[Nancy Walton]

$75 tax tip

If you have at least $100 in fitness receipts for your disabled child, you get to claim an extra $500 on the child fitness section (no reciepts needed, it's just a bonus). This gets you $75 back (15% of 500). I just used "U-file" and it calculated in the extra $500 automatically for my disabled child, so depending on your program, make sure it doesn't get counted twice.

Also, if your child was in a 4 week swim program for 2 consecutive months, you can count that as an 8 week program. Parks and Rec won't issue an official tax receipt for this because they don't know this is OK. I was told by CRA that it's OK. Someone else can double check if you like.

Remember to use the word "tutor" not "therapist" when claiming medical expenses. And claim as much as possible under daycare (up to $10,000 for disabled children) before using whats left for medical claim.

Happy filing,
Nancy

[Nancy Walton]

Surrey School District Parents

The next ABA Advisory meeting is on Tuesday, April 7th at 7pm. We meet in the old 400 building at the Surrey College: 9260 140th Street.

If you would like to get on our e-mail list, please e-mail ABAAdvisory@gmail.com.

If you would like more information on the ABA Advisory you can visit our website at http://abaadvisory.googlepages.com/.

Hope to see you Tuesday

Nancy

[Nancy Walton]

Surrey School District

There will be a Lunch Bunch workshop, given by Leah Mumford, at the May 1st proD day for SEA's and ABA Support workers. The Lunch bunch workshop did not make it in the written program, but when CUPE workers sign up for sessions, they will see it there. It will be at the North Surrey School location.

Parents, please tell your child's ABA SW or SEA about this workshop if you would like your child to get into lunch bunch activities.

[Nancy Walton]

Reminder of the ABA Support Network meeting this Wednesday evening. Open to parents and professionals. This is an excellent opportunity to share ideas on how to improve access to Sport and Leisure activities in an ABA fashion. Please let Dione know if you plan to attend. Hope to see you there!!

“Incorporating ABA into Sport and Leisure Activities….
What Do Parents Want?”

Special Guest – Tara Cleave, Community Services Coordinator
Surrey Parks and Recreation

Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Time: 7-9pm
Location: Surrey Sport and Leisure Complex
16555 Fraser Highway
Use Arena entrance and go up stairs to MP Room #2
RSVP: dionec@shaw.ca

[Nancy Walton]

Lunch Bunch training:

Debbie Simpson has brought up a good need. Does anyone have a good Lunch-bunch program at thier school? I'd love to have a therapist/aide give a talk on how to do this. Surrey will be having a ProD day May 1st and it might be we can get all our ABA Support Workers to something like this. Let me know if anyone knows of someone with experience in this. E-mail me at
wiklo@shaw.ca

Nancy

[Nancy Walton]

The "Cluster" idea:

I'm thinking of the phrase "Throw the baby out with the bath water".

While I have HUGE concerns about the proposal in North Vancouver, I don’t think the evil component is “clustering”. I’d like to talk about the advantages of clustering. Please feel free to counter these advantages with logic and perhaps research, but not with attacks. Keep in mind, I am not suggesting the type of clustering that NV has in mind (notice they do not mention ABA).

Here are my thoughts:

At the moment, there is rarely more than one ABA child in any school. Many children do not have experienced aides. Without a lot of supervision (at the cost of the parent), it is difficult for the aide to become proficient in ABA. Even if the aide is very experienced, they are isolated and poorly supported. In a clustered school, you can have exactly the same environment as an isolated child in a school (same amount of inclusion), but you could have several ABA aides working with one child (they could switch children throughout the day). This is particularly advantageous for very low functioning or difficult children and very helpful when one aide is away, making less impact on any child's day. There would also be ABA aides available for breaks. A consultant could see several children in one day, overseeing the programming and training of aides (and perhaps future consultants) on a regular basis. Teachers would all be experienced with ABA children.

As a child gets older, there is more and more time spent "discussing" and "exploring" in the classroom. These activities are completely inappropriate for my child and many others. Is it better to have him "included" by having him sit there quietly during those times, or is it better to have him go off and do his own ABA programs that can teach him the same topic in a much more meaningful manner? If there was an ABA resource room in the school, my child would have a great place, with a lot of resources, to go and learn. If ABA children do all their academic programs at school, they are able to spend time after school hanging out at the rec center or having friends over.

Nothing would be different in terms of how much the child is integrated. The difference would be in the support provided to both the child and the aide and the dignity of having a great learning room to go to when not involved with classroom activities.

[Nancy Walton]

Hi Adrienne,

Interesting. My son could not tell us what was bothering him, but he used to get extremely red ears (one or both) and they were very hot too. He was usually cranky when this happened. But it would come and go and so we never followed up on it. Hasn't happened since he was about 8 years old. So, maybe they grow out of the problem.

[Nancy Walton]

Free:
Black Felt board
about 1.5ft by 2ft.

Little doll house that opens up

plastic bowling ball and pins

bag of cars and animals

Available in White Rock

e-mail Nancy: wiklo at shaw dot ca

[Nancy Walton]

Free Seanix computer (pentium II). Comes with Home XP. Available in South Surrey. Call Nancy at 604-538-8021.

[Nancy Walton]

Excellent Article in the Peace Arch News in White Rock!!!! Well done Karla Fry.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/peacearchnews/lifestyles/24073854.html

Karla is holding a massive garage sale to raise money for her son's ABA treatment. Head on down to South Surrey if you want to support her.

[Author]

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