STARnet Illinois Region IV Workshops
April 9. 9:00 - 3:00 p.m. Using Functional Assessment to Remove the Challenge from Challenging Behaviors in Young Children. This workshop will describe the functional assessment approach and positive interventions to address challenging behavior of young children with and without special needs. Participants will view videotaped case studies, work in small and large groups, and receive handouts. Presenters: Lynette K. Chandler and Roger C. Lubeck. Location: Gallery, St. Clair County Regional Office of Education, Belleville, IL. For information contact Kathy Hollowich at STARnet, 397-8930, extension 168.
Illinois TASH Conference. Oak Brook, IL, February 22-24. Contact: Mark Doyle, (630) 644-0828.
ICEARC Retreat: Imaging the Future sponsored by The ARC of Illinois and the Illinois Conference of Executives of The Arc. February 24-26. Regal Knickerbocker Hotel, 163 E. Walton Place, Chicago, IL 60611. (312) 751-8100. For more information contact The Arc of Illinois at (708) 206-1930.
Recipe for Fun. Family Conference. Especially for families of children with special needs (birth-21). March 27, 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. Keller Conference Center, Effingham. Pre-registration is required: $25 per family. Registration fee waived for all families of children birth-5. Co-sponsored by STARnet Region IV, Family Matters, and K.E.Y. LIC. Contact Sharon Gage, STARTnet, 397-8930, extension 169.
Resources
IMPACT, Inc., in conjunction with Families T.I.E.S. will be holding a series of intensive advocacy trainings covering a variety of topics. Sessions will be held in April and May (approximately 32 hours). Call Missy or Deb at IMPACT: 462-1411.
The Down Syndrome Association of Greater St. Louis Monthly Parent Play Group meets every second Thursday of each month at 211 North Lindbergh from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. For more information call Karen Voda at (314) 645-8939
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moonlight is the newsletter of the Riverbend Down Syndrome Association. It is made possible by the William M. BeDell Achievement and Resource Center, 400 South Main, Wood River, IL 62095, (618) 251-2175.
Editor: Victor Bishop |
- Tiny Pals (3-12 months)
- Mini Pals (12-24 months)
- Motor Pals (2-3 years)
News Clipping
Music Study Boosts Recall of Words by the Associated Press.
Musical training appears to tune up the brain's ability to remember words, too.
Confirming what many music teachers have long believed, psychologists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong found a 16 percent better word memorization on average for adults who studied music as children. The findings are in today's journal Nature.
The study involved 30 college students with at least six years of musical instruction before age 12 and 30 students with no such training. The musically trained were found better at recalling words read to them from a list.
However, they were no better at remembering and drawing simple designs from memory.
The researchers noted that the planum temporale region of the brain, behind the left ear, is known to be larger in musicians. That part of the brain also handles verbal memory.
The researchers suggested that music training may be an entertaining and useful way of improving verbal memory in children.
Psychologist Frances Rauscher, who works on the cognitive effects of musical training at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, said the research fits into a growing body of work suggesting that music training cements some neural pathways in the brain, preparing it for other tasks, too.
Something for Stevie, fiction by Dan Anderson. rpm Magazine for Truckers, November 1998, URL: http://www.rpmfortruckers.com/. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher and author.
I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn't sure I wanted one. I wasn't sure how my customers would react to Stevie. He was short, a little dumpy, with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Down syndrome. I wasn't worried about most of my trucker customers, because truckers don't generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.
The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college kids traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded "truckstop germ" the pairs of white shirted business men on expense accounts who think every truckstop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie, so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.
I shouldn't have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truckstop mascot. After that I really didn't care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible, when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was convincing him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus the dishes and glasses onto cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met.
That's why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work. He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Down syndrome often had heart problems at a early age, so this wasn't unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months.
A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery and doing fine. Frannie, my head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance the aisle when she heard the good news. Belle Ringer, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of the 50 year old Grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table. Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Belle Ringer a withering look.
He grinned. "OK, Frannie, what was that all about?" he asked.
"We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay"
Frannie quickly told Belle Ringer and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie's surgery, then sighed.
"Yeah, I'm glad he is going to be OK," she said, "but I don't know how he and his mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they're barely getting by as it is."
Belle Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables.
Since I hadn't had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie, and really didn't want to replace him, the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do.
After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand a funny look on her face.
"What's up?" I asked.
"I didn't get that table where Belle Ringer and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pony Pete and Tony Tipper were sitting there when I got back to clean it off, " she said, "This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup."
She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed "Something For Stevie."
"Pony Pete asked me what that was all about," she said, "so I told him about Stevie and his mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this."
She handed me another paper napkin that had "Something For Stevie" scrawled on it's outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply "truckers."
Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting.
"Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast," I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. "Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me."
I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room. I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession.
We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins.
"First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess," I said. I tried to sound stern.
I turned to his mother. "There's more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. Happy Thanksgiving."
Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well... But you know what's funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table... Best worker I ever hired...
Web Wanderings
Different Roads to Learning, 12 West 18th Street, Suite 3E, NY, NY 10011. 1 (800) 853-1057, Fax: 1 (800) 317-9146. E-mail: info@difflearn.com URL: http://www.difflearn.com is an on-line catalog specializing in learning materials and playthings for children with developmental delays and challenges. This catalog puts together educational toys and materials that stimulate the skills leading to speech and language for challenged children ages 2 to 10.
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