CuntOMatic said:

I just passed my CSET last year. I also had to take the RICA!

karmatornado said:

I thought the RICA was easier... It was just common sense. If you know the basics of reading - phonemic awareness first, blending/segmenting etc., comprehension - then it wasn't so bad. But the CSET - damn. Talk about random questions.

I've seen a tv-special once which helped people with ADHD getting therapy by swimming with dolphins . The results were surprising .
Dolphins are sending sonor-sounds to a persons body .
As long as the sonors are bouncing back , they will continue until those sounds will be absorbed by the body .
One specific patient was a boy who was brought their by his mom who was also pregnant .
To get him comfortable around the dolphins she joined him in the pool .
Some dolphins immediately gathered around the mother's belly and making sonor-noises .

The boy made much progress and became more at ease with himself ,
could concentrate more while doing homework and got lesser attacks of senseless aggression .
I believe it is a moment that once you get in the water ,
you come in a natural environment which makes you more relax than the current atmosphere we're daily living in which is very fast , digital and informative .

A recent article about a public swimmingpool in my town clearly showed an example of that .
The people who've been working there for a few years ,
stated that agression among people had grown drastically .
Especially in a place like that ,
where people are gathered in a relatively small area .

The shocking moment was when a group of boys from late teens to early 20's ,
from which some were drunk and harrassing all kinda people passing them .
While taking dives in the pool they got warnings from caretakers that it's very risky to swim and dive when you're drunk .
They didn't really care until one of them eventually passed out in the water . The frenzie and rage took to a rediculous level ,
because the caretakers wanted to rescue the victim but the group of guys didn't let them by beating them off in their drunken state of mind .
So the caretakers called an ambulance cause it was a serious matter of urgency .
When the ambulance arrived , the whole group was even more upset that it arrived too late in their p.o.v. and started a rage at the ambulance-car with the hospital-workers .
It became too threatening that the ambulance had to leave without the patient .
The article i've read didn't finish the end of the story except that most of the group got arrested afterwards ,
but let's hope the guy made it , with his stupid buddies not realising how serious this situation was .
.
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[Edited 8/13/06 11:11am]

Sweeny79 said:

CuntOMatic said:

Yes. I failed the General Science PRAXIS twice by 2 pts. Now I just found out I have to take Social Studies.
I'm so frustrated.
The irony is, my Doctoral dissertation is about the CRAP SpEd teachers have gone thru to become "highly qualified" under NCLB.

REDFEATHERS said:

Anybody who can't look beyond a name and stupid online antics needs to take a baseball bat, smash his/her computer screen, and go outside and enjoy life.

chocolate1 said:

My Sister is a Special Needs Helper at a School, Basically she sits with the Children who need help and, well, Helps them. She says the same thing that you did - My younger Brother was put into a Special Needs School because he had apparently a Short Attention span and wasn't learning. Funny thing is, if you were to meet him you would not believe it. His hobbies are far from someone who has an apparent short term attention holding ability - He writes computer programs, Designs Web Pages amongst other IT related stuff and he makes some amazing Wooden Carved Ornaments (I don't know the correct term for that!!)

chocolate1 said:

CRAP? Is that an acronym for a specialized program of some sort?

Anyhow, yeah, the CSET/PRAXIS tests suck ass. But again, there are plenty of complete idiots out there teaching the kids...

*looks in the mirror*

CuntOMatic said:

Will you do it for me, cos I am too pathetic to do it myself..

REDFEATHERS said:

Oh, I couldn't possibly do that. My butt cheeks are superglued to my chair. Don't even ask me how I use the bathroom.

I know ADHD and I know it's for real.
I know two kids that have it, but both in a different way. It is very hard for them, but I think equally hard on their parents and siblings.
With treatment and "therapy" (I'd rather call it education about the subject) for both the kids and parents it is a bit better, but it takes all available energy there is for each and everyone involved.

CRAP: (give me time- I'll come up with something! )

No, seriously: My dissertation is in 2 parts: I've been interviewing SpEd teachers, and I've met some who are being forced to teach subjects they don't want to and don't know because that's what their highly qualified in on paper, and some who can't teach what they know well, but "fall short on paper". I fit into the latter at this point. I love science, but those 3 points won't allow me to teach it anymore.

chocolate1 said:

Wow. That sucks. It is interesting to see how the government only views one type of test as valid, when ironically, we are now starting to view performance assessments as better. Especially in Special Ed.

I do hope that you're not teaching English, though.

CuntOMatic said:

I'm actually HQ in that. I teach more than one English class. I'm pretty good at that. Please don't judge my poor typing skills...

chocolate1 said:

Hm. I will try ever so hard not to. But the prevalence of those kinds of errors in the online world really scares the shit out of me. Honestly.

I just looked over your last reply carefully and missed the edit B4. Now I understand your remark. Up until just now, I'd been enjoying our discussion. I've been cleaning for a party, walking back and forth past my computer to see if there was a reply to my last comment each time. One little mistake...

I would never allow that in formal writing, or from my students. I see much worse from fellow Orgers on everyday threads, but I don't correct them.

chocolate1 said:

Sorry. I felt kinda mean pointing it out. You seem to be a very intelligent person, so I'm sure it was just a slip up. But then again, I am a total bitch.

CuntOMatic said:

Thus the name?
Thanks for the apology.
I just always tell my students that if U know what another person is saying, it just seems like you're trying to make yourself appear 'smarter' by correcting him/her in front of everybody. When I'm sitting, I read my posts over before clicking on "post". It was a mistake.

Actually, I need to sign off. I need to get dressed before the guests get here. I really did enjoy the discussion.

Take care!

My son has ADHD. He can't sit still, and is easily distracted. Every year I try taking him off his med, Adderall, to see if he really needs it. Every time I get a note from the teacher saying he's distracted or disruptive. I also trying nutritional supplements.

I have mild case of adult ADD, but I haven't notice any real benefit from medication.

whatever happened to being different?

giving children amphetamine is wrong-plain wrong

jonylawson said:

So are you.

so you are advocating the use of amphetamine to children?

if i had lived in america i too would have been on speed as a child-luckily i had good teachers and a great outlet to counter my "symptoms"

im going to hazzard a guess and say your american?

..wow, so many special ed teachers here..

OOPS SORRY I FORGOT WHAT THE THREAD ABOUT CUZ I WASNT PAYING ATTENTION

I used to work with 2 ADHD kids, one an absolute champ and one very difficult, but he also had other problems that were as yet undetermined.

US doctors are shitholes though, they seem to think that everything can be medicated away, and children should NOT be medicated unless it's an absolute necessity. The individual ed thingy that the special ed teachers on this thread are talking about is the way to go, no way do you need to medicate a "normal" ADD/ADHD child.

Often ADD/ADHD kids are perceiving the world differently and not able to compensate for it in a way that makes them seem normal. Sometimes they have hypersensitivities, or their sensory systems aren't working together properly. . . it can be a lot of things. But it can make them anxious, or "hyper", or antisocial. . . and certainly, it can cause them to have trouble paying attention to what other people think they should be paying attention to, because their own attentional priorities are skewed.

The organization I work for provides therapy for ADD. . . here's their take: http://www.handle.org/disordrs/add.html

HereToRockYourWorld said:

Spot on. When I worked with "my" ADHD kids I learned to see the world as they see it and it's NOT pretty, sensory overload anyone? At least from what I know here in Sweden there are a lot of special ed teachers and assistants (like I was) but the teaching material is seldom tailor made for these kids which makes things even harder for them. I took a look at the grade 7 math book with them in mind and quickly discovered that the little pics and stuff that are in the book to brighten it up for the "regular" kids, was devastating to mine - a simple pic of an unlabeled cd quickly led to Alex discussing playstation 2, on to what music I listen to and then off to his dad's gf's broken cd that wrecked their cd player. All this in about a minute before I derailed him and put him back on track. Jeez. I love the kids though

Teacher said:

Yeah, that's the thing. The world made for "normal" kids can be distracting -- or excruciating -- for some kids, and they don't know why things are so hard for them.

For example, there are some people with visual hypersensitivities for whom looking at a feild of white is painful. If you're one of them, and you're a kid being asked to focus on a whiteboard or an exam printed on white paper, you're not going to sit there and stare at it! But the kid can't know/explain, "hey, this is uncomfortable for me because I see differently than you do". It comes out as "misbehaving". They're really just surviving.

This is true for a LOT of kids with behavior problems. Most kids don't want to be bad. Their behavior has a root cause.

Medication can be appropriate, but it doesn't treat the root cause. Neurodevelopmental therapy is a very good idea for these kiddos.

how is this diagnosed?

brownsugar said:

The short answer is: it's not.

Diagnosis of ADD/ADHD is a really weird thing. Some doctors will call damn near anybody ADD, and some more or less don't believe in the label. Because there has been little research/focus on the actual cause, it's hard to pinpoint whether or not somebody "has" it.

But, basically, if a person has an unusually tough time focusing on things that other people can focus on, they might get an ADD diagnosis.