Special Needs Students or the Principle of Universal Learning
Until a few years ago, I really did not have much direct contact with the legalities or practicalities of providing access to education for students with special needs; even during my time teaching at COD, I had only two students identify themselves as having a 504 and as such, may need extra time for tasks, and these were both in my last semester teaching--ironically, the year I found out in rather dramatic fashion that my daughter was struggling with learning challenges which had not been identified. Identifying these challenges and putting in place the proper supports and learning accommodations has been key to my daughter’s success in high school. I shudder to think what her life & learning would be like without them, so I was very interested in learning about the history of these kinds of accommodations. No one sits you down and explains where these kinds of accommodations come from and why, by law, they are required to provide them for your child—the focus is on what they will provide given your child’s needs.
As an educator, though, who may be involved in making sure students in my course get the service and accommodations they need to succeed, it was helpful to hear the history of the legal acts and laws which underlie the structure of providing this support, and why it is helpful to think about the acts in terms of civil rights and equal access—not just to buildings but to resources and opportunities of any kind.
I remembered my good friend who was an architect talking about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and how it would affect her work designing building access—I had no idea that it was much more far reaching than that or that the core of the 504 which supports my daughter’s educational success, actually had it’s beginnings in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 & 1977 which banned discrimination based on disabilities by any organization which received federal funding. That it took as along as it did to describe what discrimination looks like and what access means, and to fight back attempts to repeal the act, speak to the perseverance of the community of people with disabilities and their supporters, and form looking at the ADA webpage, there are still challenges and changes to be made. Tim Spofford said his former department is “complaint driven”—which surprised me but also makes sense. We cannot predict everything that will be problematic for people with varying disabilities, especially with the rapidly evolving technology available for everything from buying movie tickets to seeing a doctor. So, the evolution of access requires that people speak up and that they be heard, and if they are not heard, that there are departments of civil rights which can investigate and persuade organizations to provide the needed accommodations.
One of the things which I found helpful was Tim Spofford’s discussion of what equal access means in a day-to-day to way: his story about his son registering in his PJs at home at 2:00am illustrates the kind of thing we often take for granted—the ease with which many of us navigate the world and the hurdles with which others must constantly contend. But, also, the case studies he went over at the end of his talk helped me understand there are limits to what is possible in terms of accommodation—that the key is to find and implement “comparability to the greatest extent possible” and that we “cannot provide different services except where they are necessary to provide services as equivalent as other students.”
That there are grey areas there is no doubt—that there are workable guidelines is important. Right now, if I were to design a course for online learning, I do not think I have the technical expertise to provide the access students with special needs might require—so this is one of the big challenges for the next course I take—to learn the ins and outs of adding voice overs for seeing impaired students, to learn how to include descriptors, to learn about close captioning for those who have hearing loss. I like the idea of providing an accessibility statement in the syllabus , as Mark Sample suggests,, since it opens the door for students who may have needs but who are reluctant to ask for the accommodations to which they are entitled. The other thing which is very clear to me it that it will be important to reach out to and know the support teams at whatever institution I might teach for: the technical teams and the Academic Access teams who are there to help negotiate the space between regular/online classroom space and what might be required for a student with special needs.
Until a few years ago, I really did not have much direct contact with the legalities or practicalities of providing access to education for students with special needs; even during my time teaching at COD, I had only two students identify themselves as having a 504 and as such, may need extra time for tasks, and these were both in my last semester teaching--ironically, the year I found out in rather dramatic fashion that my daughter was struggling with learning challenges which had not been identified. Identifying these challenges and putting in place the proper supports and learning accommodations has been key to my daughter’s success in high school. I shudder to think what her life & learning would be like without them, so I was very interested in learning about the history of these kinds of accommodations. No one sits you down and explains where these kinds of accommodations come from and why, by law, they are required to provide them for your child—the focus is on what they will provide given your child’s needs.
As an educator, though, who may be involved in making sure students in my course get the service and accommodations they need to succeed, it was helpful to hear the history of the legal acts and laws which underlie the structure of providing this support, and why it is helpful to think about the acts in terms of civil rights and equal access—not just to buildings but to resources and opportunities of any kind.
I remembered my good friend who was an architect talking about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and how it would affect her work designing building access—I had no idea that it was much more far reaching than that or that the core of the 504 which supports my daughter’s educational success, actually had it’s beginnings in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 & 1977 which banned discrimination based on disabilities by any organization which received federal funding. That it took as along as it did to describe what discrimination looks like and what access means, and to fight back attempts to repeal the act, speak to the perseverance of the community of people with disabilities and their supporters, and form looking at the ADA webpage, there are still challenges and changes to be made. Tim Spofford said his former department is “complaint driven”—which surprised me but also makes sense. We cannot predict everything that will be problematic for people with varying disabilities, especially with the rapidly evolving technology available for everything from buying movie tickets to seeing a doctor. So, the evolution of access requires that people speak up and that they be heard, and if they are not heard, that there are departments of civil rights which can investigate and persuade organizations to provide the needed accommodations.
One of the things which I found helpful was Tim Spofford’s discussion of what equal access means in a day-to-day to way: his story about his son registering in his PJs at home at 2:00am illustrates the kind of thing we often take for granted—the ease with which many of us navigate the world and the hurdles with which others must constantly contend. But, also, the case studies he went over at the end of his talk helped me understand there are limits to what is possible in terms of accommodation—that the key is to find and implement “comparability to the greatest extent possible” and that we “cannot provide different services except where they are necessary to provide services as equivalent as other students.”
That there are grey areas there is no doubt—that there are workable guidelines is important. Right now, if I were to design a course for online learning, I do not think I have the technical expertise to provide the access students with special needs might require—so this is one of the big challenges for the next course I take—to learn the ins and outs of adding voice overs for seeing impaired students, to learn how to include descriptors, to learn about close captioning for those who have hearing loss. I like the idea of providing an accessibility statement in the syllabus , as Mark Sample suggests,, since it opens the door for students who may have needs but who are reluctant to ask for the accommodations to which they are entitled. The other thing which is very clear to me it that it will be important to reach out to and know the support teams at whatever institution I might teach for: the technical teams and the Academic Access teams who are there to help negotiate the space between regular/online classroom space and what might be required for a student with special needs.