Early intervention for developmental, emotional and learning disabilities has proven enormously effective, but often children are not identified as having special needs until they reach older grades.
To help educators and parents, on March 14 at Touro College in West Hollywood, “Does My Preschooler Have Special Needs?” will be sponsored by Kol Hanearim, an organization focused on early intervention in Jewish schools, and co-sponsored by Builders of Jewish Education and HaMercaz, a clearinghouse for special-needs resources in the Los Angeles Jewish community.
The conference will feature experts in speech and language, vision, hearing, advocacy and creating classroom plans. All the specialists will be on hand all day to consult with parents and teachers.
Kol Hanearim was founded six years ago in an effort to keep kids with behavioral and learning issues in day schools by creating self-contained classes and mainstreaming the students for some of the day. But the program proved too costly, at about $70,000 a child. Kol Hanearim, working with BJE and HaMercaz, has now shifted focus to early childhood intervention. It presents in-school training on early identifiers and intervention, consults with schools on integrating behavioral services and trains aides to shadow kids in classrooms.
For information on the March 14 conference, contact (310) 861-1456 or info@kol-hanearim.org.
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