<p>"A generation of students accustomed to receiving help for special learning needs is entering college. The percentage of students identified with learning disabilities who graduate from high school and go on to four-year colleges jumped from one in 100 in 1987 to about one in nine last year. And those who go on to any kind of post-secondary education went from a third to almost three-quarters by 2003. But some are finding that the transition isn't easy.</p>
<p>Many students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia or memory troubles have had years of education shaped by intense parental support, involved teachers and legally mandated school safety nets. And many colleges, including American University and Montgomery College, have programs to assist students with the transition.</p>
<p>But what colleges must do is far less defined legally, and professors and administrators at some schools seem to remain skeptical about the needs that students might have. Schools must provide assistance to students, but only if the students disclose their disabilities...." Bumps</a> Abound When Students Become Their Own Advocates - washingtonpost.com</p>
<p>The very fact that so many students with disabilities are even looking at college fills me with so much joy. Of course there are issues to be ironed out, but the very fact that it is becoming a mainstream topic.</p>
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have had years of education shaped by intense parental support
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<p>I, for one, have been teaching my HS freshman D from day 1 to learn to advocate for herself. I step in if it gets really ugly or involves legalese but most of the day to day stuff she takes care of on her own.</p>
<p>In part I think the jump is due to overdiagnosis. Yes, there are kids who have learning disabilities that stop them from doing work, but there are also lots of kids who have been diagnosed with one "syndrome" or another...it's like if you're not a straight-A kid, there must be something actually wrong in your head. I know kids in my school who get extra time on tests and deserve it, but I know a lot of kids who get extra time and go for organization help who are just plain lazy, or their parents are demanding it because they think their B and C kids have a "syndrome"...they need a kick in the butt to get back into reality.</p>
<p>Thanks for this thread. We need MORE help in this regard. These kids are not stupid or lazy. They just have issues with organization, sometimes motivation, and otherwise slower to mature. They can get there, they just need a little extra help sometimes.</p>
<p>Other alternatives are ROTC programs as the structure and discipline of that seems to help some.</p>
<p>colly, overdiagnosis surely exists and especially last minute "my kid needs accommodations for the SATs" parents can purchase neuropsychological opinions. I suspect that the overdiagnosis is most prevalent in the upper ten or twenty percent of the income distribution, in which well-educated parents deal with relatively well-funded schools. However, I suspect that more kids disabilities went undiagnosed and continue to go undiagnosed than are overdiagnosed. This would be very likely in the bottom 30% of the income distribution, in which frequently less-educated parents don't have the tools to deal with under-funded schools. And even in the middle of the income distribution, I think the experience is likely to be kids having problems and the schools don't want to identify these problems with learning disabilities because they don't have the money or staff to handle them. If you go on the bulletin boards of sites for parents of kids with LDs, you'll see a constant fight to get the school to pay for testing (even though they are typically legally required to), to diagnose an LD (even though the data is pretty clear), and to offer any kinds of meaningful treatment.</p>
<p>But even at the higher end, Special Ed requirements are federally mandated but educational funding comes from local property taxes and some state taxes. Thus, additional SpEd money feels like it comes straight from regular education. In my relatively affluent town, I paid for private testing recommended by my neuropsychologist sister that showed stunning evidence that my son had an LD. Yet, the school first decided that although there were potential issues, they were not impacting his academic progress -- despite the fact that he couldn't read at all in 2nd grade, he was somehow at grade level. Over the course of the year, talking with the head of SpEd for the district plus the principal of the school and offering to pay for the service myself (which they couldn't accept), I was able to persuade them to accept the obvious years before they would otherwise have done so. We know parents less capable of dealing with the school system who never had diagnoses accepted (and this is one of the top school systems in our state in a fairly affluent community). Procedures aren't followed; decisions are deferred to subsequent years, etc. [All of this reduces the school district's financial liability]. People in our town seemed to be impressed that my son has received all of the support that he has, because they know many other stories of kids who haven't. For each kid who needs a kick in the butt, there are probably two or three whose uneven or poor performance results from undiagnosed learning disabilities.</p>
<p>As a parent who has dealt with situations as described above, I cannot imagine many parents who would choose to go through this (or to put their kids through it) when a simple "butt-kicking" would clear things up. It cost our family financially (for diagnosis and treatment), worry, and time, among other things. Our family life was impacted daily by having to consider whether we could take a vacation or even go out to dinner knowing that any hours away from homework time might end up hurting our kids academically. Our kids had to deal with teachers who thought they were lazy or disorganized because their LD wasn't (obviously) severe and they were smart enough to be successful. Also, kids who have LD's and are good kids (compliant, polite, happy) are seen to be able to control their behavior so teachers expect them to be able to control their LD right out of existence. I feel sorry for families who do not have the financial resources and backbone to help their children through those k-12 years.</p>
<p>I am happy to hear about this topic. Does anyone know of special needs students with math disabilities (i.e. dycalculia ??) applying to college? How well do they perform in college?</p>
<p>In some cases satisfying the school is nearly impossible. They set up their own standards of how you prove a disability. I have hundreds of pages of medical records going back to the mid-eighties, more doctors than you an shake a stick at, but some schools still prefer that I see a doctor of their choosing at my expense to verify IF I need an accommodation or not.</p>
<p>I am currently working with a senior with ADHD and a mom who is in denial over this young man's capabilities. I think he can do so much more - with less handholding of parents who have done everything for him. Unfortunately, they have compiled a college list that is not only out of range with his needs and abilities, but also the schools that he can get into. My suggestions seem lost on this family. </p>
<p>Although he has improved much, he needs more time and a program that allows him a level of independence, but also success. Thanks for posting this article, DoveofPeace. I will share it with my student and his family.</p>
<p>Does anyone have a follow up for after college (i.e. What happens when special needs learners look for a job?) ADA aside, how much is a future employer expected to accommodate these students?</p>
<p>That is a great question. Unless it is a defined disability, I doubt that any employer is required to give special accommodations.</p>
<p>I can envision a world with kids with processing disorders who attempt to get jobs and ask for extra time to complete projects. How far would that go?</p>
<p>my daughter and her roommate senior year in college both have challenges that impacted their schooling and their daily lives. However they are both employed in fields and jobs that value what they can do- more than what they can't.
Nice thing about jobs- many places are more interested in your performance & will do what is needed to support that performance ( within reason) Small</a> Employers And Reasonable Accommodation
*The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires an employer with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities, unless it would cause undue hardship. A reasonable accommodation is any change in the work environment or in the way a job is performed that enables a person with a disability to enjoy equal employment opportunities. There are three categories of "reasonable accommodations":</p>
<p>changes to a job application process
changes to the work environment, or to the way a job is usually done
changes that enable an employee with a disability to enjoy equal benefits and privileges of employment (such as access to training).*</p>
<p>I haven't read the list of disabilities that are covered at ADA. Just wondering - dyslexia, ADHD, processing disorders - how do those fare with ADA?</p>
<p>My sister works for a school district that has been out of compliance with her physical disability. She threatened to sue to get the appropriate accommodations. They moved her instead to a school site that would offer her the working environment she needed. She was happy that they finally honored her request - 3 years after the fact.</p>
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Example A: An employee with a hearing disability must be able to contact the public by telephone. The employee proposes that he use a TTY(11) to call a relay service operator who can then place the telephone call and relay the conversation between the parties. This is "reasonable" because a TTY is a common device used to facilitate communication between hearing and hearing-impaired individuals. Moreover, it would be effective in enabling the employee to perform his job.</p>
<p>Example B: A cashier easily becomes fatigued because of lupus and, as a result, has difficulty making it through her shift. The employee requests a stool because sitting greatly reduces the fatigue. This accommodation is reasonable because it is a common-sense solution to remove a workplace barrier being required to stand when the job can be effectively performed sitting down. This "reasonable" accommodation is effective because it addresses the employee's fatigue and enables her to perform her job.</p>
<p>Example C: A cleaning company rotates its staff to different floors on a monthly basis. One crew member has a psychiatric disability. While his mental illness does not affect his ability to perform the various cleaning functions, it does make it difficult to adjust to alterations in his daily routine. The employee has had significant difficulty adjusting to the monthly changes in floor assignments. He asks for a reasonable accommodation and proposes three options: staying on one floor permanently, staying on one floor for two months and then rotating, or allowing a transition period to adjust to a change in floor assignments. These accommodations are reasonable because they appear to be feasible solutions to this employee's problems dealing with changes to his routine. They also appear to be effective because they would enable him to perform his cleaning duties.
<p>I suspect in the coming years, employers will be dealing with a huge number of college grads with learning issues that may need these accommodations. I wonder if all employers who have to adjust to compensate for the special needs will be gracious enough to do so.</p>
<p>I do think about this when watching my own son, who is impressively gifted, but who at the moment would probably be chewed up by the logistical complexity of the college application process. </p>
<p>I see three things operating to the positive side of the ledger. First, despite his severe dyslexia, his improvement in reading/writing has been staggering -- while both still fatigue him, he has gone from 40th to 50th percentiles on the ERBs to 99th percentile on the SATs (including on both reading and writing). So, with help, people can improve. Second, he's gotten somewhat better at managing things (but has always had some scaffolding in this domain). Third, I look at myself. I cannot put things away easily. In my office and my home office, I read a document part way through, get an idea, put the paper down, pick up another one related to the new idea, and continue this so that at the end of the day, my desk is a mess. If I try to put the stuff away, I start to have the same problem and it is a costly process from a mental standpoint. My home office is worse. So I hire an assistant part of whose job is to make sure that papers don't accumulate. She even comes to my house for the home office, but not frequently enough. My father was a truly brilliant theoretical physicist who had three offices that were stacked from floor to waist high all over the floor -- same mental issue with no assistant. Given his gifts, my son will likely be in a situation to hire someone to help with these things, though probably not in his first few jobs, or like my father, pick a profession where organization just didn't matter much. So, he may be able to manage well.</p>
<p>But, not every kid has his gifts and many may be showing up at Wachovia or Monsanto or Best Buy for a job and it is not at all clear what kind of accommodations they will get. I think, however, that in the past they would have been steered into certain occupations that might have worked more easily with their disabilities, or they would have had real problems in life. I believe I've read that prison populations have an extremely high proportion of inmates with learning disabilities. That may be the way we as a society handled things in the past. If so, employer accommodations might be a lot better for all of us.</p>
<p>I want to share a cautionary tale on this topic. Let me preface this by saying I am the older sister of a brother whose dyslexia and oral language issues were successful remediated more than almost 40 years ago. I am also a professional working in this field for more than 20 years.</p>
<p>As a senior resident in the hospital one of our jobs was to help the incoming interns adapt and cope. We were to train them in the "hidden curriculum" relevant to the high speed and data dense tasks involved in a hospital setting. There was a set of organizational skills that was passed down from one generation to the next- strategies for organizing information and communicating it efficiently. My first intern in my senior year was a terrific girl who was typically nervous in the first few days. She was patient, kind, warm and smart. She knew heaps of information on all the relevant topics.</p>
<p>But, she absolutely could not record data quickly and she could not organize the information presented to her orally. She and we tried every imaginable shorthand and graphic organizer ever known- nothing was enough. She began to get sad and then she told us that she was dyslexic- which we all suspected.</p>
<p>We all felt for her. She had, though force of extra hours and extra effort, been able to make it through college and medical school. But, nothing then, and nothing now, could help her bypass this final issue.</p>
<p>I think it is all about helping to find and nurture strengths. If in going to college kids can do that, they should. There are still some hurdles, but then there are hurdles for most of us I guess.</p>
<p>Vogel teaches biology and ecology and is the head of Ballard High School's science department. As a child, she struggled with school, and in college was diagnosed with several learning disabilities. She earned her degree in special education, and works to "mainstream" special education students into her classroom. Vogel developed an international ecology class, and has traveled with stuents to study ecosystems in Costa Rica and the Peruvian Amazon.</p>
<p>I am also grateful for the posting on this topic, and would like to share some thoughts: D was very successful in HS with extra time (ADHS, LD) and use of the computer (dysgraphia) for classes and SAT/APs. Perhaps some thought her accommodations were bogus because of her success, but she--and her family--can testify to the difficulties of dealing with special schedules and the length of time it took to complete homework. She is now succeeding, by working very hard, as a sophomore at a fine state college and has gone through all the hoops to get at least extra time for tests--after reevaluation the summer before college, she had to visit the disabilities officer, explain what she needed for each class based on the professors' requirements, and visit each professor with a letter describing her needs. Fortunately all her teachers have been very supportive, but she still has to juggle the accommodating schedules...she doesn't complain, but there is a price to pay for advocating for herself and availing herself of what is offered. </p>
<p>Hopefully she will choose a career path which will emphasize strengths and avoid stringent organizational skills or major writing requirements. All the experts advise doing so...some careers/jobs are more amenable and appropriate for those with these disabilities. For instance, her high school and summer jobs have involved things like dog walking, which she can do very well. There are many successful professionals who can learn to cope both with school and career....I watched HBO's "Recount" just last night, and was gratified when the highly admired lawyer for the Democrats was identified as dyslexic...he never used notes, but had to memorize everything!</p>