Around the Community
February 18, 2011 in Featured by Admin Dawn
Have you voted for us yet?
Your nominations have been tallied, and five online communities have been selected to vie for a 2011 About.com Readers’ Choice Award. Before you go to the poll, you may want to take a moment to read more about each of the candidates, and review the Readers’ Choice Award FAQ for more information on the awards. You can vote once a day for as many days as you like between now and March 8. Winners will be announced on March 15.
You can vote for us every day until March 8th! Just enter your vote here: Vote for Best Special-Needs Online Community
Remember: Our Valentine What’s in a Name Giveaway is open until midnight PST tonight, February 18th!
Check it out here and then be sure to enter!
Share Your Celebrations
We’ve removed the Achievements plugin that people found confusing and instead we’re going to start featuring your family’s TRUE achievements! Has your child done his homework every single night this week without complaining? Did your daughter wow her physical therapist? Did you reach your own personal goal? We want to know! On the sidebar of our blog posts (see it over there to the left?) we’ve put up a form that lets you submit an entry for our blog under the new Celebrations! category. Once you submit and we approve it it’ll go out to let us all know your good news.
Don’t hold back!
We want to celebrate each other! This is different than our Community News feature. Community News is for news. A great blog post, an event you want us all to know about, something your local newspaper’s web site is featuring. But Celebrate! is for our personal victories. When we start getting submissions we’ll add a Celebrate! link to our navigation menu up there at the top of our site.
Welcome to New Members
Lora - I am a single mom of a wonderful 5 year old little girl. Jamie has Cerebral Palsy. She was officially diagnosed when she was 1 an half. She has had seizures since day one. In her short but sweet 5 years so far she has had seizures, CVI, lazy eye, dislocated hip, hip surgery(which didn’t work), Sensory disorders, a type of asthma, two brain haemorrhage’s at birth, severe allergies to food drugs and environmental and so much more that I can not begin to think of right off hand. My daughter is my angel. She is such a happy child. She loves the outdoors. She always seems to have a smile on her face no matter what. She hopefully will begin school this fall. I am excited but ever so nervous. As she will be going during the flu season and she can’t have the flu shot. Anyways, to wrap things up I try to do the best that I can for my baby girl and I love her ever so much.
Sue Robinson – Son slowly being diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder. Just turned 4 and has been having more of a difficult time. I am trying my best to learn more, be patient, but seem to be losing my cool more often than not.
Vanessa Infanzon – Mom to three boys, wife to husband of 13 years. Our oldest son has a thin corpus callosum and another undefined genetic disorder. He uses a walker to get around and does not talk. I stay at home for now, but look forward to writing more as the kids get older. I also facilitate team building and leadership activities for college age students.
Martin Frantz – For 32 years, I was a career prosecutor where I vigorously defended vulnerable populations like child victims of sexual assault. I retired and started a law practice helping families with special needs children. I was inspired by my son who was born 18 years ago with Down syndrome. As my son approached adulthood, I wrestled with tax laws and state regulations for disabled children. That’s when I decided to put what I learned together with my passion for helping kids.
I provide estate planning that will conserve assets and minimize taxes while maximizing the potential for your disabled son or daughter.
Christy – I am a mother of 3–a boy and 2 girls. We’ve been on the “journey” since my son was 1 1/2, but he was officially diagnosed with “mild Asperger’s Syndrome” around age 8. He is now 12.
Lisa Noel – Blogger and fulltime working mom of three boys, two of which are dx’d and treated for ADHD.
Gina Gareau-Clark - I have adorable twin daughters with mitochondrial disease, and still testing for other diagnoses. I am the Executive Program Director for the Dare To Hope Foundation, contributor to the Children’s rare Disease Network, and a member of Parent to Parent’s Cobb Navigator Team. I run a small cake decorating business out of my house, http://www.twintierscakery.com
Annette Kay Fortner – I am a mother who has 2 young kids, boy (11) who has ADHD and an Auditory Processing Disorder, and a girl (6) who has developmental delays and has been in therapy for those since she was 9 mos. and that ended, but is continuing because of her motor difficulties. She also has a speech delay. My husband is in the navy and has been in for 19 years now and will soon be retiring. We are young..34 for me and 39 for him. It is very hard dealing with special needs kids and no one understands, so I am here for support.
christine – I’m 31 with 3 kids
coleen shiffert – I am 28 years old and a mother of 6 beautiful children. My 5 year old daughter Shelby was diagnosed with developmental delays and intellectual disabilities when she was about 1-2 years old. She also has failure to thrive (she has a g-tube), Kidney reflux, heart murmurs, growth hormone disorder (at 5 she only weighs 25 pounds), and hypothyroidism. My daughter is my hero for all the obstacles she has overcome and for all the strength she has. I have a wonderful and supportive family who keep me going even when i don’t think i can go on. I am truly blessed!
Anne Zachry – I am a pediatric occupational therapist with over 18 years experience providing occupational therapy to children, along with caregiver instruction and support. I have a PhD in Educational Psychology. I’ve had articles published in my profession’s trade magazine and in peer-reviewed journals. I am currently employed as a school OT in Tennessee, working with students having issues ranging from mild fine motor problems to severe physical disabilities. I am certified to administer the Sensory Int System.
Have a blog?
Be sure to send me your link so I can add your feed to our activity stream! That way we can all keep up with your blog posts. Just send it to dawn@supportforspecialneeds.com
Some children may demonstrate difficulties or delays with fine motor development due to developmental delays or medical diagnoses such as Cerebral Palsy, Autism, or Down Syndrome. Other children may develop fine motor difficulties from a lack of opportunity and practice. Children are spending much less time playing with fine motor manipulatives and constructing crafts, instead choosing to play video games and watch television. This can result in poor development of the muscles in the arm and hand which further leads to handwriting and cutting difficulties when in school.
Sometimes, parents are intimidated by the committee of experts facing them in the meeting (those kid-sized chairs don’t help either!). I try to empower my clients and remind them that they are the parents—who knows their child better? No one! It’s always important to listen to the assessors, teachers and other service providers who are working with your child, but let your gut be your guide. This means that you should feel confident about asking questions and expressing any disagreements you have about your child’s abilities and needs. For example, an IEP will indicate your child’s “present levels of performance.” If a blanket statement is made such as, “Sam is a delightful child with many friends,” and you happen to know that Sam is a delightful child with such a severe language disorder that he cannot participate in age-appropriate conversations and therefore does not have many friends, speak up about this.
