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MEAFLink Archives: October 2008
Bumps Abound When Students Become Their Own Advocates
posted October 29, 2008By Susan Kinzie
Saturday, October 25, 2008
After a decade of worrying about her son’s attention-deficit disorder, meeting with teachers, calling around to get lost homework assignments and getting advice on SAT test accommodations, Lori Spinelli-Samara is facing this simple truth: Next year, in college, Nick is on his own.
The Olney mother knows he’s plenty smart enough. But will her son, a senior at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, get to the assignments due in three weeks without his parents, teachers and cross-country coach keeping tabs on him? Keep his focus during lectures? Lose afternoons playing Guitar Hero instead of studying?
"If you have ADD," she said, only half laughing, "how do you remember to take your medication?"
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.
To read the rest of this article, please go to: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/24/AR2008102403825.html
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