Cancel meeting
by Burke, Mack
Let's cancel today- Bowman and Boon have dissertation defenses and I am climbing out of a mountain of tasks.
Lisa S or Virginia: If you could send out a list from last time and have people send you their updates?
Thanks!!! MDB
1 year, 3 months
Re: Summer Meeting Poll
by Reynolds, Virginia
I've updated my availability. Just as a heads up, I may be a bit late to our meeting today. I've got an award ceremony to attend.
Virginia
________________________________
From: Sanchez, Lisa <Lisa_Sanchez(a)baylor.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2024 9:14 AM
To: project.leer(a)lists.it.utsa.edu <project.leer(a)lists.it.utsa.edu>
Subject: [Project.leer] Summer Meeting Poll
Hello all,
If you haven't done so already, please fill out this poll so we can find the best time to meet during the summer. Thanks!
https://www.when2meet.com/?25008801-Jgi4Y
Lisa Rodriguez Sanchez
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Baylor University, School of Education
Department of Educational Psychology
One Bear Place
Waco, TX 76798-7304
1 year, 3 months
Summer Meeting Poll
by Sanchez, Lisa
Hello all,
If you haven't done so already, please fill out this poll so we can find the best time to meet during the summer. Thanks!
https://www.when2meet.com/?25008801-Jgi4Y
Lisa Rodriguez Sanchez
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Baylor University, School of Education
Department of Educational Psychology
One Bear Place
Waco, TX 76798-7304
1 year, 3 months
Project LEER - Updates from Richard
by Richard Boon
Hi Everyone,
Please see my notes below.
Thanks!
Kind regards,
Richard
Meeting with Ms. Denise Anaya - Region One ESC (Tuesday, May 14 at 1:30pm)
Special Education Symposium (June 11-13) South Padre Island, TX
Present (?)
Table (Yes)
Send topics for PD (September 2024)
Send description to pilot materials (September 2024)
Special Education Directors' Meeting (September 2024)
SAISD
Meeting with Ms. Casie Bland and Ms. Kelly Manuel (Friday, May 17 at 12:30pm)
Lanier HS (Tuesday, May 28 at 2:45pm)
Rick Flores, Ed.D.
Sidney Lanier High School Principal
San Antonio Independent School District
Contact Number: (210) 978-7910
https://schools.saisd.net/page/008.homepage
Dr. Irene Cruz, Assistant Principal
Tafolla MS
https://schools.saisd.net/page/061.homepage
Marshall HS
Mr. Schraub, Ms. Su, & Ms. Lopez (Languages for IRB)
English
Spanish
Farsi
Pashto
Arabic
Stipend
Mr. Schraub & Ms. Su (Paid: $1,000)
New Caney ISD
Erika Gutierrez
Start in Fall 2024
1 year, 3 months
Inclusion percentages
by Burke, Mack
Working on a paper and pulled the latest data from the last Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and sorted 80% or more time of the day in regular ed. It makes more sense now the disconnect in the disability community over inclusion. Most of the RTI/MTSS stuff was focused on LD (also most students identified for special education services is typically for LD and within that- for reading). But if you look at the ID and other low incidence, they remain quite low. So makes more sense on the inclusion the different views, with the LD people wanting to hold onto things like resource rooms and the ID folks wanting an inclusion agenda looking at the 18.7% of the time. They sort of see different things or want different things from MTSS.
MDB
Table 1. Percent of time spent in regular education settings by disability area.
Disability Category
80% or more of the day
40% through 79% of the day
Less than 40% of the day
Other environments
Speech or language impairment
88.3%
3.7%
3.7%
4.3%
Specific learning disability
75.3%
19.1%
3.8%
1.9%
Other health impairment
70.2%
18.1%
7.7%
4.0%
Developmental delay
69.8%
14.6%
13.8%
1.7%
Visual impairment
69.7%
11.3%
8.7%
10.2%
Hearing impairment
64.5%
13.3%
10.2%
12.0%
Orthopedic impairment
57.6%
14.5%
20.1%
7.8%
Emotional disturbance
54.7%
17.0%
14.6%
13.7%
Traumatic brain injury
51.5%
20.8%
19.6%
8.2%
Autism
40.8%
17.1%
34.2%
7.8%
Deaf-blindness
30.1%
11.0%
32.2%
26.7%
Intellectual disability
18.7%
27.7%
47.2%
6.4%
Multiple disabilities
15.3%
17.9%
43.5%
23.2%
All disabilities
66.6%
16.0%
12.6%
4.8%
Mack D. Burke, Ph.D.
Department of Educational Psychology
Applied Behavior Analysis and Special Education Programs
Behavioral Education & Assessment Research (BEAR Lab)
School of Education, Baylor University
1 year, 3 months
Project LEER - Updates from Richard
by Richard Boon
Hi Everyone,
Please see my notes below.
Thanks!
Kind regards,
Richard
Marshall HS
Mr. Schraub & Ms. Su (Physics)
Ms. Lopez (World History)
Mr. Meador (World History)
Mr. Laviada (World History)
jessica-1.lopez(a)nisd.net<mailto:jessica-1.lopez@nisd.net>
michael.meador(a)nisd.net<mailto:michael.meador@nisd.net>
fernando.laviada(a)nisd.net<mailto:fernando.laviada@nisd.net>
Mr. Schraub & Ms. Su sent feedback from CWPT training for Fall 2024
Teacher Work Day/Staff Development (August 12-16, 2024)
Start Date - After Labor Day (Monday, September 3, 2024)
Northside ISD - Calendar for 2024-2025 (Please see attached)
Mr. Schraub & Ms. Su - Stipend ($1,000.00)
Mr. Richard Halle (Meet with Academic Dean for PD)
Region One ESC
Meeting with Ms. Denise Anaya (Tuesday, May 14 at 1:30pm)
Special Education Symposium for Summer 2024?
School Sites in San Antonio, TX
San Antonio ISD
Edgewood ISD
UTSA Summer 2024 for PD
June 10 - July 09 (Dr. Li)
July 10 - August 6 (Dr. Montemayor)
N=38
N=50
Total: N=88
UTSA - Fall 2024 for PD
COEHD
Dr. Kathy Ewoldt at UTSA (Budgeted One Month - Summer 2024)
Training materials for CWPT, online modules, surveys, etc.
1 year, 3 months
Linguistic relativism vs. universalism
by Burke, Mack
For those interested in linguistic diversity and the role of culture in socio-cultural construction, the ongoing debate centers around reconciling universals with particulars: Is thought independent of language and culture (e.g., universalism as argued by Steven Pinker), or do culture and language influence cognition, and in turn, behavior (particularism)?
As an example, I am interested in resilience research and social validity, looking at what enables certain students, children, and families to bounce back while others with similar profiles falter. My favorite Finnish term is SISU- which is deeply part of Finnish culture. It lacks a direct English translation but conveys notions like unconquerable, tenacious, stubborn determination or steadfast perseverance—akin from a faith-based perspective, maintaining faith despite suffering in the face of a hopeless task.
So for example, the absence of a direct translation for "Sisu" in English raises questions: Are the thoughts still present despite there being no direct word? Are they expressed differently? Or does having the word itself influence behavior and thought?
Linguistic relativism and universalism offer two opposing views on how language interacts with thought and reality.
Linguistic Relativism: Often associated with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, this view suggests that the language one speaks influences or determines one's perceptions and understanding of the world. According to linguistic relativism, speakers of different languages perceive the world differently because their languages categorize reality in distinct ways. This notion includes "linguistic determinism" (a stronger form suggesting that language determines thought) and "linguistic influence" (a weaker form suggesting that language merely influences thought patterns). The vocabulary and structure of a language shape its speakers' cognitive processes, impacting how they perceive, think about, and interact with the world.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/sapir-whorf-hypothesis.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
Linguistic Universalism: Steven Pinker, a key advocate for this view, challenges the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. He suggests that all human beings share a common cognitive framework that is not fundamentally shaped by our native language. Instead, he proposes that universal patterns of thought transcend language. This perspective is grounded in the theory of universal grammar, proposed by Noam Chomsky, which posits that the ability to acquire language is innately structured in the human mind and that all human languages share certain structural features. Pinker believes that while language can influence decisions and perceptions at a superficial level, it does not determine the fundamental cognitive capabilities of individuals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker
These differing views are debated in cognitive science, psychology, and linguistics about the relationship between language, thought, and culture that filter down to us in disability- especially when there are issues of language and communication, as well as the social construction of culture and disability Is the category of disability (e.g., LD, ID, EBD, Autism, visual impairments, etc.) real? Are the categories reflect something objectively real or not? If no, what aspects are socially constructed? Something in between? All the same conversations around the social construction of disability/impairment, race/ethnicity, sex/gender, etc. etc. What is real and what is not, what is malleable for intervention and what is not?
For further reading on Sisu and the related linguistic theories:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SisuSapir-Whorf
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-quiet-joy-of-being/202303/sis...
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180502-sisu-the-finnish-art-of-inn...
Also, there is also a Finnish film titled " Sisu" akin to the John Wick movies, directed by the same filmmaker, which I strongly recommend- the Finnish John Wick! 😊
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14846026/
Mack
From: Burke, Mack <Mack_Burke(a)baylor.edu>
Date: Friday, May 10, 2024 at 5:30 PM
To: project.leer(a)lists.it.utsa.edu <project.leer(a)lists.it.utsa.edu>, project.diverse(a)lists.it.utsa.edu <project.diverse(a)lists.it.utsa.edu>
Subject: [Project.diverse] Social construction of disability
I highly recommend Ian Hacking’s THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF WHAT? He is likely a “soft-moderate” social constructionist but the questions is a good one for us- what is the social construction of disability? Looks mostly at how categorization schemes are used and the impact- the hard social constructionist rejects objective reality all together and would say something to the effect that the category, labeling and naming brings the disability or X into existence- a hard form of disability anti-realism. Which put’s it squarely in the area of those of you who are addressing linguistic and language issues because language is a large part of the social construction of reality and
the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as linguistic relativity, a concept in linguistics and cognitive science that suggests the structure of a language influences its speakers' worldview and cognition, or is the other way- objectivity, worldview, and cognition influence language. Chicken or the egg?
He spends part of the book on the social construction of child abuse as an exemplar- isn’t so clear whether he thinks child abuse is universally real- but is real at the particular level, I guess that is something. One culturally relativistic view is that it is only harm if the culture thinks it causes harm. Hacking tries to split the needle on the social construction side on whether naming something brings it into existence or not, or if it was in existence before it was named, and what are the effects of the naming or social construction; disagree with him in many areas- but it is interesting view, he still comes off as too anti-universalist and anti-realist for my views.
I suppose the issue I keep coming back to is that disabilities in special education are poorly specified (at least for LD/EBD)- a construct validity issue, which has opened the door to hard social constructionists represented in the iterations of Disabilities Studies, that have now found its way into the field posit that disabilities don’t really objectively exist- which is quite different than saying there is a social construction dimension to the disability or something interactional.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674004122
He lists the areas of what that have been asked before in the preface:
WHY ASK WHAT?
What a lot of things are said to be socially constructed! Here are some construction titles from a library catalog:
Authorship (Woodmansee and Jaszi 1994)
Brotherhood (Clawson 1989)
The child viewer of television (Luke 1990)
Danger (McCormick 1995)
Emotions (Harre´ 1986)
Facts (Latour and Woolgar 1979)
Gender (Dewar, 1986; Lorber and Farrell 1991)
Homosexual culture (Kinsman 1983)
Illness (Lorber 1997)
Knowledge (MacKenzie 1981, Myers 1990, Barrett 1992,
Torkington 1996)
Literacy (Cook-Gumperz 1986)
The medicalized immigrant (Wilkins 1993)
Nature (Eder 1996)
Oral history (Tonkin 1992)
Postmodernism (McHale 1992)
Quarks (Pickering 1986)
Reality (Berger and Luckmann 1966)
Serial homicide (Jenkins 1994)
Technological systems (Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch 1987)
Urban schooling (Miron 1996)
Vital statistics (Emery 1993)
Women refugees (Moussa 1992)
Youth homelessness (Huston and Liddiard 1994)
Zulu nationalism (Golan 1994)
One exemplar given related to EBD and mental illness is Schizophrenia, now championed by disability studies as well..
Schizophrenia, in short, is a scientific delusion. According to my
grades of commitment, Boyle is at least a rebellious constructionist
about schizophrenia. She wants to unmask and disintegrate. R. D. Laing
and other leaders of the anti-psychiatry movement of a quarter-century
ago were revolutionary. They were out there in the streets, the clinics,
and the wards, trying to destroy and replace this very category of disease.
We need not embrace anti-psychiatry to realize that the classification
as schizophrenic, and current attitudes to and treatments of schizophrenics,
are matters of which the patients, for all their periodic deficits
of logic and sense of reality, are intensely aware. More of them are more
aware now than they used to be. This is because of the continually developing
arsenal of psychotropic drugs that is already able to bring some
semblance of ordinary life to
There is a conviction that retarded children, schizophrenics, and autistic people
suffer from one or more fundamental neurological or biochemical problems
which will, in the future, be identified. It is not claimed that every
person now diagnosed will have the same problem. In the case of schizophrenia,
some researchers conjecture that there are at least two distinct
disorders, one of which declares itself in late adolescence and is genetic,
and another of which may not be inherited. No one maintains that mental
retardation is a single disorder, but many believe that specific types
of retardation have clear biological causes, to the extent that we can say
these disorders simply are biological in nature.
Autism is instructive.
There was a debate long ago between the antipsychiatrist,
Thomas Szasz, and Robert Spitzer, who as editor of the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals has directed American psychiatric
nosology since 1974. Szasz argued that MDs should treat only what they
know to be diseases. Psychiatrists treat troubled people, but cannot identify
any genuine medical conditions, so they should leave the treatment
to healers, shamans, priests, counselors. Psychiatry is not a branch of
medicine. Spitzer replied: what about childhood autism? We know it
must be neurological in nature, but we have no idea what the neurology
is, so we treat it symptomatically, as psychologists. Is it wrong for us as
doctors to try to help autistic children just because we do not yet know
the neurology?8
For the social construction of EBD, the assumptions are almost the same as that help by Szasz that helped the Church of Scientology put together their anti-psychiatry manifesto:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freud-fluoxetine/201806/revisitin...
In the end, the question for special education is simple, at least on the surface, are disabilities real or not? And if they are how? If the answer is no, and there is a hard social constructionist view of disability is taken, then we really don’t need a special education based on an IDEA conception of disability and we should do like many people are currently advocating and end special education and replace it- as Wehmeyer from KU said “special education has outlived its utility” or put it under the auspices of general education, would have us do. If the answer is yes, and a special education is still needed, we need to figure out what should it look like?
Something more for us to talk about…Mack
Mack D. Burke, Ph.D.
Department of Educational Psychology
Applied Behavior Analysis and Special Education Programs
Behavioral Education & Assessment Research (BEAR Lab)
School of Education, Baylor University
1 year, 3 months
Social construction of disability
by Burke, Mack
I highly recommend Ian Hacking’s THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF WHAT? He is likely a “soft-moderate” social constructionist but the questions is a good one for us- what is the social construction of disability? Looks mostly at how categorization schemes are used and the impact- the hard social constructionist rejects objective reality all together and would say something to the effect that the category, labeling and naming brings the disability or X into existence- a hard form of disability anti-realism. Which put’s it squarely in the area of those of you who are addressing linguistic and language issues because language is a large part of the social construction of reality and
the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as linguistic relativity, a concept in linguistics and cognitive science that suggests the structure of a language influences its speakers' worldview and cognition, or is the other way- objectivity, worldview, and cognition influence language. Chicken or the egg?
He spends part of the book on the social construction of child abuse as an exemplar- isn’t so clear whether he thinks child abuse is universally real- but is real at the particular level, I guess that is something. One culturally relativistic view is that it is only harm if the culture thinks it causes harm. Hacking tries to split the needle on the social construction side on whether naming something brings it into existence or not, or if it was in existence before it was named, and what are the effects of the naming or social construction; disagree with him in many areas- but it is interesting view, he still comes off as too anti-universalist and anti-realist for my views.
I suppose the issue I keep coming back to is that disabilities in special education are poorly specified (at least for LD/EBD)- a construct validity issue, which has opened the door to hard social constructionists represented in the iterations of Disabilities Studies, that have now found its way into the field posit that disabilities don’t really objectively exist- which is quite different than saying there is a social construction dimension to the disability or something interactional.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674004122
He lists the areas of what that have been asked before in the preface:
WHY ASK WHAT?
What a lot of things are said to be socially constructed! Here are some construction titles from a library catalog:
Authorship (Woodmansee and Jaszi 1994)
Brotherhood (Clawson 1989)
The child viewer of television (Luke 1990)
Danger (McCormick 1995)
Emotions (Harre´ 1986)
Facts (Latour and Woolgar 1979)
Gender (Dewar, 1986; Lorber and Farrell 1991)
Homosexual culture (Kinsman 1983)
Illness (Lorber 1997)
Knowledge (MacKenzie 1981, Myers 1990, Barrett 1992,
Torkington 1996)
Literacy (Cook-Gumperz 1986)
The medicalized immigrant (Wilkins 1993)
Nature (Eder 1996)
Oral history (Tonkin 1992)
Postmodernism (McHale 1992)
Quarks (Pickering 1986)
Reality (Berger and Luckmann 1966)
Serial homicide (Jenkins 1994)
Technological systems (Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch 1987)
Urban schooling (Miron 1996)
Vital statistics (Emery 1993)
Women refugees (Moussa 1992)
Youth homelessness (Huston and Liddiard 1994)
Zulu nationalism (Golan 1994)
One exemplar given related to EBD and mental illness is Schizophrenia, now championed by disability studies as well..
Schizophrenia, in short, is a scientific delusion. According to my
grades of commitment, Boyle is at least a rebellious constructionist
about schizophrenia. She wants to unmask and disintegrate. R. D. Laing
and other leaders of the anti-psychiatry movement of a quarter-century
ago were revolutionary. They were out there in the streets, the clinics,
and the wards, trying to destroy and replace this very category of disease.
We need not embrace anti-psychiatry to realize that the classification
as schizophrenic, and current attitudes to and treatments of schizophrenics,
are matters of which the patients, for all their periodic deficits
of logic and sense of reality, are intensely aware. More of them are more
aware now than they used to be. This is because of the continually developing
arsenal of psychotropic drugs that is already able to bring some
semblance of ordinary life to
There is a conviction that retarded children, schizophrenics, and autistic people
suffer from one or more fundamental neurological or biochemical problems
which will, in the future, be identified. It is not claimed that every
person now diagnosed will have the same problem. In the case of schizophrenia,
some researchers conjecture that there are at least two distinct
disorders, one of which declares itself in late adolescence and is genetic,
and another of which may not be inherited. No one maintains that mental
retardation is a single disorder, but many believe that specific types
of retardation have clear biological causes, to the extent that we can say
these disorders simply are biological in nature.
Autism is instructive.
There was a debate long ago between the antipsychiatrist,
Thomas Szasz, and Robert Spitzer, who as editor of the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals has directed American psychiatric
nosology since 1974. Szasz argued that MDs should treat only what they
know to be diseases. Psychiatrists treat troubled people, but cannot identify
any genuine medical conditions, so they should leave the treatment
to healers, shamans, priests, counselors. Psychiatry is not a branch of
medicine. Spitzer replied: what about childhood autism? We know it
must be neurological in nature, but we have no idea what the neurology
is, so we treat it symptomatically, as psychologists. Is it wrong for us as
doctors to try to help autistic children just because we do not yet know
the neurology?8
For the social construction of EBD, the assumptions are almost the same as that help by Szasz that helped the Church of Scientology put together their anti-psychiatry manifesto:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freud-fluoxetine/201806/revisitin...
In the end, the question for special education is simple, at least on the surface, are disabilities real or not? And if they are how? If the answer is no, and there is a hard social constructionist view of disability is taken, then we really don’t need a special education based on an IDEA conception of disability and we should do like many people are currently advocating and end special education and replace it- as Wehmeyer from KU said “special education has outlived its utility” or put it under the auspices of general education, would have us do. If the answer is yes, and a special education is still needed, we need to figure out what should it look like?
Something more for us to talk about…Mack
Mack D. Burke, Ph.D.
Department of Educational Psychology
Applied Behavior Analysis and Special Education Programs
Behavioral Education & Assessment Research (BEAR Lab)
School of Education, Baylor University
1 year, 3 months
