Archive for the ‘disability advocate’ Category

4 Parenting Tips: How to Overcome Blame, From Special Education Personnel

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Are you the parent of a child with autism that has been blamed for your child’s behavioral difficulties? Have you been told by special education personnel that your child’s learning disability, is your fault? This article will discuss a study of school psychologists about blame for children’s learning difficulties. And also, give you tips, on how to overcome the blame, placed by some disability educators.

Several years ago, I heard about a study where school psychologists were asked who they blamed, when a child had learning difficulties. The basic outcome of the study showed that 100% of the psychologists that were surveyed, placed the blame on the child or the parents. Not one school psychologist blamed the school district, teacher, inappropriate curriculum, lack of resources, or inadequate instruction, for children’s learning difficulties. Parents must overcome this blame, so that they can advocate for an appropriate education, for their child.

Tip 1: If a school person tells you that your child’s behavior, is because of something that is going on at home, stand up to them. Tell the person that you do not believe that this is true. If your child has autism, they may have a lot of behavioral difficulties due to their disability. Most families are not perfect, but most times do not “cause” a child’s behavioral difficulty; especially if the child’s behavioral difficulty is at school.

Tip 2: Try and figure out what your child is telling you by their behavior; perhaps the work is too hard, they are trying to avoid the work etc. Try and figure out the ABC’s of Behavior; A stands for antecedent (what was happening before the behavior), B stands for Behavior (what was the specific behavior), and C stands for the Consequence (what did the child get out of the behavior). By focusing on the behavior, and not the blame you will help your child.

Tip 3: If your child is struggling with academics due to a learning disability; make sure that they are receiving research based instruction, which is required by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Children with learning disabilities need a reading program with five principles: Simultaneous multi sensory, systematic and cumulative, direct interaction, diagnostic teaching, and analytic instruction. Check out www.ortongillingham.com for more information.

Tip 4: Tell the special education person, that your child has the right to a free appropriate public education, and you will be holding them accountable for that. Be honest, and bring up any school related reasons that you believe your child is having academic difficulty. Many schools continue using outdated curriculums that do not work.

You can overcome the blame that some disability educators try and place on your or your child. Continue to focus on your child, and their needs, and this will help you overcome the blame. Your child is depending on you!

Structured Settlement Or Lump Sum?

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

If you are involved with a legal decision, financial claim or insurance arrangement, the financing process to settle and resolve the claim can often take two forms. Either a one-time lump sum payment, or a long-term periodic series of deferred structured settlement payments. But which is best for your situation?

A structured settlement involves a financial or insurance arrangement which includes a periodic stream of payments, that a claimant or plaintiff accepts in order to resolve a personal injury claim or other legal case. They were first utilized in Canada and the United States during the 1970s as an alternative to lump sum payments and are now part of the statutory tort law of several common law countries.

A structured settlement is a deferred payment method for compensating injury victims, and is a voluntary agreement between the injury victim ( plaintiff ) and the defendant. The plaintiff will receive the monetary payout over the course of a number of years through this deferred payment agreement. Under a structured settlement, an injury victim does not receive compensation for their injuries in one lump sum, but rather, they will receive a stream of tax free payments designed to meet future expenses and living needs. This type of compensation method is becoming more popular in a wide variety of legal cases.

The benefits of a structured settlement over a lump-sum payment include the security of a guaranteed long-term income with deferred payments that are exempt from income taxes. The federal government encourages the use of structured settlements in personal injury cases. Structured settlements also attract support from plaintiff attorneys, state attorneys general, legislators, consumer and disability advocates.

Structured settlements can be ideally suited for cases with:

• Persons with disabilities
• Guardianship cases that may involve minors
• Workers compensation cases
• Wrongful death cases
• Severe injury case

Want to Sell Your Structured Settlement?
Not everyone benefits from a long-term payment situation and some may want or need a lump sum instead. The owner of a structured settlement, such as lottery winners, medical, insurance, accident and lawsuit settlement owners, can often sell their rights to the deferred payment stream, in exchange for a one time lump sum payment from a variety of financial institutions. All situations are different, and as with any financial or legal issue, you should always consult your accountant and attorney.

The Special Olympics Got Game Too

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Eunice Kennedy Shriver passed away on Tuesday August 11,2009. She was the founder of the Special Olympics and a lifetime advocate for people with intellectual disabilities. The Special Olympics is a movement of sports training and athletic competition for those that have intellectual disabilities. Shriver believed that people with intellectual disabilities deserve the same opportunities and experiences as others.

No matter what the disability, a person still has a talent, a skill, and a gift to give to the world when encouraged doing so. Using sports as a display of abilities brings about respect, acceptance and inclusion. Persons with disabilities benefit by seeing in themselves that they too have talents and it helps them to feel better about themselves. It also serves as a teaching tool to those who may have thought that disabled people were useless until they were afforded the opportunities to witness their grand performances.

The venue of sports has a way of bringing people together from all walks of life, nationalities, cultures, races and backgrounds. Along with the exercises, discipline and vigorous training that it takes to be athletically fit to play a specific sport; building character, strength, strong muscles, and team work.

No wonder the Bible is full of metaphors that compare the Christian life to that of an athlete. Since everyone seems to be able to relate to sports, God used these metaphors to help us understand the Christian life. No matter what physical or mental state we are in, we all have talents, skills, and gifts that have been given to us by God. But many times we are not encouraged to use them or to even find out what they are. Which is especially frustrating for those that have disabilities. Instead we must go after them, train, and master our skills like an athlete does for his specific sport. Athletes know what their talents and skills are and will train in that specific sport. Some people spend their time going after a talent that they do not have because they like it. Or because someone else has the talent that they want. But not athletes, they will not train in a sport that they do not have the talent for. They are content with their own God given abilities and not the abilities that someone else has. They know that they can find their significance and place in society by using their own God given talents and skills. Which is what Eunice Kennedy Shriver did to help the intellectually disabled find their significance through the Special Olympics.

Social Security Disability Appeal Advocates

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

When you go to a Social Security Disability hearing and you decided to do it alone without a disability advocate or attorney the chances of winning your case may drop or this may severely hurt the chances of being awarded benefits you really need.

Here is a very strong argument that you may not have heard before when it comes to getting adequate representation from disability advocates, and it happens to be based on experience from advocates that have been in the business for well over a decade.

A disability advocate was contacted by a claimant that was denied during their SSDI hearing. Advocates obtain a copy of the recording of the hearing process, as all SSDI hearings are recorded for just this reason. When the advocate listened to the audio tape, he noticed a few things that stood out immediately as proof that having an advocate on your side can really make a difference.

The hearing in question lasted less than a total of ten minutes, despite the fact that the average hearing typically goes for at least thirty minutes. When a hearing doesn’t even take twenty minutes, red flags are thrown up.

During the hearing in question, the judge never made an effort to advise the claimant that she had a right to fair representation.

Finally, the judge didn’t take the time to ask the claimant about any recent medical treatment since her initial application, nor did he try to gather any updated medical information so that her record could be updated, meaning that the SSA did not have her most recent information on file, and was lacking evidence that could have helped her in this process.

If this claimant had an attorney or another representative with her, this would not have been allowed to happen. She would have had someone on her side who could have informed her of her options, and made sure that the judge had all of the pertinent information, old and new.

From here, then, you have a choice between two options. There are advocates that will work to represent the claimants, or you have the choice to choose an attorney to hire, for this you can choose a lawyer that mainly handles these claims or one who is not a specialist in this line of law.

Neither of these options can provide you with a guarantee that they will be successful in securing the benefits that you are making the application for. This legal representation will guarantee that you will be ready for your hearing and properly prepared. This is one of the best things you can do when applying for Social Security benefits, as these professionals will know what to look for when it comes to making your best case.

There is no reason not to come equipped with an advocate on your side when applying for SSDI or appealing a decision regarding your SSDI and SSI benefits. Having SSDI experts on your side provides you with relief that someone is in your corner who knows what they are doing when filing for disability insurance or appealing a decision.

Search
Archive

You are currently browsing the archives for the disability advocate category.