NEISD to pilot Down syndrome reading program

from My San Antonio by Lindsay Kastner:

Marie Livingston, the mother of an 8-year-old with Down syndrome, was at a conference in Austin about three years ago when she first heard about the research that she hopes will pave the way for her daughter to learn to read.

“I was listening to these people speak about the progress children can make,” Livingston said. “If you have a child with Down syndrome, you know what a big deal that is.”

Now, thanks in large part to her efforts, the British-born program will be replicated in the North East Independent School District – its first such attempt outside the United Kingdom.

The program is based on the work of Kelly Burgoyne, a researcher with Down Syndrome Education International, whose UK study found that children who received 20 weeks of specially-designed intervention for 40 minutes a day could significantly improve their reading and language skills.

Livingston's child attends a private school in New Braunfels but she began collaborating with North East ISD because the larger district has more resources to carry out a pilot of the program.

“We're always looking for something new,” said Judith Moening, NEISD's executive director for special education.

Burgoyne said her study is the first randomized controlled trial of reading and language in children with Down syndrome. It included about 60 children.

Students receiving the interventions learned to read more words than their peers who did not. After two 20-week sessions, 48 children were able to score on a reading test, compared with 32 before interventions began.

Some children progressed faster than others, Burgoyne said, noting that all of the participants had Down syndrome but some had brain damage or other disabilities as well.

She said her work is based on successful practices for instructing any child to read, with special adaptations for children with Down syndrome — who, for example, are typically good visual learners, which her program takes into account.

The program also incorporates phonics, sight words and new vocabulary.

“We were on the edge of our chairs,” Livingston said, describing the first time she saw videos of elementary-age participants in England reading short story books from cover to cover. She said that, intellectually, her own daughter is considered at the high end of the range for children with Down syndrome but can't read like the children in the videos.

Ten children between the ages of 5 and 8 will participate in the pilot here, including Livingston's daughter, Lilly. Her teacher from New Braunfels Christian Academy will also take part.

All 10 will receive the interventions, but not until the spring semester. For now, they and their teachers will carry on as usual. Periodic evaluations will help Burgoyne determine later if the interventions have any impact on learning.

Last week, she was here in San Antonio to conduct baseline assessments of the children in the pilot.

On Wednesday morning, Burgoyne met with 6-year-old Rafael Hildalgo for a roughly hour-long battery of tests.

Burgoyne held up a card with pictures of a lion, a bear, a cat, and a giraffe. “Where's the lion?” she asked and Rafael pointed. Other tests required Rafael to read increasingly difficult words and to describe simple pictures.

“Wow!” Rafael exclaimed when Burgoyne produced a new test booklet.

The only costs to North East are in staff time to train teachers and implement the new program, Moening said.

“It's an opportunity for our teachers to participate in something that's pretty exciting,” she said.

A foundation started by Livingston, called LLQ USA, will cover other expenses and is continuing to raise money.

Burgoyne is to return in January for another assessment and to train teachers. Students at the University of Texas at San Antonio will pitch in to help with evaluations.

If the pilot is successful, Burgoyne plans to conduct a larger trial.

Livingston said she hopes that one day her daughter will be able to take written tests and even write book reports.

“Everything in the education world has to do with knowing how to read,” she said.

Girl with Down syndrome arrested in Pakistan for burning verses of the Koran

from Dawn.com:
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s president on Monday called on officials to explain the arrest on blasphemy charges of a Christian girl with Down’s Syndrome who allegedly burnt pages inscribed with verses from the Quran.
There is a growing debate about religious intolerance in Pakistan, where strict anti-blasphemy laws make defaming Islam or desecrating the Quran punishable by death.
Police said the girl, Rifta, was arrested in a Christian slum of the capital last Thursday and remanded in custody for 14 days after a furious Muslim mob demanded she be punished.
A police official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said the girl was in her teens. Activists say she is 11 years old.
President Asif Ali Zardari took “serious note” of the arrest and called on the interior ministry to submit a report on the case, state media said.
His government was heavily criticised in the West for refusing to reform the anti-blasphemy law, despite the assassinations of a leading politician and a Christian cabinet minister in 2011.
Some reports suggested the girl had been burning papers collected from the rubbish for cooking when someone entered her house and accused the family of burning pages inscribed with verses from the Quran.
Human rights activists say the law is often used to settle petty disputes.
Muslim anger over the alleged incident forced Christians to flee the Mehrabad slum, home to hundreds of Christians 20 minutes’ drive from Western embassies.
“These Christians had sought shelter with their relatives in other parts of the city but now they are gradually returning to Mehrabad,” a senior official of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, told AFP.
He said the girl had Down’s Syndrome — a condition which causes various degrees of learning difficulties — and disputed the age given by police.
“She was just 11 to 12 years old,” he said, adding his organisation wanted the hugely sensitive case resolved “amicably”.The Women’s Action Forum (WAF), a leading Pakistani organisation fighting for the rights of women, condemned Riftaa’s arrest.
Spokeswoman Tahira Abdullah demanded her immediate release and expressed outrage at the “total inhumanity” of the men who lodged the case with police.
Police should have dealt with the case under the Juvenile Justice System, she said, accusing police of not allowing lawyers or civil society representatives to visit the girl.
Punjab governor Salman Taseer was assassinated in January 2011 and minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti two months later for their opposition to the blasphemy law.
They had taken up the plight of a Christian mother sentenced to death for blasphemy in late 2010. She remains in prison.
Last month, a Pakistani mob snatched a mentally unstable man from a village police station and beat him to death in central Punjab province after he allegedly burned pages from a Quran.

*****

more from Fox News:

But some police officials doubt reports that Rimsha burned parts of the Koran.
Qasim Niazi said when the girl was brought to the police station she had a shopping bag that contained various religious and Arabic-language papers that had been partly burned, but no Koran.
Another police officer said the matter would likely be dropped once the investigation is completed and the atmosphere is defused, saying there was "nothing much to the case." He did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the case.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/08/20/christian-girl-with-down-syndrome-faces-death-penalty-for-allegedly-burning/#ixzz2475iQ7hg

*****

Facebook response from GDSF, NDSS, DSEi, IDSC, and NDSC:
The Global Down Syndrome Foundation, the National Down Syndrome Society, Down Syndrome Education International and the International Down Syndrome Coalition have joined together in shared concern over the fate of Rifta Masih, a young Pakistani girl reported to have Down syndrome, who allegedly was jailed and faces life-threatening implications.
People with Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities are a vulnerable population. Although early intervention and inclusion in some nations has meant great gains for many, there are still people with intellectual disabilities who have difficulty processing information or fully understanding the consequences of their actions.
We hope and expect that people from all countries and cultures, including those in the United States, will take this into account in terms of how people with Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities are handled in police- and security-related matters. We strongly encourage the Pakistani police to ensure the young girl's safety and to allow family members and others who are known and trusted by the girl to stay with her to the extent that detention is necessary for her own protection.
It is very difficult for most people with intellectual disabilities to be taken out of their routine, and sometimes this may trigger agitated or uncontrollable behavior. We hope that this young girl will be able to return to the routine where she is safe and happy. We join others in urging restraint and compassion in this situation.