Local School Board Member with Autism Inspires High Road Academy Students in Wallingford, CT to be Bold

Local School Board Member with Autism Inspires High Road Academy Students in Wallingford, CT to be Bold

by Lynne Mehley Eddis, Catapult Learning

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 1 in 59 children in the United States have autism. Autism is not a predictable or uniform disability – it presents differently in every child – so there’s no “one size fits all” approach to autism education. To show special education students at the High Road Academy of Wallingford that autism shouldn’t keep them from pursuing their dreams, administrators recently invited in an “openly and proudly autistic” politician and professor to speak at the school.

Sarah Selvaggi-Hernandez and her story of overcoming the challenges of living with autism caught the attention of school officials after her election to the Enfield, Connecticut Board of Education in late 2017. High Road Academy Educational Director Sue Gilleaudeau invited Hernandez, who is also an assistant professor of occupational therapy at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Mass., to tour the school and meet with students.

During her time at High Road Academy, Hernandez toured the campus and gave a presentation to students, bringing her positive outlook and inspiring attitude to the classroom. She encouraged the students to be the most influential voice in their life and to know their rights. Hernandez also discussed her strategies for coping with stressful situations and asked students about theirs….

Read the full article here.

COMMENTARY: What NAEP Scores Aren’t Telling Us – Education Week

COMMENTARY: What NAEP Scores Aren’t Telling Us – Education Week

Education Week logoFor two decades, as part of repeated research studies, thousands of participants from diverse backgrounds have watched the same video of college students playing basketball in a circle. Participants are told to count how many times the students wearing white shirts pass the basketball. Stunningly, roughly half of the participants become so distracted trying to count the passes that they completely miss something extraordinary: a student dressed in gorilla suit who walks into the middle of the scene and thumps her chest before walking out of the frame nine seconds later.

In the world of neuroscience, this phenomenon of being oblivious to the obvious is called “inattentional blindness.” This occurs any time we as human beings fail to notice a fully visible but unexpected object because our attention was on another task, event, or activity.

Inattentional blindness is an important concept to keep in mind now that the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress results for reading and mathematics for 4th and 8th grades have been released.

As many feared, results were extremely disappointing across the board. Nevertheless, there are already reams of analysis of certain subgroups highlighting the stubborn achievement gaps within the mesmerizing categories of students’ race and family income. For example, despite the fact that only 37 percent of all 4th graders were at or above “proficient”—further evidence that poor reading performance crossed all racial boundaries—the dominant reaction to the scores continues to focus on the black-white achievement gap…

Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.