Special Education Resources

AI is changing lives far beyond chatbots and data centers. What do you think about this the most inspiring examples? Helping children hear the world more clearly. According to the World Health Organization, more than 1.5 billion people globally live with some degree of hearing loss, and tens of millions are children. Without early intervention, hearing challenges can impact language development, academic performance, social interaction, and future career opportunities. Today, AI-powered hearing technologies are rewriting that story. 🔹 AI can distinguish speech from background noise in real time. 🔹 Advanced hearing devices can automatically adapt to classrooms, playgrounds, restaurants, and busy public spaces. 🔹 Machine learning algorithms continuously optimize hearing profiles based on individual listening patterns. 🔹 Edge AI enables many of these decisions to happen instantly on-device, reducing latency and improving the user experience. 🔹 Connected ecosystems allow hearing devices to integrate with smartphones, streaming services, and educational tools. For a child sitting in a noisy classroom, this isn't just a technology upgrade. It's the difference between hearing a teacher's instructions clearly or missing a critical part of the lesson. It's the difference between participating in conversations or feeling isolated. And this is just the beginning. As AI models become more sophisticated and power-efficient, we will see hearing devices evolve from simple amplification tools into intelligent personal assistants that understand context, prioritize important sounds, translate languages, and provide personalized support throughout the day. While much of the AI conversation focuses on trillion-parameter models, GPUs, and data centers, some of the most meaningful innovations are happening at the human level—helping children learn, communicate, and reach their full potential. The true measure of technology isn't how powerful it becomes. It's how many lives it improves. ❤️ This is AI at its best. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Healthcare #DigitalHealth #HearingTechnology #EdgeAI #MachineLearning #Innovation #TechForGood #Accessibility #FutureOfAI #Education #HealthTech #HumanCenteredAI #Technology

I heard Education Secretary Linda McMahon speak today, and I left with even more worry for Disabled students, Half a century ago, Disabled students were either shut out of education or segregated entirely. The passage of IDEA was a promise that all students would receive a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment, That promise is now in question. McMahon touched on the idea of moving special education oversight to the Department of Health and Human Services, Turning this into a health policy issue risks stripping away educational rights and reducing services to grant management rather than legal enforcement, This change would isolate special education from broader educational policy and diminish federal oversight at a time when compliance has never been perfect, Even before these proposed changes, not a single state had been deemed fully compliant with federal special education law, Staff cuts, legal confusion, and ongoing layoffs have already weakened the Department’s ability to investigate disability-based discrimination or guide states on how to better serve students. If this transition happens, that loss will only deepen, History has shown us what happens when states are left to their own devices... Disabled students pay the price. Image description: A women in the audience with a sign that says, "she has no IDEA". #DisabilityRights

One mistake I almost made early in my scholarship journey was drowning in too much information. Week Two: How I Stayed Informed, Focused, and Organized, Without Getting Overwhelmed Initially, I joined many scholarship WhatsApp and LinkedIn groups as well as random Telegram channels. I saved dozens of screenshots, Google Docs, YouTube Videos, and Twitter and LinkedIn threads that I never revisited. I was everywhere but nowhere. Many people subconsciously do this. It feels productive, but it is exhausting. You don’t need all the information. You only need the correct information and to act on it. Whether you are applying for a PhD, a Master’s, or an MBA, you need clarity, structure, and a system that works for you! Here’s what helped me move from scattered to strategic: 1. Determine where you want to go: Before you start shortlisting schools, you need to decide where you are going: the U.S., Europe, the UK, Africa, Asia, or other regions. This matters because some scholarships are internal (offered by the school itself), while others are external (e.g., Chevening Awards, Mastercard Foundation, The Fulbright Program, Rhodes, etc). The country also determines the type of documents, essays, and tests you will submit, as well as the visa process. 2. I identified trustworthy sources. Instead of jumping from place to place, I focused on: ✅ University websites (always the best place to start) ✅ Scholarship bodies’ websites ✅ Past recipients and program alums on LinkedIn ✅ Credible organizations ✅ YouTube channels and LinkedIn profiles of people who share reliable advice about that specific scholarship or school 3. I shortlisted schools and scholarships together: I didn’t pick schools first and then search for funding. I looked for programs that were already offering scholarships or had a strong track record of funding international students, or programs accompanied by verified and active external scholarships. 4. I created an Application Tracker: This is an organized spreadsheet with details of schools and scholarships. I took notes so I wouldn’t waste time going back and forth between websites, and it reduced my stress by 80%. It contained: ✅ School names ✅ Programs ✅ Deadlines ✅ Faculty ✅ Requirements (SOPs, Transcripts, GRE, IELTS) ✅ Recommendation letters ✅ Application fee waiver information, etc Example: https://lnkd.in/e4Fv6a6A 5. I applied for application fee waivers: After selecting universities, check if they offer application fee waivers, and ask early. This may be based on financial need, automatic waivers for low-income countries, participation in specific programs, or attending a required info session. If you don’t select universities and programs first, you won’t know which schools to ask, and your information will be scattered. Stop chasing 100 resources. Choose 10 good ones and stay organized. See you next week! #JenniferScholarshipSeries | 2 of 10

I love this reframe of Maslow’s hierarchy — rewritten not as needs but as felt experiences. In SEMH (Social, Emotional & Mental Health) settings, we often work from Golding’s hierarchy of relational needs — and what strikes me is just how aligned these frameworks are. Whether we call it connected, secure, valued, confident, inspired — or Maslow’s belonging, safety, esteem, self-actualisation — we are ultimately talking about the emotional states a nervous system needs to move from survival to growth. In SEMH schools, many young people spend most of their day simply trying to stay regulated enough to access a sense of safety or connection. That’s why, as integrative psychotherapists, we don’t start with “learning outcomes” — we start with co-regulation, belonging, felt safety, and only then move upwards. ✨ The crossover matters — because every level is a positive possibility, not a deficit. ✨ Progress is not linear — it’s relational, sensory, embodied. ✨ Our role is not to fix but to facilitate movement up the pyramid, however slowly, however relationally. The question I’m now sitting with is: What environments, relationships and rhythms allow young people not just to cope — but to feel valued, confident, and inspired? That is the real therapeutic task in education.

Educators are taught Bloom’s Taxonomy and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs but often forget that without one, they cannot truly have the other. Students, even the youngest ones, are sent to us to learn every day, but when their basic needs aren’t met, learning can be almost impossible. If there was one thing I would love every teacher and parent to understand, it would be this- we must Maslow before we can Bloom. Maslow taught us that the following needs must be met in order for children to learn: Physiological (water, food, shelter, sleep and clothing), Safety (personal security, resources, health, property), Love & Belonging (friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection), Esteem (respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom) and Self-actualization (desire to become the most one can be). If a child comes to us hungry, tired, sad, alone, feeling disconnected or unsafe, how can they possibly be ready to learn? As teachers, we must ensure that our students have their basic needs met when they are with us. We must meet their basic social emotional needs whether it be with a hug, kind word or a little extra patience so they can be relaxed and ready to learn. This task can seem impossible at times, especially when you have a full class of little people with big emotions that can manifest as behaviors, outbursts and other challenges, but it is possible. If we take the time to get to know our students, show them we care and become a reliable source of comfort for them, we can help them meet their needs and BLOOM as learners!

Scaffolding and differentiation are not the same thing. Teachers use the words interchangeably. They shouldn't. The difference changes how you plan every lesson. Here is the cleanest way to separate them. Scaffolding is temporary support on the same task. Everyone aims at the same goal. You add help, then you take it away. Sentence starters, a worked example, a word bank, a partner. The support is a structure you build around the learner and then remove as they become able to do the task alone. If the help never disappears, it stopped being scaffolding a long time ago. The research is clear on this. The original definition describes support that lets a learner do something they could not yet manage unaided (Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976 – Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry). Later reviews stress two features most teachers skip: contingency and fading (van de Pol, Volman & Beishuizen, 2010 – Educational Psychology Review). You adjust to the learner, then you withdraw. Differentiation is changing the task itself. Same goal, different paths. One learner reads the text. Another listens to it. A third works with a simplified version. You are not propping up one task. You are offering several routes to the same destination (Tomlinson, 2001). The test is simple. Ask one question: am I planning to remove this later? If yes, it is scaffolding. If no, it is differentiation. Most classrooms need both. Scaffolding builds independence on a shared task. Differentiation respects that learners arrive in different places. But blur the two and you get the worst outcome. Permanent support you never meant to keep. Help that quietly becomes a ceiling. Name the thing you are doing. Then you can plan it properly.

"Truth is generally the best vindication against slander." — Abraham Lincoln I used to think the system was built to find the truth. I was wrong. It’s built to find the most "consistent" story. For those of us with ADHD or Autism, this is often a trap. We tend to be "bottom-up" processors—we gather a thousand tiny details before we can ever see the "big picture." This is compounded by a specific struggle with Working Memory. Working memory is like a mental "sticky note." In high-stress spots—like a doctor’s office or a courtroom—that sticky note can lose its glue. Under pressure, our brains are so busy processing the environment and the "why" of the situation that we might struggle to retrieve facts in a perfect, linear sequence. To an authority figure, a gap in memory looks like a lie. To a manipulator, that gap is an opportunity to plant a different narrative. But a "fragmented" memory isn't a "false" one—it’s just how our internal filing system works. At GLEE Labs, we believe technology should bridge these cognitive gaps. We are using Bully Buddy and Neuro Buddy to help people document their reality and understand their own processing styles in real-time. We are giving people the tools to protect their internal narrative before someone else tries to rewrite it for them. It’s time we stop equating "polished storytelling" with "honesty." We need a system that knows how to ask the right questions. Have you ever felt like you were being "walked into a trap" just because your brain couldn't find the dates or details fast enough? #Neurodiversity #WorkingMemory #ExecutiveFunction #GleeLabs #BullyBuddy #NeuroBuddy #SystemicChange

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐥𝐨𝐰’𝐬 𝐇𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 🧠 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐊𝐢𝐝𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬: 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐫 As an occupational therapist, I often hear things like: “They just need to concentrate.” “They’re being defiant.” “They’re not trying hard enough.” But what if it’s not defiance? What if it’s dysregulation? 👉 Many children aren’t “choosing” to be unfocused or reactive. They’re stuck in survival mode and their nervous system is doing its best to cope. That’s why I created this visual: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Regulation ✨ Because co-regulation comes before concentration. Before a child can sit, attend, or learn, they need: 🔻 Physiological Regulation : Are they tired, hungry, or overstimulated? 🔻 Safety & Predictability : Do they feel safe and know what to expect? 🔻 Connection & Co-Regulation : Is someone helping them regulate and feel secure? 🔻 Self-Esteem & Capability : Do they feel like they can succeed? ✅ Only then can a child access their higher brain functions focus, planning, memory, and learning. In therapy, we don’t just look at the surface. We ask: “What is this behavior telling us about what the child needs?” Because a dysregulated child isn’t being difficult They’re asking for support in the only way they know how. 💡 When we meet their needs, we unlock their potential. #OccupationalTherapy #ChildDevelopment #Maslow #EmotionalRegulation #CoRegulation #PediatricTherapy #SchoolOT #BehaviorIsCommunication #NeurodiversityAffirming #TherapyInRealLife #OTMatters #SensorySupport #ExecutiveFunction

🧏🏽 How To Design For (And With) Deaf People (https://lnkd.in/gUmw-fQU), with practical UX guidelines to keep in mind for 466 million people who experience hearing loss ↓ Sign languages are not just gestures or pantomime. They are 4D spatial languages with their own grammar and syntax, separate from spoken languages, and they don't have a written form. They rely heavily on facial expression to convey meaning and emphasis. And: they are also not universal — every country has its own sign language and dialects. 1. Don’t make the phone required or the only method of contact. 2. Provide text alternatives for all audible alerts or notices. 3. Add haptic feedback on mobile (e.g. vibration patterns). 4. Ensure good lighting to help people see facial expressions. 5. Circular seating usually works bet so everyone can see each other’s face. 6. Include descriptions of non-spoken sounds (e.g., rain, laughter). 7. Add a transcript and closed captions for audio and video. 8. Clearly identify each speaker in all audio and video content. 9. Design multiple ways to communicate in every instance (online + in-person) 10. Invite video participants to keep camera on to facilitate lip-reading. 11. Always test products with the actual community, instead of assumptions. Deafness spans a broad continuum, from minor to profound hearing loss. Around 90–95% of deaf people come from hearing families, and deafness often isn’t merely a condition that people are born with. It frequently occurs due to exposure to loud noises, and it also emerges with age, disease and accidents. Don’t assume that every deaf person can lip read. You can see only about 30% of words on someone’s mouth. That’s why many deaf people need additional visual cues, like text or cued speech. Full article: https://lnkd.in/gUmw-fQU --- I keep repeating myself like a broken record, but better accessibility always benefits everyone. Solving a problem for one specific exclusion usually benefits many. When we improve experiences for some groups of people, there are always ways of how it improves experiences for entirely different groups as well. As Marie Van Driessche noted, to design a great experience for accessibility, we must design with people, rather than for them. And that means always including people with lived experience of exclusion into the design process — as they are the true experts. Huge thanks to Marie Van Driessche, Svetlana Kouznetsova, Meryl Evans, CPACC, Dr. Stephanie Cawthon, Beatriz G., Johanna Steiner, Brenden Gilbert, Caitlin Quinn, Olivier Nourry and many others for sharing what they've learned, so I could learn from you! Thank you so much! 👏🏼👏🏽👏🏾 Please do leave pointers in the comments to useful resources or wonderful people who study, research and write on the topic! Happy designing, everyone — and thank you so much for reading! 🎉🥳