Deja View : An updated look at some of the people, places and programs featured in Valley View during the year : DISABLED CHILDREN : MOVE Program Makes Inroads in Special Education

Special education teacher Linda Bidabe of Bakersfield is amazed at how the program she designed for severely handicapped children swept across the country in 1991.

Earlier this year, Bidabe’s Mobility Opportunities Via Education program was adopted by Reseda’s Sven Lokrantz Elementary School for handicapped children. Then in September, other special-education schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District began implementing the new teaching program.

Now, Bidabe is spending nearly all of her time outside the classroom teaching the program to schools in Florida, Missouri, Texas, Virginia and many other states.

“I’m flabbergasted at how this is revolutionizing the way we deal with these children,” said Bidabe, who developed the MOVE program while teaching at the Blair Learning Center in Bakersfield. “It’s absolutely wonderful what is happening.”

The MOVE program uses classroom time to teach severely handicapped children basic mobility--sitting, standing and walking. In the past, experts believed these children were incapable of performing such activities. For that reason, public schools offered little more than relief time for parents.

Bidabe said she recently received a report on Lokrantz School and was thrilled with the children’s progress.

“I saw a picture of a 7-year-old girl who used to be slumped in a wheelchair,” Bidabe said. “The picture showed her walking with only the one-armed assistance of an adult. As soon as I saw it, I realized, for the hundredth time, how badly the world needs this program.”

Bidabe has been asked by education officials in Argentina and Europe to take the MOVE program to those countries in the spring.