Thoughts on Chapter 5 of Assistive Technology: Access for all Students by Beard, Carpenter, and Johnston

Week 7: Response to Nancy’s Prompt

For the 1st prompt of this week, please share your thoughts on Chapter 5 of Assistive
Technology: Access for all Students by Beard, Carpenter, and Johnston:
-Share what you think was most important from the reading

While reading Chapter 5 of Assistive Technology: Access for all Students, Beard, Carpenter and Johnston (2011) I was struck by one student’s assessment team stating: “Since Mike was nearing High School, it is apparent that he is in need of options to assist him in being a successful learner.” Excuse my sarcasm, but NOW that he’s nearing High School his need is important enough to warrant assistance? All the previous grades where he struggled were irrelevant? Practice?  This school system missed the most important opportunity to lay the groundwork, to allow this student to feel competent in being a lifelong learner. To let a student struggle until 8th grade is detrimental to this child’s opportunities for success in HS and beyond.

Something as simple as fine motor skills, which we address and focus on in Pre-school, is unaddressed and holding back a teenage student? Not one teachers in his life understood that student’s who struggle to read would rather be seen as bad than as stupid, so they act out to prevent the dreaded reading aloud.  I was an excellent reader in school and still became exceedingly nervous when asked to read aloud. Imagine the anxiety a struggling reader must feel.

I also saw the IEP plan for Mike as too little too late. As the authors state on page 72, “Although a degree of disability may  be described as mild, it is a serious disability.”  That statement is powerful they go on to point out something many of us ignore: “Students with a mild disability may not have the stigmatizing physical characteristics of students with moderate and severe forms of disabilities, but that usually means they do not elicit empathy, sympathy or assistance.”  These are typically the students who may be bullied, or socially ostracized.

Students who are quiet and well-behaved may also have a mild disability or delay and year after year be passed along to the next grade without any assistance or interventions. My own daughter, now 23 and a College graduate who will be attending Graduate school through a fellowship in the fall, struggled all through school. In kindergarten her teacher said she had a delay because she couldn't do a maze. I said I had worked with her on letters, numbers, colors and reading but didn't think to have her do mazes. So I bought some mazes, we did them, and she no longer had a delay. (Was the assessment valid and reliable?)

I found out from another parent that my daughter’s 2nd grade teacher would scream in her face, and when I went in to speak with the teacher was told my daughter wasn't working up to her potential. How does a teacher, who knows a child for 3 months, know what that child’s ability is, let alone her potential? She thought because my daughter was lovely, well-dressed and well behaved, she should have a certain level of ability she clearly didn’t possess. I removed her from that school when she stopped eating due to the stress of verbal abuse by her teacher. She had lost so much weight I could count her ribs. By 4th grade I could see my daughter was really struggling in school in both math and writing. She actually wrote as if English were a second language to her. Sentences were almost inside out. When she read aloud what she wrote, she always read what she thought she wrote. When I read aloud what was actually on the paper, she’d get upset with me and tell me “That’s not right!” I’d explain that is was what she actually wrote. We’d read it together word by word and her eyes would fill up, she’d lower her head and say ”But it’s not right.” I could not get support from the school, so my daughter spent 3 summers at Sylvan Learning Center for both math and reading support. (Scoff all you like….it worked.) They were able to build up her self confidence and desire to learn, and they gave her tools to use every day that helped her. Thankfully she didn't need AT. But she needed educators who were well informed in Special Education laws and technologies that included ways to assist students with mild or undiagnosed needs. We were finally able to get her a PPT as a freshman in High School. The team tested her, brought me in for a PPT, where they read us the scores of her tests without explaining anything. Then told us that she did have a mild delay, but scored just above intervention, so there would be no services. They promptly stood up and walked out leaving my daughter and I sitting there confused, upset and feeling dismissed.

In reading Chapter 5, I was astonished to learn about all of the assistive technologies available for students who struggle to read and/or write. In the many years I taught, subbed, and volunteered in schools, I have never once seen any Assistive Technology used by students, outside of hearing devices. Now, having learned that students with mild disabilities account for 85% of students with disabilities; and that 78% of students with disabilities receive at least part of their education in the Gen Ed classrooms, I can’t help but wonder what we are doing wrong. By 3rd grade we know who can read and who can’t, who can write and who can’t. Is the lack of support due to lack of funds? Ignorance? Is the belief that AT’s are merely crutches and not a child‘s right so pervasive our children are being denied their best possible opportunity? According to the National Center for Education Statistics: Fast Facts Chart from 2011, students with disabilities made up more than 13% of all students enrolled in school.

In the chapter review, the authors state: “Without academic, social and emotional support, a disability can have profound consequences on the student’s self esteem  and academic success.” Allowing students to struggle without every support available is unconscionable. It is time to educate Teachers, Administrators, PPT Leaders and Parents/Family Members on what AT’s are available, how to get them included on an IEP, how to fund them, and training for all parties involved on their use.

My Daughter, of whom I am most proud.