Disability law can be complex and intimidating, so how can concerned parents use it to ensure their child with a disability receives the appropriate education they are legally entitled to? A Guide to Special Education Advocacy gives strategies for advocating for better provision of special education in schools. Despite the many services and accommodations that have been made for students with disabilities, such as the use of Braille or providing specialized education in a regular or special classroom, many children with disabilities do not get the services they need and are not placed in appropriate programs or settings. Because of this, the perception of disability often remains unchanged. Matthew Cohen's insightful manual gives a practical vision of how a parent or a professional can become an advocate to achieve a more inclusive and rewarding education for the child with a disability. This book will provide parents, people with disabilities, professionals and clinicians thinking about special education advocacy with an overview of current disability law and how it works, identifying practical ways for building positive and effective relationships with schools.

Aimed at parents of and advocates for special needs children, explains how to develop a relationship with a school, monitor a child's progress, understand relevant legislation, and document correspondence and conversations.

Professors Colker and Waterstone, and the eight contributors to discrete chapters of Special Education Advocacy, have collaborated to try to provide students and lawyers with the basic tools they need to be effective advocates in educational cases involving children with disabilities. Special Education Advocacy is designed to enhance the knowledge and skills of special education advocates. By using examples and simulations based on real cases, the authors and contributors hope to illuminate the major principles that are important to successful advocacy on behalf of children with disabilities. A comprehensive Teacher's Manual is available to professors.

From one of the world's preeminent experts on reading and dyslexia, the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and practical book available on identifying, understanding, and overcoming reading problems--now revised to reflect the latest research and evidence-based approaches. Dyslexia is the most common learning disorder on the planet, affecting about one in five individuals, regardless of age or gender. Now a world-renowned expert gives us a substantially updated and augmented edition of her classic work: drawing on an additional fifteen years of cutting-edge research, offering new information on all aspects of dyslexia and reading problems, and providing the tools that parents, teachers, and all dyslexic individuals need. This new edition also offers: • New material on the challenges faced by dyslexic individuals across all ages • Rich information on ongoing advances in digital technology that have dramatically increased dyslexics' ability to help themselves • New chapters on diagnosing dyslexia, choosing schools and colleges for dyslexic students, the co-implications of anxiety, ADHD, and dyslexia, and dyslexia in post-menopausal women • Extensively updated information on helping both dyslexic children and adults become better readers, with a detailed home program to enhance reading • Evidence-based universal screening for dyslexia as early as kindergarten and first grade – why and how • New information on how to identify dyslexia in all age ranges • Exercises to help children strengthen the brain areas that control reading • Ways to raise a child's self-esteem and reveal her strengths • Stories of successful men, women, and young adults who are dyslexic

Drawing on decades of experience, Jennifer Laviano, a high-profile special education attorney, and Julie Swanson, a sought-after special education advocate, help parents of students with disabilities navigate their school systems to get the services they need for their children. Parents will find no other book on special education like Your Special Education Rights. Julie and Jennifer demystify the federal laws that govern the rights of public school children with disabilities and explain how school districts often ignore or circumvent these laws. They pull the curtain back on the politics of special education, exposing truths that school districts don’t want you to know, such as the fact that teachers are often under extraordinary pressure not to spend resources on services. Most importantly, they outline the central rights you and your child have regarding your child’s education. Did you know that you can refer your child for a special education evaluation? That you can ask for a second opinion if you disagree with the results of some or all of the testing? That you are entitled to parent counseling, training, and more? They also show you how to take that knowledge and apply it to advocating for your child. Here’s what you need to know about the paperwork you will have to complete, detailed information on how to advocate for your child and how to craft language in documents that benefit your child, and more. Filled with vital information and invaluable resources, Your Special Education Rights gives you the information you need to help your child succeed in school and beyond.

Over six million American families are involved in special education, and the numbers are growing. The complex web of laws, regulations, personalities and stresses, combined with anxiety over raising a child with a disability, have made special education advocacy an impenetrable maze to many parents. This book presents the complexities of the process in a simple-to-understand way and offers practical tips, checklists and strategies on how to make the system work to insure the educational success of all children.

[This text] teaches you how to use the law as your sword and your shield. Learn what the law says about: Child's right to a free, appropriate education (FAPE); Individual education programs, IEP teams, transition and progress; Evaluations, reevaluations, consent and independent educational evaluations; Eligibility and placement decisions; Least restrictive environment, mainstreaming, and inclusion; Research based instruction, discrepancy formulas and response to intervention; Discipline, suspensions, and expulsions; Safeguards, mediation, confidentiality, new procedures and timelines for due process hearings.--Back cover.