2020 TASH Conference - Virtual Edition: Full Schedule

Welcome to the 2020 TASH Conference - Virtual Edition website! We’re so glad you are here!

Each year, the TASH Conference brings together individuals with significant disabilities and their allies to share resources and success stories, learn about field-driven best practices, and network within a community engaged in shared values. The conference is attended by passionate advocates, leaders, and subject matter experts from every corner of the disability community. Conference attendees play an important role in supporting individuals with significant disabilities to overcome various barriers in order to live their best lives. Central to this work is the premise that individuals reach their optimal potential only when they are given the opportunity to live, work and thrive across the lifespan in the same communities we are all members of. The conference is intentionally designed to support the interests of professors and researchers from leading institutions; those involved in local, state, and federal governments and public policy; special and general educators, and school administrators; home and community-based service providers; students, family members, and most importantly, self-advocates with lived experience.

This year, while we are taking the conference virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe that our unique approach to providing exceptional first-rate content and building strong community ties and connections across various stakeholders will yield an extraordinary event! We have taken extra steps to bring people closer together during these times, as well as to create an amazing virtual environment that expands our knowledge, spurs our creative thinking, and focuses on healthy living and having fun! Our conference theme, Feel the Power of Inclusion, reinforces the importance of our continued commitment to promoting a world of equity and opportunity for all, and is predicated on the value of bringing together diverse perspectives and experiences in an effort to build strong human connectivity and spur collective action.

Need technical assistance during the conference? Please email our support staff at helpdesk@tash.org.

1:30pm EST

Affirming Disability: Strengths-based Portraits of Culturally Diverse Families

Cultural competence and family collaboration have been emphasized in teacher preparation programs for decades, yet collaborative partnerships between culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families and school personnel remain elusive. Our multiyear collaborative research with CLD families resulted in strengths-based narrative portraits of six immigrant families with children with disabilities. Our findings highlight the importance of reframing disability and diversity to a strengths-based orientation, developing a stance of cultural humility, and identifying cultural brokers as critical to establishing and maintaining collaborative partnerships. To do so, we suggest teachers develop individualized action plans for purposeful and proactive change.

Presenters

Zach Rossetti

Associate Professor, Boston University

Zach Rossetti, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Special Education in the Teaching and Learning Department at Boston University's Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. His research examines the social belonging and participation of people with intellectual and developmental... Read More →

Janet Sauer

Professor, Lesley University

Janet Sauer draws on her own experiences teaching young children, adolescents, and adults in multiple contexts to prepare educators for inclusive education. Her scholarship is based in the interdisciplinary field of Disability Studies and focuses on family engagement. She believes... Read More →

Wednesday December 2, 2020 1:30pm - 2:15pm EST
Virtual Platform Online

Breakout Sessions, Track 2

Primary Topic Diversity & Social Impact
Themes Family Support
Tags Family-school Partnership, Collaboration, Cultural Diversity, Linguistic Diversity, Portraiture
Format Research

5:15pm EST

Collaborative Teaming: Making Content Accessible for Students Who Take the Alternate Assessment

Grade-level standards-based instruction for all students has long been required, yet some schools and individuals struggle with how to implement it. Issues of personnel time and expertise have been identified as barriers. We will demonstrate how these schools have reconsidered the roles and responsibilities of collaborative teams to build accessible instruction. Through support of coaches and state and district level vision, the work showcased here provides practical examples of role structures and grade-level aligned content adapted for students with significant cognitive disabilities.

Presenters

Debbie Taub

Director, OTL Education Solutions

Mark Turek

Equity Coach, Carroll County Public Schools

After 42 years in education, Mark retired three years ago. His work was not done, as he now works part time as an equity coach in a school district that is relatively new to inclusive practices. Mark has a background in speech/language pathology and assistive technology. He worked... Read More →

Thursday December 3, 2020 5:15pm - 5:30pm EST
Virtual Platform Online

Poster Presentations

Primary Topic Inclusive Education
Themes Common Core & Assessments
Tags Content, Instruction, Collaboration, Adult Support, Inclusive Education
Format General

11:30am EST

Inclusive School Transformation: It's Not Just About Minutes!

When schools decide to improve their inclusive practices, they often consider how to increase the time that learners with disabilities spend in general education settings, or consider which classes might be a good match based on how teachers deliver instruction. This results in increased 'minutes' of general education placement, but does not necessarily increase 'inclusion' aka membership, meaningful participation and learning aligned with grade level standards. In these partial participation scenarios, students with disabilities are not equitably accessing general education. In this session, the presenter will describe a comprehensive approach to school-wide planning that begins with developing a shared understanding of inclusion, reflection on current practices, intentional targeting of grades for intensive student planning for full participation as valued members and learners.

Presenters

Carol Quirk

Director of Special Projects, MCIE

Dr. Carol Quirk is the founder, former Chief Executive Officer, and current Director of Special Projects for the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education (MCIE). For the last 30 years, Carol has worked with States, districts, schools, and families to promote inclusive education... Read More →

Monday December 7, 2020 11:30am - 12:15pm EST
Virtual Platform Online

Breakout Sessions, Track 1

Primary Topic Inclusive Education
Themes Capacity Building for Inclusion
Tags Transformation, Inclusion, Outcomes, Collaboration, Membership
Format General

11:15am EST

Family-Professional Partnerships in Teacher Preparation: Uncovering the What, Why, & How

The recording for this session is located under the title, "About TASH Talks (Part II). NOTE: TASH Talks are a take off the popular “Ted Talks” - short 8- to 10-minute presentations on critically important topics facing the disability rights movement followed by a brief Q & A session during the one-hour session.

Despite policy and research support for meaningful family-professional partnerships (FPPs) in schools, reported school practices demonstrate that such partnerships often do not come to fruition. One paramount barrier to FPP involves limited teacher preparation in university special education programs. The purpose of this qualitative study, therefore, was to report data from a nationally representative sample of special education faculty about (a) how they defined FPP, (b) the FPP knowledge and skills they targeted in their courses, (c) why they targeted specific skills, and (d) how they taught targeted FPP skills.

Moderators