Accommodations in Higher Education Under the ADA: A No-Nonsense Guide for Clinicians, Educators, Administrators, and Lawyers

Adulthood is nothing to be frightened of, even if you have LD. This guide is aimed at helping prepare you not only for academic success, but for life as an adult. It helps explain how kids get into LD programs, clarifies your legal rights and responsibilities, and covers other vital topics including assertiveness, jobs, friends, dating, self-sufficiency, and responsible citizenship.

Christopher Lee was the author’s student at The University of Georgia, and Faking It: A Look Into the Mind of a Creative Learner is the story of his struggle to come to terms with learning disabilities. Using modifications and accommodations and putting in lots of hard work, Christopher graduated in 1990, and this book was published in 1992. Christopher looked forward to graduating because he thought his major struggles with LD would end with school. However, he quickly realized that the world of work offered a whole new array of challenges. He has spent the last eight years reframing his disability into something positive and has learned how to use assistive technology to compensate for problems with reading, writing and spelling in the workplace.

This text presents IDEA, other pertinent federal laws, and federal cases in a clear, well-organized manner in order to help educators understand and apply their knowledge in concrete situations. This practical book emphasizes students’ understanding at a conceptual level rather than mere memorization of the detailed provisions of these laws. Educators are thereby prepared to adjust to future amendments to IDEA and other laws and to apply statutory provisions to specific situations. The four sections of the text address the Constitutional Frameworks of education laws, IDEA, RA and ADA, and other legal issues such as No Child Left Behind, tort liability, and high stakes testing.

Until the 1960s a learning disability was a hidden handicap wearing many guises and treated ineffectively. Today, shows the author, founder of the unique Lab School in Washington, D.C., and herself the parent of a learning-disabled child, there is growing evidence that such difficulties can be either overcome or modified by teaching strategies that address the student’s specific strengths. The stories of adults—some of them celebrities like Cher, who suffered from undiagnosed dyslexia—who coped with learning problems throughout their school days illustrate the depths of the disability said to afflict more than 25 million Americans. Distilling her experiences with learning-disabled students, their parents and teachers, Smith demonstrates that a variety of approaches to learning can yield later career success, thus offering hope to children and adults so burdened.

Here is a model of reading ideal for striving readers, focused on their personal interests, topic-specific reading, deep background knowledge, contextual reading strategies, and mentoring support. More important, the model moves away from a deficit approach to conceptualize striving readers in a new way. Chapters share success stories of readers who overcome their struggles and highlight instructional strategies and materials you can use to develop activities and lessons for children and adults. Use this research-based model in the classroom or at home to help your striving readers achieve high levels of literacy.

This book is about people and about the challenges and rewards of living with dyslexia. The author’s goal is to give the reader encouragement, and to de-emphasize the negativity that comes with a learning difference. The 142 interviews are packed with practical coping strategies that will help you get through your journey with dyslexia.