJ), which is a lobbying group, National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition is seeking support for a statement of principles regarding reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA). The organization compiled the principles in an effort to strengthen federal-state partnerships, ensure that states receive the federal [...] Continue reading →

Over on Snail-Snail, snail_snail has a couple of posts that illustrate fundamentals for behavior management. The recommendations, in the form of a list one should ask oneself, provide the basic background that should be in place before one attempts to employ more formal behavior modification procedures.
Under the titles “Onaway Elementary/Day N,” snail_snail raises questions [...] Continue reading →

Liam Julian, who writes for the Fordham-sponsored Education Gadfly, has an editorial in the 20 December issue that amounts to a call for employing Direct Instruction. In “Check yourself before you wreck yourself,” Mr. Julian writes about the utility of checklists. He explains that when doctors use specific, scripted methods they are not criticized for [...] Continue reading →

On the off chances that one of LD Blog’s three readers is looking for a position in higher education or organizations concerned with special education and related areas of teaching and research: Check http://SpedPro.org/. Many universities and other agencies post announcements there are open positions.
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