LD Resources

The Help Group
13130 Burbank Blvd.
Sherman Oaks, CA 91401
(877) 943-5747
(818) 988-4089 fax
admissions@thehelpgroup.org
http://www.thehelpgroup.org

Plan B: Skip College

The number of students who finish college is relatively small given the number of students who apply, get in, and start. Of those, the number with good jobs is even smaller. This article explores other alternatives.

Stanley I. Greenspan, Developer of ‘Floor Time’ Teaching, Dies at 68

Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan, a psychiatrist who invented an influential approach to teaching children with autism and other developmental problems by folding his lanky six-foot frame onto the floor and following their lead in vigorous play, died April 27 at a hospital in Bethesda, Md. He was 68 and lived in Bethesda.

[via Sanford Shapiro]

Middlebridge School
1065 Worden’s Pond Road
Wakefield, RI 02879
401-788-0800
http://middlebridgeschool.org/

iPad Could Be A Beneficial Device For The Disabled

I’d change the title of the piece: The iPad IS a beneficial device for people with disabilities.

I’m quite sure that my friend David Niemeijer is hard at work redoing his… wait, he’s already done it.

As is stated in the piece, when you walk around a trade show floor at an assistive technology conference you find extremely expensive, dedicated devices ($2500-$8,000) that allow people like Stephen Hawking, for example, to communicate. Now you can buy an iPad for $500 and add an app like David’s Proloquo2Go for $189 and you’re good to go.

[via Sanford Shapiro]

The Summit School
183-02 Union Turnpike
Flushing, NY 11366
718-969-3944
718-969-4073 fax
http://www.summitschoolqueens.com/

Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School?

In junior high school, one of my classmates had a TV addiction — back before it was normal. This boy — we’ll call him Ethan — was an encyclopedia of vacuous content, from The A-Team to Who’s the Boss?

Then one day Ethan’s mother made him a bold offer. If he could go a full month without watching any TV, she would give him $200. None of us thought he could do it. But Ethan quit TV, just like that. His friends offered to let him cheat at their houses on Friday nights (Miami Vice nights!). Ethan said no.

One month later, Ethan’s mom paid him $200. He went out and bought a TV, the biggest one he could find.

This is a fascinating piece by Amanda Ripley for Time Magazine about the work of Harvard economist named Roland Fryer Jr. who’s done studies of this in numerous US cities. The results aren’t what you might think and the piece is worth reading.

My iPhone has revolutionised my reading

So why I had found it easier to read from my iPhone? First, an ordinary page of text is split into about four pages. The spacing seems generous and because of this I don’t get lost on the page. Second, the handset’s brightness makes it easier to take in words. “Many dyslexics have problems with ‘crowding’, where they’re distracted by the words surrounding the word they’re trying to read,” says John Stein, Professor of Neuroscience at Oxford University and chair of the Dyslexia Research Trust. “When reading text on a small phone, you’re reducing the crowding effect.”

Makes sense. I think I’d prefer the size of an iPad at my age with my eyes but still, the points are well reasoned.

Jaime Escalante dies at 79; math teacher who challenged East L.A. students to ‘Stand and Deliver’

Jaime Escalante, the charismatic former East Los Angeles high school teacher who taught the nation that inner-city students could master subjects as demanding as calculus, died Tuesday. He was 79.

The subject of the 1988 film “Stand and Deliver,” Escalante died at his son’s home in Roseville, Calif., said actor Edward James Olmos, who portrayed the teacher in the film. Escalante had bladder cancer.

Stand and Deliver at IMDB
Stand and Deliver at Amazon

Social Networks a Lifeline for the Chronically Ill

Alan Brightman who ran the Disabilities Solutions Group at Apple did a lot of work early on in this particular area.

Reminds me of the presentation and article David Clark, Monika Koethnig and I did a while ago: Digital Independence which we did long before the current social networking craze but in which we discussed all the various ways we thought digital information was making the world more accessible.