This Friday and Saturday was a very exciting weekend for me. I went to the Accessibility Summit at McLean Bible Church in Virginia. The church is huge. There were many different awesome vendors there that had books, toys and options for care and schooling for your child. I was happy I took the time to go this year.
I attended 2 general sessions and 5 different workshops. The first workshop was "Communicating Without Words". It was pretty much a cut and dry session showing parents and teachers different options on how to communicate with nonverbal children. That you should approach language issues through movement and also give them options to choose if they like something or not by using visual cues/cards. You can make your child aware you are going out to play by showing them a ball or a basket to show them it's time to eat, to prepare your child for that activity. The panelist also explained you should have something that tempts them to want to communicate. The best idea I got from it was to create a notebook of pictures and sentences that would allow Jordan to show teachers if something is bothering him, what it is, and what can be done to fix it.
I attended a general session and another workshop that night but Saturday morning was when I prompted to think of my daycare in a different way. It was our first general session for the day and a speaker by the name of Patrick Schwartz was up first. He is an adult with ADHD and engaged the audience with such enthusiasm it was hard not to enjoy him. He spoke to us about the stats within the disabled community. About how people with disabilities are 3 times more likely to live alone and if they do live with someone it is ten times more likely to be with their parents. More statistics are 72% are unemployed and over 90% of people with Autism are unemployed. But these things can be changed. It was brought to our attention that special needs people are segregated. The Bible tells us in
Galatians 3:38 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." It made me wonder should I change my perspective on my day care. I wanted to have a place where kids felt welcomed, had more children around that were more like them where they felt safe. But to start the kids out at a young age excepting those with special needs, will allow them to continue to be excepting when they grow older. The only issue is, when I don't have the space for a special need child because I also have typicals. It goes against why I wanted to start it in the first place.
I took a poll from a good friend who has a child with Autism and she said she would like it at a certain age. When they get old enough for inclusive opportunities and are in a better position to be introduced to, work with, and learn from typical children is when she feels it is okay. I truly value her opinion, but I would love to know others opinions. How would you feel about sending your child to a daycare, at any age, where there were typicals? Would you like to have the opportunity to have your child be exposed to typicals in the daycare setting? Would you rather have your child in an environment where dealing with special needs children is the main focus and have them be inclusive at other places like school, church, etc. Your opinion is very important to me and will help me moving forward in my decision to how I will operate once I get everything in order to start the day care. It will even change the name of the day care. Please click the link below to submit your answer. Thank you!!
https://www.pollcaster.com/c/poll/Ku3khj41sFiKNLYGlXtpccaaIJR
I attended a general session and another workshop that night but Saturday morning was when I prompted to think of my daycare in a different way. It was our first general session for the day and a speaker by the name of Patrick Schwartz was up first. He is an adult with ADHD and engaged the audience with such enthusiasm it was hard not to enjoy him. He spoke to us about the stats within the disabled community. About how people with disabilities are 3 times more likely to live alone and if they do live with someone it is ten times more likely to be with their parents. More statistics are 72% are unemployed and over 90% of people with Autism are unemployed. But these things can be changed. It was brought to our attention that special needs people are segregated. The Bible tells us in Galatians 3:38 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." It made me wonder should I change my perspective on my day care. I wanted to have a place where kids felt welcomed, had more children around that were more like them where they felt safe. But to start the kids out at a young age excepting those with special needs, will allow them to continue to be excepting when they grow older. The only issue is, when I don't have the space for a special need child because I also have typicals. It goes against why I wanted to start it in the first place.
