Working with Students with Learning Disabilities
Seldom do I know the nature of the disability. A student designated as disabled could be a physical disability or a learning disability, all I know is what the accommodations is such as more time to hand in assignments. Unless a student shares with me the nature of their disability (and I cannot ask)then all I can do is provide the accommodation agreed to by the school.
I usually have one or two students with the disabled disignation in my class and can only provide limited support unless the student lets me know the nature of their disability.
Again, what I can do is limited because I am an online instructor and have no visual contact with students. It is very much up to the student to seek help if needed.
You are so right. And I encourage all of us to seek assistance in this area. Talk to those who know special education better than yourself & ask their advice.
Ryan
The greatest challenge is having an understanding of the disablity as well as other disablilities and knowing how to be able to reach the student as assist them.
What would you say is the greatest challenge to working with students with learning disabilities?
I think the biggest challenge is for both the student and instructor to recognize there may be an issue. I have only been faced (to my knowledge) with hearing impairments.
As in an early module I am a “roamer†in the class room. This causes a change when hearing is at a deficit for a student. I have to remind myself, and have the student remind me that I need to stay in front of them to assist in their lip reading.
I have hours that I post every quarter for students to get one on one instruction with me outside of the classroom. This also helps students that need extra time or explanation of the subject. It removes any embarrassment the learner may have in front of the class.
I teach adults. I think you are correct. Some people are not aware that they have a learning disability because they were not identified earlier. I have had some students come to me about their problem & I try to do things like give students unlimited time to complete tests, handout simple outlines of the chapters as study guides & to pull together material. So far, all of my identified students have found that they do not need any additional assistance. They feel their needs are already being accomidated.
If my student has a possible disability how do I better identify it. And possibly get them help.
My greatest challenge when working with students with disabilities is the fact that they don't want to be different. I always honor the accomodation recommended by their physician, but allow them to participate in class as every other student. Honestly, I find that my students with disabilities have so much more motivation than the students that have none.
Working with students with disabilities can present challenges One way to alleviate that is to ask the student what other supports have they used in the past that has worked with their particular learning disability. It saves time and effort if you could use a support that has been proven to assist them with comprehending the information. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. Utilizing the various supports will help that student reach his or her full potential.
M. Allen
I believe it would be identifying the learning disability in order to more effectively make reasonable accomodations for it. Once indentified, the next challenge is making sure you do what you are able to implement them, especially if other students will also benefit from them. Also, striving to have patience will go a long way toward the goal, which is to help them learn!
The greatest challenge to working with students with learning disabilities is being patience, understanding and letting them know you intend to teach them regardless of any learning obstacles.
Talk to student, win their confidence, find out what has worked in the past to provide best learning environment, let them know additional time will be provided to take exams, you're available for questions and possible tutoring.
The biggest issue is hoping that they realize they have a disability and having them come to me themselves. It is against out school policy to ask a student if they have a disability and I have a few students who never approach me.
Trying to keep students calm and focused when they get frustrated. Sometimes students will act out by talking out of turn, fidgeting or leaving. I save "focus breaks" for those times. For instance--John Smith has dyslexia--he starts fidgeting and talking out of turn. It is a good time for me to say "John, what do you think about.....????" If this happens when a student is doing lab work--I will sit next to them and get them redirected back to their work.
I've found that often the student doesn't want any special attention, so as not to single them out. Often this will stop them form informing an instructor of their dissability. Without knowing what the student needs, wether thye have a learning dissability ot not, makes it difficult to provide any extra help they may need.
Understanding the actual support needed by the student and then integrating that into the class structure itself so the student doesn't appear to be the teacher's pet or someone who is too different to be in the class.
The greatest challenge I think, especially in a career college setting, would be that they are grasping the material, learning, and staying up with the class. AND to make sure that they are not singled out whatsoever. There are individuals with learning disabilities that are very smart, they may just need help to meet their goal to achieve their goal. I think that would be the greatest achievement and challenge in teaching to help that one student who is in need and help them succeed.
In particular, my students with disabilities do not always want to identify themselves. Sometimes they come from another culture that does not have resources, which assist people and children in public schools with learning disabilities. I was surprised to read that the accommodations stop at 21 years old or when the student receives a high school diploma.
My hardest challenge was remembering that he was deaf and to face him when talking so he could read my lips.
I would say that the greatest challenge in working with a student with learning disabilities is two-fold. First, the challenge would be keeping them on track. If they have problems learning, they could very easily fall behind. So what I would do is spend extra time with them and maybe find some media that they can use to help them learn in their own way and keep up (videos are excellent in thos respect). The second challenge would be to keep them from getting down on themselves and giving up. For that, I would spend time with them helping them with their learning, as well as keeping them from thinking of failure, and making them realize that though they have trouble learning, they can still do it. I have been quite successful in that reapect.
I agree that communication is the first hurdle. I had one student that could lip read but not hear real well so I made it a point of making sure she got the material we discussed in class. The whole class was understanding and we got through it. I offered her extra time if she needed it. Your statement about to remember who we are teaching is a great statement. I have class sizes of any where from 2-20 and need to keep in mind that with the larger size class I need to keep in mind that I have fast and slow learners and try to keep a pace that is comfortable for everyone.
