Lindeman joins discussion on inclusive early learning programs

(News Release)

David Lindeman, Director of the University of Kansas Life Span Institute at Parsons and the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities,

Parsons site, was one of the six Kansas early education leaders who met with senior officials from the US Department of Health and Human Services and US Department of Education on September 14 at the Woodland Early Learning Community School in Kansas City, Mo. regarding new federal guidance on including children with disabilities in early learning programs.

This was the first stop in US Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s ten-city tour, Ready for Success: 2015 Back-To-School Bus Tour. The tour was launched with a joint policy statement from the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services announcing the recommendations for increasing the number of children with disabilities in public and private high-quality inclusive early childhood programs nationwide.

This meeting with USDE Deputy Secretary, Libby Doggett, HHS Deputy Secretary, Linda Smith, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Michael Yudin, OSEP Associate Division Director, Christy Kavulic, and HHS Policy Advisor, Shantel Meek provided representatives from Kansas and Missouri to engage in discussion of the potential impact of the joint policy statement.

The discussion focused on activities in their respective states regarding inclusion and focused on both opportunities and challenges. The federal officials and state representatives engaged in extended discussion regarding the statement, identified dissemination opportunities for the statement, and discussed

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In this Issue…

1-2 ………………….Lindeman joins discussion

2 ………………………………………Just the STATS

3 …….Project Spotlight: Kansas Fire Safety

4 ………………………………………….Publications

5…………………………………….….Presentations

5-6……………Community Service: Sandy Hill

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Lindeman, continued from page 1

reaction to the policy statement. They discussed specific components of the additional supports that the federal agencies can provide states. This discussion lasted an hour and a half.

This policy statement highlights the benefits of inclusion for both children with and without disabilities, provides the scientific and legal foundations supporting inclusion, provides a clear definition of inclusion, and provides recommendations to states, school districts and early childhood programs for expanding inclusive high-quality early learning opportunities for all children.

As noted in the news release on the event from the USDE, this year is the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 40th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Act and the 50th anniversary of Head Start, but too many preschool children with disabilities are still excluded from early childhood programs with their peers. There is significant work to be achieved regarding

inclusions of young children with disabilities into everyday activities and learning environments.

Each member of the Kansas team represented a specific group of stakeholders, early childhood service program, and/or professional development and technical assistance supports for those individuals working in the field of early childhood. Other members of the Kansas team were Barbara Dayal, Kansas State Department of Education, Part B, 619 Coordinator, services for children 3-5 with disabilities; Carrie Hastings, Children’s Services Manager, Kansas Department for Children and Families, in the Strengthening Families Unit; Gayle Stuber, Kansas State Department of Education, Coordinator for Early Childhood Programs; Sarah Walters, Kansas State Department of Health and Environment, Coordinator of IDEA, Part C Services, services for children birth to age three with disabilities; and Erick Vaughn, Executive Director, Head Start Association.

This News Release was highlighted in the Business section of the Parsons Sun newspaper at this link http://www.parsonssun.com/business/article_f3efc8e2-6cb8-11e5-8725-0faca34645c2.html

Just the “STATS”

Last year, Southeast Kansas Respite Services, associated with the Life Span Institute at Parsons, provided respite, supportive home care, payee, and homemaker services to 140 families for a total of 30,666.75 hours, as well as, managing the Social Security benefits for 150 customers.

SEKRS has been serving families in Southeast Kansas since 1990.

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PROJECT SPOTLIGHT

Kansas Fire Safety: Education Training with Fire Fighters and the Deaf Community

Sara Sack, Ph.D., Project Director Sheila Simmons, M.A., Project Coordinator

Funded by: U.S. Department of Homeland Security: FEMA

Brief Summary

Engagement is at the center of learning. This award was made to continue and expand the work that was accomplished with the 2012-13 Fire Safety project.

The goals of the 2015-16 project will expand Kansas capacity for prevention and control of fire related incidences, injuries and deaths by increasing understanding of the need for, acquisitions of, and proper use of smoke alarms to meet the needs of people who are deaf and hard of hearing and increasing knowledge of people who are deaf or hard of hearing by providing in-home fire safety education, fire escape planning and practice, and installing accessible smoke alarms.

Assistive Technology for Kansans (ATK) will collaborate with the Kansas Commission for Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Deaf Cultural Center, Olathe Fire Department, and Kansas Association/Deaf Clubs to create a permanent statewide network that will conduct cross

training with local fire departments and members of the deaf and hearing impaired community. The project will expedite its activities due to the existence of educational materials developed from a previous successful Fire Safety and Prevention project.

The project has eight objectives and will educate a minimum of 300 individuals who are deaf or hearing impaired, conduct smoke alarm installations for 180 people who are hearing impaired across the state, and teach deaf culture and communications to twelve local fire departments serving larger populations of the deaf community.

People of all ages with a documented hearing impairment (deaf or hard of hearing), individuals, family members or service providers interested in the Kansas Fire Solutions 2015-16 program can contact the program by calling toll-free 800-KAN DO IT (800-526-3648).

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PUBLICATIONS

From left: Drs. Katie Hine, David Lindeman, Sara Sack, Kathryn

Saunders, Dean Williams

Brady, N. C., Storkel, H. L., Bushnell, P., Barker, R. M., Saunders, K, Daniels, D., & Fleming, K. (in press). Investigating a multimodal intervention for children with limited expressive vocabularies

associated with autism. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.Brewer, A. T., Strickland-Cohen, K., Dotson, W., & Williams, D. C. (2014). Advance notice for

transition-related problem behaviors: Practice guidelines. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 7, 117-125.

Hawley, S. R., Ablah, E., Hesdorffer, D. C., Pellock, J. M., Lindeman, D. P., Paschal, A. M., Thurman, D. J., Liu, Y., Warren, M. B., Schmitz, T., Austin Rogers, A., St. Romain, T., Hauser, W. A., and the Prevalence of Epilepsy in Rural Kansas Study Group  (in press). Prevalence of pediatric epilepsy in low-income rural midwestern counties. Epilepsy & Behavior.

Hine, K. M. (2014). Effects of behavioral skills training with directed data collection on the acquisition of behavioral practices by workers in a private, not-for-profit child care center. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 34, 223-232.

Lindeman, D. P. (2015). Message from the DEC executive board: Where does DEC fit into your professional development? Young Exceptional Children, 18(2).

Lindeman, D. P., Fees, B., & Deluccie, M. (2015). Kansas’ early childhood higher-education options for training and credentials. Kansas Child, 14(4), 18-19.

Naylor, A., Saunders, K., Brady, N. (accepted pending revision). Developing the alphabetic principle to aid text-based AAC use by adults with low speech intelligibility and intellectual disabilities. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.

Sack, S., Kniskern, J., & Phillips, C. (2015). AT reuse partnerships with Medicaid: A guide for consideration and development. Atlanta, GA: Pass It On Center, Georgia Institute of Technology.

Saunders, K., Hine, K., Hayashi, Y., & Williams, D. (accepted pending revision). Adventitious reinforcement of maladaptive stimulus control interferes with learning. Behavior Analysis in Practice.

Toussaint, K., Tiger, J., Scheithauer, M., & Saunders, K. (accepted pending revision). Teaching identity matching of Braille characters to beginning Braille readers. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis.

Williams, D. C. (2015). Challenging behaviors and task transitions in autism: Translating clinical phenomenology and basic behavioral process. In F. D. DiGennaro Reed & D. D. Reed (Eds.), Bridging The Gap Between Science And Practice In Autism Service Delivery, 113-150. New York: Springer.

Yoo, H. J., & Saunders, K. J. (2014). The discrimination of printed words by prereading children. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 15(2), 123-135.

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PRESENTATIONS

Brookfield, J., Bruder, M.B., Lindeman, D.P., Parks, S., Horn, E., Squire, J., Parks, S., Woods, J., Conn-Powers, M., & Ellis, D. (2015, October). ECPC: Collaboratively building comprehensive and integrated early childhood systems of personnel development.  Paper presented at the Division for Early Childhood 31st Annual International Conference on Young Children with Special Needs and Their Families, Atlanta, Ga.

Kemp, P., Lindeman, D.P., Walters, S., & Jorgensen, K. (2015, July). Preparing new local early intervention program coordinators/administrators to be leaders.  Poster presented at the 2015 OSEP Leadership Conference, Washington, DC.

Parks, S., Kong, N.Y., Lindeman, D.P., & Horn, E. (2015, October). Knowledge, access, and utilization of evidenced-based practices by early childhood professionals.  Poster presented at the Division for Early Childhood 31st Annual International Conference on Young Children with Special Needs and Their Families, Atlanta, Ga.

Rinkel, P., Lindeman, D.P., & Nelson, C. (2015, October). Individualized intensive behavior support in preschool: An online community of practice approach.  Poster presented at the Division for Early Childhood 31st Annual International Conference on Young Children with Special Needs and Their Families, Atlanta, Ga.

Sack, S. (2015, July). ATK state financing activity: iPad training. Presentation at the Assistive Technology Act Program Project Director’s meeting, Washington, DC.

Sack, S. (2015, August). Building “win/win/win” relationships through AT reuse: A closer look at Medicaid collaborations. Presentation at the Alternative Finance and Assistive Technology Reuse and Acquisition Conference, Washington, DC.

Walters, S., Jorgensen, K., Kemp, P., & Lindeman, D.P., (2015, July). Ensuring quality through contractual obligations.  Poster presented at the 2015 OSEP Leadership Conference, Washington, DC.

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Sandy Hill has worked with KU colleagues at the Parsons Research Center for 15 years and her research environment paid off recently for a veteran who died before she was born. … continued on page 6Community Service, continued from page 5

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After attending a funeral at the historic Oak Wood Cemetery in Parsons, Sandy walked through the veteran’s section and noticed that one grave was marked differently than all the others with only a simple metal plate that said “Frey Chandler 1958.” She wondered who Frey Chandler was and why his marker didn’t match the ones around his grave.

Sandy took a vacation day and spent hours of her time searching microfiche for more information about Frey Chandler. With no success, she enlisted the help of Gary Wall, a local funeral home director and he told her that in the 1950’s Frey was the name of the funeral home, not Chandler’s first name at all. They were able to determine that the man buried as Frey Chandler was actually Henry

Chandler, a veteran of World War I having served in the 92nd Infantry Division, and survived at the time of his death by two daughters and a son.

Henry Chandler was born June 8, 1885 in South Bend, Indiana. He lived in Weir, KS in his later years and died January 15, 1958 at the veteran’s hospital in Muskogee, OK.

Now in 2015, because Sandy Hill wondered “why”, the record has been set straight.

Henry Chandler’s gravestone is pictured on page five. The engraving and the work to set the stone were donated by Mike Forbes, Don Babcock (S. I. Memorials), and Darrin Babcock (Oak Wood Cemetery).

Visit the KU Life Span Institute (LSI) at Parsons website at http://parsons.lsi.ku.edu/

Additionally, The Insider is archived online athttp://www.parsons.lsi.ku.edu /newsletters

The University of Kansas prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, age, ancestry, disability, status as a veteran, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status, gender identity, gender expression and genetic information in the University’s programs and activities. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies: Director of the Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access, IOA@ku.edu, 1246 W. Campus Road, Room 153A, Lawrence, KS, 66045, (785) 864-6414, 711 TTY

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