The LINK Volume 16 | September 2024 | |
10th Annual Creating Your Own Path
Autism Conference
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This year’s Creating Your Own Path Autism Conference was an amazing experience for everyone in attendance thanks to our wonderful presenters and Dr. Temple Grandin! Thank you to everyone who worked behind the scenes to make this conference a success and to everyone who attended! | |
During the conference, Lisa Bryant (third from left) was presented with the Matt Armstrong Autism Advancement Achievement Award. The award is named in honor and remembrance of Matt Armstrong, former DMH Deputy Executive Director, who dedicated his life to enhancing the lives of Mississippians who have autism and their families. He made an enduring contribution to improving services and the quality of life for those on the autism spectrum.
Lisa Bryant, the recipient of this year’s award, has spent her career helping shape services for people with autism in Mississippi. She is a founding board member of TEAAM Autism, the author of the original Kamp Kaleidoscope grant, founding board member of the first Statewide Autism Board, helped develop the Statewide Autism Training Initiative, and provided leadership for many other contributions to the families in our state.
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Special Education Law Conference & CLE | |
The 10th Annual Special Education Law Conference & CLE was held on Thursday, July 30, 2024 at Mississippi College School of Law in Jackson, MS. The conference included legal and policy updates in special education, an overview of conflict resolution and attorney fee options, the essential and lawful role of lay advocates and a panel presentation on resolving conflicts with views from multiple perspectives.
Diana MTK Autin, Esquire, was a featured speakers at the conference. For 28 years, she served as Executive Director or Executive Co-Director of the SPAN Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN), New Jersey’s Parent Training and Information Center. During that time, SPAN has been involved in multiple class action lawsuits regarding special education, including cases focused on inclusion, especially for children of color who are most overrepresented in segregated settings; the State Special Education Code; and most recently, New Jersey's failure to ensure due process hearing decisions are issued within the required 45 calendar days of request.
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Embrace Abilities: Coffee with Caregivers | |
MSPTI Parent Educator, Nellie Alliston, presented "Steps for Success: Making IEP Meetings Work" during Embrace Abilities' event, Coffee with Caregivers, on August 31 in Ocean Springs, MS. Parent toolkits were also given to all those in attendance and included special education advocacy books and resources. | |
Why is physical education important? How is it helpful to me, as an individual with a disability? | |
Classes can teach you to care for your body and learn physical, mental, and emotional skills that include:
- Motor skills (training to use your muscles for certain things, such as swinging a baseball bat to hit a ball, or running very hard in a race)
- Physical fitness (keeping healthy and strong by exercising your body)
- Social-emotional skills, teamwork, social play skills
- Skills for athletics like team sports like soccer or basketball or individual athletics like gymnastics or dance
- Skills for recreation like biking, swimming, hiking, throwing frisbees, playing games with friends
How Adapted PE works:
Access or accessible means how easy it is to do, to get, or understand something.
There are four main areas where changing general PE curriculum (school courses) may help you access PE. Some of these changes will benefit ALL students using the general PE curriculum.
- The physical space can be changed to work well for all students:
- The size of the space and the number of other students can affect how accessible the PE class is for you.
- Lighting, sound, and what you see can all affect your comfort in a class. Making thoughtful changes to these things can make a PE class more accessible.
- Teaching: the teacher gathers information about individual students to make sure that they use teaching methods that are accessible to everyone. This might mean spoken instructions, movements, pictures, written words, showing how to do something, or videos.
- Equipment: depending on your disability, you might need PE equipment to move more slowly, be bigger or smaller, easier to feel, be easier to see and other changes like those.
- Rules: to make sure PE includes everyone, rules of the game may need to be added or taken away.
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October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month | |
Central Mississippi Down Syndrome Society Buddy Walk
October 5
Trustmark Park
Pearl, MS
Click here to register
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21 United of Mississippi Buddy Walk
October 20 @ 2:00 PM
Old Armory Pavillion
Oxford, MS
Click here to register
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Independence, Here We Come!
Thursday, October 3
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Click here to register
Building Social Connections: An Introduction to the PEERS Program for Parents
Tuesday, October 22
12:00 PM - 12:30 PM
Click here to register
What Is UDL (Universal Design for Learning)? An Introduction for Families
Monday, October 28
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Click here to register
Children and Lead: What We Don't Know Can Hurt Them
Tuesday, October 29
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Click here to register
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