Links

Consultants:


Debbie Strayer
Family Educational Resources combines expertise with homeschooling experience to offer products that assist and encourage. Designed with busy homeschoolers in mind, Debbie's tools are based on sound principles of learning. The materials and support offered are time-tested, practical, and effective: they are designed to build a child's ability to think and do. Check out the inspiring and humorous informational articles.
Diana Vaniotos, M.A. Ed.
Provides comprehensive educational assessments for parents and educators that demystifies learning problems and stimulates client awareness of strengths so those strengths can be used to compensate areas of weakness. Diana also offers reading therapy and consulting to families with children in private, public, and home school settings.
Dianne Craft, MA, CNHP
Dianne Craft provides educational and nutritional counseling which will help improve your child's learning and behavior.
Jean Wetherilt
Jean Wetherilt
A pediatric Occupational Therapist, Jean offers home school consulting and guidance in selecting therapy programs. Contact her at: jwetherilt@hotmail.com
Kathy Kuhl
Focuses on helping children with AD/HD, LD, and/or autism.
Mariaemma Willis
Mariaemma Willis
Mariaemma offers special needs home school consulting. Contact her at (805) 648-1739
Marian S. Soderholm, M.A., LD Specialist
(562) 425-7886
Marian's service, The Nature of Learning, offers home school consulting specifically designed to help students meet their learning challenges and gain understanding of how they learn. She evaluates students for learning interferences or disabilities and designs appropriate educational programs. She offers a reasonably priced learning assessment battery of tests specially designed to discover your student's learning style, strengths and capabilities.
Mary Gusman
Mary is listed with HSDLA as a Special Needs Educational Consultant and focuses in working with families who are home schooling children with autism. She works with families nationwide via phone and email consultations, offering a free 30-minute phone consultation to any new clients at no obligation. In addition to helping set educational goals, choose or modify curriculum, sheteaches parents how to implement therapies at home, such as applied behavior analysis (ABA), relationship development intervention (RDI), neurodevelopmental therapy, social skills therapy, verbal behavior therapy, and speech and language therapy.
Mother of Divine Grace School
Offers curriculum consulting, student assessment, record-keeping and transcript services with a classical, Catholic approach. The kindergarten through 12th grade curriculum is based on Laura Berquist's Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum. Special Needs consultants work with parents to adapt curriculum to their child's needs. (805)-646-5818.
Sharon Wallace
Sharon Wallace
Sharon offers consulting for families home schooling children with special needs under the auspices of Bethel Baptist Academy. Contact at (714) 990-0199
Susan Eckert

PATHWAYS TO LEARNING provides individualized, educational therapy and tutoring to K-6 students with dyslexia, learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Auditory Processing Disorders. Instruction includes multi-sensory, research based programs designed to improve phonological awareness, reading – phonics, fluency, comprehension, spelling, printing, cursive, writing, and learning strategies.

Susan Eckert, M.A., B.C.E.T. (Sunnyvale, CA)

Board Certified Educational Therapist

#10075

408-249-2011

Path2Learn@aol.com

Services:


AIT Institute for Berard Auditory Integration Training
AIT is a 10 day educational intervention that helps those diagnosed with auditory processing disorders (APD), autism (ASD), ADD/ADHD, SPD and other learning disabilities to improve the quality of their lives and learning.
All Kinds of Minds
All Kinds of Minds provides programs, tools, and a common language for parents, educators, and clinicians to help students with differences in learning achieve success in the classroom and in life. All Kinds of Minds is a private non-profit Institute that offers a powerful system of programs that have been developed by Dr. Mel Levine and his colleagues based on scientific research and over twenty-five years of clinical experience.
College of Optometrists in Vision Development
A certifying body and organization of doctors who specialize in Behavioral/Developmental/Rehabilitative Optometry.
Great Plains Labs
Biomedical testing and information.
NACD
The National Academy for Child Development is an organization of parents and professionals that help individuals with disabilities to reach their full potential. NACD provides detailed
Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic
Educational library for people with print disabilities. 83,000 titles available in taped textbooks, reference and professional materials, K - post-graduate studies.
Tape Ministries
Offers over 1000 Chistian books on tape for people who are blind, disabled or sight-impaired.
Varied Abilities School and Training Network (VAST Network)
A network of home educators and specialists that provide consultation, support and resources to families with children with special needs.
Wisdom Seekers
A special education tutor and consultant for nine years, Sue Hegg, M.A. has also taught school for 20 years. She offers in person and telephone consultations for home educators, parents, tutors and teachers. Wisdom Seekers offers educational materials for special needs learners as well as tips on teaching techniques and project ideas.

Support and Information:


CABF Learning Center
This supportive web site offers information on recognizing Bipolar Disorder in both children and adults. Also known as manic-depression, Bipolar Disorder is a treatable illness marked by extreme changes in mood, behavior and energy.
Do2Learn
Activities to help children and adults with special learning needs - printable grids, cards and charts.
Friends of Children with Special Needs
FCSN is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing support, friendship, and life skills to developmentally disabled individuals and their families. Founded in 1996 to provide support to Chinese-American immigrants, FCSN has since expanded to a membership of over 300 families, serving around 150 individuals with autism, downs syndrome, and cerebral palsy. Seminars are offered every other week in San Jose, and local theraputic and play groups are located in various cities in the Bay Area of California.
Homeschooling Kids With Disabilities
Homeschooling Kids With Disabilities offers information and support to people who have chosen to homeschool their children with special educational needs. Links directly to sites offer excellent information on a wide variety of topics, such as Adaptive/Assistive Technology, AD/HD, Autism, Advocacy, Speech and Language, Writing and much more.
HopeandHealing.org
A ministry of the Church Health Center in Memphis, TN. offers resources around faith and healing, health ministries, and parish nursing.

Inspirational articles: This article was written by a FedEx executive in Memphis who writes about the spiritual support he found while feeling in shock and out of control over his special needs daughter.

http://www.hopeandhealing.org/contentPage.aspx?resource_id=298 .

Another article about a child with autism:
http://www.hopeandhealing.org/contentPage.aspx?resource_id=167 .
Joni and Friends
NATHHAN
National Challenged Homeschoolers Associated Network (NATHHAN) offers a variety of services including a publication, information, referrals, and a library.
National Center on Birth Defects and Disabilities ~ Interactive Developmental Milestones
This handy tool allows parents to select the age of their child, then fill in the child's developmental milestones through an interactive program. The chart displays the next developmental step in a child's social and emotional, cognitive, or language areas. The information helps parents to communicate with therapists and doctors and prepares them to recognize developmental progress in various categories.
Online Teaching Reading Help from Mary Pecci
The OnlineReadingTeacher.Com Message Board, hosted by Mary Pecci, M.A., author of At Last! A Reading Method for Every Child.
Parents Active for Vision Education
A national non-profit  whose mission is to raise awareness of the crucial relationship between vision and achievement. It also provides information on Vision Therapy and Developmental Optometrists.
Parents Helping Parents
PHP is a 28-year-old nonprofit, family resource center that benefits children with special needs. This includes children of all ages (birth through life) and all backgrounds who have a need for special services due to any special need, including but not limited to illness, cancer, accidents, birth defects, neurological conditions, premature birth, learning or physical disabilities, mental health issues, and attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder to name a few.
Precious Aromatherapy
Least understood of the five senses, the olfactory sense is directly linked to the limbic system of the brain. Essential oils inhaled have a direct effect upon the brain influencing emotions and feelings. Aromatherapy then, is the use of pure and essential absolute oils in the healing process of the whole person. (Sharon Hensley has used these oils in the home and in the bath quite successfully with her autistic daughter.)
Schwab Learning
Schwab Learning provides free information, resources, publications and support to parents of children with learning differences and to kids themselves through two Web sites and Outreach and Community Services. This site is especially helpful to families who have recently discovered their child's learning difficulties.
Sensory Integration Network
Provides current sensory integration resources to families, professionals and consumers. Learn more about sensory integration dysfunction, how to find an Occupation Therapist, and how to join a parent mediated list server.
The Special Olympics of Northern California

Additional Curriculum and Resources for Special Education:


ALEKS
An online math program. Targets gaps in knowledge and allows self-paced learning and practice.
Barton Reading & Spelling
A one-on-one tutoring program for children and adults who struggle with reading, spelling or written expression due to dyslexia or a learning disability.
Confident Reader

ConfidentReader plays to the person’s strengths – hearing rather than reading. The program converts electronic text to speech using a natural sounding computer generated voice. This allows people with dyslexia to bypass their text-processing problem and obtain written information aurally.


ConfidentReader reads the electronic text, speaks it, and highlights the material to help the user associate the sounds of letter combinations and the visual information more efficiently. The typing echo feature recites text back automatically by letter, word, or sentence, so mistakes in typing are heard and can be corrected immediately.

Critical Thinking Books and Software
These products contain excellent visual organizers in a wide variety of subject areas. Building on content knowledge in various subjects, the textbooks and CD's aid the development of skills in acquiring, synthesizing, evaluating and applying knowledge.
EASeCD (Electronic Audio Stimulation Effect)
Help your sound sensitive child relax with EASeCD. Vision Audio Inc. provides the Electronic Auditory Stimulation effect (EASe) Compact Disc to ease the pain of hyperacusis and auditory hypersenstivity in Autism, PDD, ADD, ADHD, and Downs Syndrome. It provides a low cost alternative to auditory integration therapy or training.
Handwriting Without Tears
Written by an occupational therapist and handwriting specialist, Handwriting Without Tears offers an easy to use method for teaching pre-printing, printing and cursive. This multisensory approach is designed for teaching children of all ability levels.
Heads Up!
Heads Up! provides expert information and products for special needs children. Professionals, as well as parents and families interacting with special needs children, will finds these resources to be effective in promoting successful learning experiences while reducing frustration for children, teachers, and parents. Items have been selected to accommodate various learning styles and strengths, regardless of curriculum used.
Improve your Math
Improve your math from acclaimed educator Joe Pagano.
Kurzweil
Kurzweil 3000 software helps people with reading or learning difficulties increase their reading speed and comprehension through its multisensory approach to reading. It reads any scanned document or electronic file and then converts it into speech using the acclaimed L&H RealSpeak. Designed for readers with low vision, the MagniReader component displays scanned material in a variety of magnification levels.
Language Tune-up Kit
The Language Tune-up Kit, based on the Orton-Gillingham method, is a multi-media approach to teaching phonics to students of all ages with dyslexia, special needs and ESL.
LinguiSystems
Publishes speech and language arts materials. LinguiSystems carries books and games for phonological awareness, language development, oral-motor, autism, articulation, nonverbal learning disorders, and more.
Rocky Mountain Learning Systems
This company offers a variety of educational software programs professionally developed to re-train the bran and to remediate learning difficulties. Educational and skills testing is also available by appointment.
Starfall Reading System
The Starfall learn-to-read program was created to meet the needs of the emergent reader by incorporating rhyming games and high-interest books that teach phonemic awareness (sounds in words), phonics, decoding skills, and comprehension. Starfall readers are available free online and include interactive word games and instructions for home schoolers and educators.
Stevenson Learning Skills
Wynn Wizard
WYNN Wizard provides optical character recognition (OCR), the ability to scan a printed page and convert it into electronic text. Speech synthesis enables this scanned text to be read aloud. Also, a special correction feature provides automatic correction of misrecognized word.
Zaner- Bloser

Autism:


Autism Research Institute
Autism Research Institute (ARI), a non-profit organization, is primarily devoted to conducting research, and to disseminating the results of research, on the causes of autism and on methods of preventing, diagnosing and treating autism and other severe behavioral disorders of childhood.
The M.I.N.D. Institute
The M.I.N.D. Institute is an international, multidisciplinary research organization, committed to excellence, collaboration and hope, striving to understand the causes and develop better treatments and ultimately cures for neurodevelopmental disorders. Standing shoulder to shoulder, families, scientists, physicians, educators, and administrators are working together to unlock the mysteries of the mind.
The P.L.A.Y. Project
The P.L.A.Y. Project is a community based/regional autism training and early intervention program dedicated to empowering parents and professionals to implement intensive, developmental interventions for young children with autism in the most effective and efficient way. View The P.L.A.Y. Project's media brochure for a succinct description of the philosophy and efficacy of this home-based program.

California State Education Information:


California High School Proficiency Examination
Earn the legal equivalent of high school diploma by proving your proficiency in basic skills through passing the CHSPE. The test is offered by the State Department of Education (for California residents).

Testing Services in the San Jose, CA Area:


Debra Burdman M.Ed.
Debra Burdman M.Ed.
(408) 365-9641
Educational Testing and Therapy (San Jose)
Manning Psychological Services
Psycho-Educational Testing (Los Altos)
Skylitt Educational Testing
Learning Disability Testing (Campbell)
The Center for Developing Minds
Neurodevelopmental Testing (Los Gatos)
The Pratt Center
Psycho-Educational Testing (Los Altos)

Online/Distance Learning:


Correspondence Schools
Ann A. Zeise provides links to a number of Correspondence Schools on her A to Z Home's Cool website. Since the level of difficulty varies with each program, it is wise to consider programs that can be adapted to students with special needs. Ann also provides a number of other links and references that are very helpful to home educators. In addition, check out her Distance Education page with high school programs that have been accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council.
Time4Learning
Time4Learning a convenient, online home education program that combines learning with fun educational teaching games. Many home school families use Time4Learning as core curriculum in one or more subjects: others use Time4Learning to supplement other home school curriculum with a fun interactive reinforcement of the day's lessons. Families with children in school use Time4Learning as an alternative to tutoring, learning centers, or supplementary workbooks.

Therapeutic Riding


Bay Area Equestrian Network
Bay Area Equestrian Network (BAEN) is a regional directory that helps you find horses, services, and products in your area.
Dream Power Horsemanship
Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy is provided by the synergistic team of the horse and the therapeutic riding instructor, who is a licensed mental health professional. In the barn setting, equine facilitated therapeutic activities provide powerful tools for building self-awareness, self-esteem, appropriate boundaries and a sense of responsibility.
Hensley Ranch

Laura Hensley provides horse training and boarding and specializes in handling difficult horses. She offers riding lessons to adults and children particularly children with attention and learning difficulties.

Sharon Hensley offers therapeutic riding lessons to children with learning disabilities and more severe learning handicaps.

Marta Glover
Marta Glover
ffers therapeutic riding lessons to adults and children with special needs and developmental disabilities. She is vendored with the Regional Center and works in Quincy, California. Contact her at mglover@plumasruralservices.orgor at (530) 283-0111.
Westwind 4-H Riding
Westwind 4-H Riding provides horseback riding instruction for children ages 5 to 19 years with physical handicaps. The program builds confidence and self-esteem, develops coordinationand balance, and develops horsemanship and independence.