COLLEGE PARK, MD (May, 2014) At a May 6 ceremony at the headquarters of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., María Belén Camacho was presented with the 2014 ALAS-IDB Best Educator Award for her work with special-needs children.
The ALAS-IDB Awards were conceived to recognize work in the field of early childhood development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The awards shed light on outstanding efforts to improve the lives of children, often under difficult circumstances. This month's ceremony brought together policymakers, business owners and philanthropists, education advocates, neuroscientists, and researchers in cognitive and social development. Among the speakers at the awards was former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In 2008, after finishing her master's program in Special Education at UMD, Camacho returned to Ecuador, her native country, and established Love2Learn, a center for the multi-sensory development of children with special needs. At Love2Learn, she teaches thirty children, ranging from 6 months to 10 years old, with such various diagnoses as autism, Down's syndrome, and language disorders.
In the classroom, Camacho uses the Developmental, Individual-differences, Relationship-based (DIR) developmental model, which is particularly effective at creating unique developmental profiles and educational programs for children who experience developmental delays. One of the model's most effective approaches is "floortime," which emphasizes the creation of emotionally meaningful learning exchanges that in turn encourage developmental abilities.
"This educator identifies opportunities where others see only insurmountable challenges," the IDB said in praise of Camacho. "Children served by Camacho are rare in the classrooms of Latin America and the Caribbean, as only twenty to thirty percent of the region's children with disabilities attend school."
"Every child has potential," says María, "and it is our duty as educators to make it shine."
María Belén Camacho earned her bachelor's in Early Childhood Education from the Catholic University of Ecuador and, in 2006, her M.Ed. in Special Education from the University of Maryland. In addition to teaching at and directing Love2Learn, she currently teaches at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito.
Click here to visit Love2Learn's website (in Spanish).
-end-
For more information on the College of Education, visit: www.education.umd.edu
or contact
Halima Cherif, Director for Communications, at: hcherif@umd.edu
