| Local Educator & School Psychologist Invited to Attend Learning
Disabilities Summit in Washington, DC.
Gail Kurtz, President of the Kurtz Center in Winter Park, and Denton
Kurtz, M.Ed., Licensed School Psychologist and Licensed Mental Health
Counselor are two of only two hundred participants nationwide invited to
hear and respond to findings from a series of white papers regarding learning
disabilities.
August 27-28, 2001. The Learning Disabilities Summit: Building a Foundation
for the Future will be held in Washington, DC on August 27 - 28, 2001.
This Summit is part of a national initiative sponsored by the Office of
Special Education Programs (OSEP) of the U.S. Department of Education.
OSEP has realized for some time that there is concern over the current
identification and assessment procedures for LD. This summit serves as
follow up to the 1997 IDEA regulations which called for careful review
of research findings, expert opinion, and practical knowledge regarding
the evaluation of children suspected of having a specific learning disability.
Early last year, OSEP began developing a process to open a discussion
on the identification and assessment of children with learning disabilities.
The primary goal is to synthesize and organize the most current and reliable
research available on key issues in learning disabilities.
The Learning Disabilities Summit will provide an opportunity for stakeholders
to hear and respond to findings from a series of white papers regarding
learning disabilities. Written by nationally recognized experts in the
field, each white paper reviews relevant empirical research and describes
several critical issues which include:
-
Early Childhood/Early Identification
-
Classification Approach
-
Historical Perspective
-
Approaches to Decision-Making
-
Discrepancy Models
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Alternative Responses to Intervention
-
Processing Deficit Models
-
Clinical Judgment
-
Is LD Real?
Back from the Summit
Gail and Denton Kurtz report that the Summit was intense. Each
person invited listened and learned and participated in making recommendations
for change. It was apparent that the identification of SLD's will
change. The greatest need identified was to offer successful treatment
programs to remediate LD;s, but it may be years before the Public Schools
will offer that type of programming.
Interested individuals can get the latest information on the summit
findings and the responses by contacting Denton
M. Kurtz at (407) 629-9003. |
