Senior Honors Project

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My Senior Honors Project consists of researching the lack of resources within Native communities for special needs children. To begin with, my universal theme is special needs children. By doing research for my visual presentation, I learned a lot about other culture’s worldview on special needs children and I also concluded my culture’s worldview--both in my Native American community and in the state of New Mexico. One of the many things that I learned about my topic, my culture’s worldview and other communities’ worldview is that everything is perceived differently. In my culture, our worldview is that many teachers within Native communities aren’t certified or qualified to the extent of being prepared to teach special needs children/children …show more content…

In The Arc, I also found that levels of restraint and seclusion has recently added up since previous years, having reported “harmful use of these interventions in over two-thirds of the states, involving children as young as three years old in both public and private school settings”. Lastly, transition was one of the many issues special education children face in schools today. As these children continue to age, transition planning and resources for students continue to worsen. This has parents wondering where they can send their special needs child to transition from school systems to a mature lifestyle. In The Arc, it is reported that “Every year between 150,000-200,000 students with disabilities age out of special education (in most states) at age 22”. Questioning New Mexico’s addressing of the issue, I was pleased to find that the US Department of Education is trying to award contracts to two large common core testing (PARCC and Smarter Balanced) to develop computer-based assessments for students with cognitive …show more content…

In my research, I found that both of these boys have special needs. Jackson has albinism and was taken to an orphanage by his mother to keep him out of danger, and Noel was born with down syndrome and was abandoned on church steps. I compared this family’s worldview to my own cultures because no matter the children’s differences, they still have open arms to care for all of them. In my presentation, I also showed the picture of the Michigan family as an example of family support, most of which families with special needs children don’t possess. Another type of support that I found from African and Ugandan societies were two organizations--BethanyKids Organization and AbleChildAfrica:Uganda Society for Disabled Children--whose worldviews are both to help children of kids through things such as therapy, surgical intervention, added encouragement, or working to achieve equal rights. While doing research on the BethanyKids Organization, I found that the children being helped “have gone onto high school. A few have finished a University and some have entered vocations through which they can help other students with disabilities” (Finding Joy in Joytown: The Salvation Army in Canada and Bermuda

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