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Since students with learning disabilities are at greater risk in college, they need to allow adequate time to set themselves up for post-secondary success now. Keeping the eighteen factors below in mind increases the likelihood that transition from high school to college will be as seamless as possible.

1. To start your college search, make a list of desirable qualities in a school (i.e., commuter/residential, size, location, etc.) Start your search on the internet then begin college visitations. Allow your parents to narrow down your list to their acceptable choices. Then, once you see where you are accepted, you know those schools are all “parent-approved”.

2. Perseverance is the single most important factor in college success. Tied for second are the ability to delay gratification (i.e., saying “no” when your friends are going out, but you really should study) and an organizational system that works for you. The sooner you work on these three things, the easier college will be.

3. In college, you are a legal adult and need to articulate your disability on your own. Self-advocacy goes hand-in-hand with this; it is critical in getting your needs met in college.

4. If you are serious about a school, ask to meet a successful student from Disability Services. Before making your final choice, ask about spending an overnight with that student. You will get a better sense of whether or not you would feel comfortable at that college.

5. FERPA – The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act is a Federal law that protects the privacy of students’ educational records. However, keep this in mind: your parents’ support has helped get you to where you are today. Considering they are footing the bill, it is not unreasonable for parents to want to be kept in the loop. “LD-friendly” colleges allow you to sign a FERPA waiver.

6. The director of Disability Services sets the tone for the entire department. If you find this person off-putting, think twice about whether you would feel comfortable at the college.

7. If your documentation is older than 3 years, it should be updated. Make sure the list of recommendations at the end of the documentation includes critical items for your success. (Of course, they must be supported by the testing.)

8. Start exploring technologies you have never used but might help level the playing field for you. You can get an idea of different technologies when you visit the Disability Services offices at different colleges.

PROCEDURE FOR GETTING ACCOMMODATIONS

9. You and your parents should meet with the director of Disability Services as soon as you are admitted. Bring your documentation with you. IEPS are not of value in college.

10. The director will review your documentation and subsequently meet with you to discuss accommodations to be included in letters to your teachers. An accommodation you should strongly consider requesting is a reduced course load – at least for the first semester. Students can be considered full-time with as few as 6 credits, depending on the amount of work they can handle. Ask the director to write a letter for your parents’ insurance company explaining your full-time status with a reduced load, but do not submit the letter until it is requested.

11. Check back with the Disability Office at the start of school to pick up your accommodation letters. You need to deliver a letter to each instructor to whom you are disclosing. Find a private moment before or after class to do this, or make an office-hour appointment with your instructor, so you can maintain your privacy. This meeting is a good opportunity to introduce yourself and explain your needs to your professors.

12. The process of requesting, picking up, and delivering letters must be repeated each semester. If you need a change in accommodations, discuss this with the director of Disability Services.

CHOOSING CLASSES

13. Initial class selection is based on the result of college placement exams which all freshmen take. Remember that most colleges ban the use of calculators for the math exam. You should go in prepared to do all calculations the old-fashioned way. That means extensive practice until this comes naturally again.

14. Your schedule should be balanced between challenging courses and easier ones. Take the challenging classes three times a week, not two.

15. Classes should be hand-selected by someone in the Disability Services office who knows your learning style and the instructors who suit you best.

16. Keep your ears open to friend’s recommendations of engaging professors – but make sure they suit your learning style before enrolling.

TUTORING

17. For most incoming freshmen, tutoring three times a week is recommended to get off to a good strong start. Consider tutoring empowering; the more help you have initially, the sooner you’ll feel confident in your abilities.

18. As you become stronger and meta-cognitive (the state of learning how to learn), your Learning Specialist may suggest you gradually reduce tutoring. Some students may eventually be able to access tutoring on an as-needed basis, rather than by standing appointment.

Finding a good history curriculum for high school was one of the greatest challenges I faced when I was being homeschooled. It seemed like most of the good history books stop at the Civil War or World War II. What about modern history? It’s hard to find a history book from a Christian perspective about modern history. Have you run into this problem, too? This difficulty has been overcome with a high school history curriculum from Notgrass Company. Exploring America by Ray Notgrass is an amazing curriculum that is exciting as well as educational. It begins with Christopher Columbus and ends at the present time. Each day is broken up into short concise lessons.

Sometimes history books seem to make the exciting events sound like nothing more than boring facts, Mr. Notgrass has an engaging writing style that makes the events come to life. There are also daily assignments that encourage the students to dig deeper. Sometimes they will read a document, speech, or hymn from American Voices, which is a 400+ page companion book that comes with the curriculum. Other times they will look up relevant Bible verses and also memorize verses. Writing assignments (including writing a research paper) are also part of the assignments. Students who finish the course will have three credits, one in history, one in English, and one in Bible. How’s that for hitting 3 birds with one stone?

This book is essential for every high school student and will give them the tools to take an in-depth look at American history from a Biblical perspective. If you are looking for a really good American history high school curriculum look no further. Exploring America has filled a big gap in the history curriculum for homeschoolers. Exploring America is the best high school curriculum for American history I have ever seen! I wish it had been around when I was in high school.

The best predictor of a good ending is a good beginning. The old adage is a true today as when it was first uttered so long ago that no one can clearly say who first spoke those words. When it comes to the education of young children this proverb has such tremendous relevance that it is hard to overstate its importance. All learning and life experience is moulded by what happens to the child in the early years of his or her life. The influence of the family is of major importance but the influence of the educational opportunities offered to young children is just as powerful and, in some ways, more powerful. For it is the impact of early childhood education that determines the attitude a child will take to formal schooling at primary or secondary level.

The world today is a troubled place. We seem to be getting better at hating one another. We seem less and less able to accept people who are different from us. In a world riddled with violence, crime, bullying, chaos and unpredictability we have to ask some important questions. Why is it that some children

Do not become violent?

Do not become bullies?

Do not become depressed?

Do not loath themselves and others?

Do not despair and give up on life?

These may not be the most profound questions being posed in today’s world but they are among the most important. Where can we turn to discern the answers to these questions? What do we know that can help us unpack the issues embedded in them and come to a vision of how to raise and educate young children?

The answers to these and other questions about children are emerging from new research about how the human brain grows and develops. Although we are a long way off knowing exactly who we can prevent violence and depression we have learned a good deal about how to foster the brain’s potential as an organ to help children grow to become contributing and productive members of society. Before we explore some of the implications from this research we need to briefly review the five areas of development that all children pass through during childhood.

Understanding Child Development

There are five areas of development that children undergo as they grow to be young adults. These steps appear in a rather predictable sequence, one after the other. They are not like steps of a ladder leading to higher and higher levels. Rather, they are like a spiral of stages through which a child cycles endlessly as they grow and mature. At some point the highest level of attainment may not be reached in a given area but that does not mean the child cannot progress to other areas of the spiral.

The five areas of child development are:

oPhysical
oIntellectual
oLinguistic
oEmotional
oSocial
They can be easily remembered by the use of the rather unfortunate acronym “PILES”.

Physical Development

This area of child development is no doubt the easiest to understand and observe. Physical development includes: gross motor skills, fine motor skills, motor control, motor coordination and kinaesthetic feedback. Let’s explain each of these briefly.

oGross motor skills are those movements of the large muscles of the legs, trunk and arms.

oFine motor skills are the movements of the small muscles of the fingers and hands.

oMotor control is the ability to move these large and small muscles.
oMotor coordination is the ability to move these muscles in a smooth and fluid pattern of motion.
oKinaesthetic feedback is the body’s ability to receive input to the muscles from the external environment so the person knows where his body is positioned in space.

Intellectual Development

This area relates to the level of intelligence of a child in general and to the various aspects of intelligence that influence overall level of general ability. Among these many aspects are:

oVerbal skills-our ability to communicate with words our ideas, attitudes, beliefs, thoughts and emotions.
oNon-verbal skills-our ability to use visual and spatial-perceptual skills to interpret the world around us.
oAttention span-the ability to sustain a focus on a stimulus for a sufficient period of time to interpret it and understand it.
oConcentration-our ability to utilise attention to juggle stimuli into various permutations as necessary to analyse it accurately.
oVisual-motor skills-the ability to coordinate the movements of the eyes and hands to manipulate objects effectively.
oVisual-perceptual skills-the ability to analyse stimuli visually without necessarily manipulating them manually.
oMemory-can be auditory or visual (or even kinaesthetic as in the case of remember dance steps) and can be divided into some important sub-types:
- Immediate recall-ability to hold input long enough to recall it straight away if required to do so
- Short-term memory-ability to hold input over a longer period of time, perhaps minutes or hours
- Long-term memory-ability to store input and recall is well after it has been perceived, perhaps days or months, even years later

Linguistic Development

Linguistic development refers to language usage. Like other areas of child development it can be divided into sub-types.

oReceptive language-our ability to understand spoken language when we hear it
oExpressive language-our ability to use spoken language to communicate to others
oPragmatic language-the ability to understand humour, irony, sarcasm and know how to respond appropriate to what another has said or asked as well as know when to wait and listen
oSelf-talk-the ability to use internal, silent language to think through problems, cope with difficulties and postpone impulses
oReasoning-the ability to think through problems, usually with self-talk but at other times aloud, create plans of action using words
oCreative thinking-although not strictly a linguistic function I include it here because many people use language creatively, in new and inventive ways (e.g. Joyce, Beckett)

Emotional Development

This aspect of development, along with social development, is probably one of the most underrated but yet most important aspects of learning how to live in the world. No matter how excellent intellectual, physical and linguistic development may be we are doomed to live lives of frustration and difficult if we have not gained satisfactory emotional development. It includes:

oFrustration tolerance-the ability to cope effectively when things do not go the way we want or expect
oImpulse control-the ability to think before we act and not do everything that comes into our head
oAnger management-ability to resolve conflict without recourse to verbal or physical violence
oInter-personal intelligence-understanding the attitudes, beliefs and motivations of others
oIntra-personal intelligence-understand our own attitudes, beliefs and motivations

Social Development

oSharing-knowing how to ask to use the materials that belong to another
oTurn-taking-knowing when it is your turn to do something and when to ask if you can do it
oCooperation-the skills of working with others towards a group goal of task
oCollaboration-the ability to communication your input in a meaningful way when working with others.
Again it is necessary to repeat that emotional and social development play a hugely important role in our ability to live lives of dignity and respect. They also largely determine how well we will get along with workmates, bosses and loved ones including life-partners.

When we recognise that all children pass through each area of development we design educational programme for them that are developmentally appropriate. Most pre-schools have done just that. Unfortunately many early years settings succumb to pressure and push children towards academic goals and objectives, sometimes almost obsessively. Indeed, the curriculum in our junior and senior infant classes is largely developmentally inappropriate. It is far too teacher and parent-centred and far too little child-centred. Regardless, appropriate or inappropriate, it is not enough to focus on child development alone in our work with young children. We must begin to recognise the inborn potential locked within the child’s brain.

The Human Brain

Locked inside the brain are the potentialities that make us human. We are born with the potential for:

oLove Hate
oPatience Mistrust
oTenderness Violence
oHope Despair
oTrust Suspicion
oDignity Corruption
oRespect Revenge
It is the responsibilities of adults to unlock the positive potentialities of the brain and prevent the negative from appearing.

All educational experiences of children in the early years, indeed all educational experiences of children across the entire school years, must place an emphasis on releasing the positive potential that lies within the brain. Recent brain research, much of it conducted by Dr. Bruce Perry in Texas, has illuminated six core strengths, each of them related to brain growth and development that must be a focus in development appropriate educational programmes for young children.

The Six Core Strengths

Bruce Perry and his colleagues at the Child Trauma Academy in Texas have identified six strengths that are related to the predictable sequence of brain growth and development. These six strengths, if nurtured and fostered appropriately, will help a child grow to become a productive member of society. They are:

oAttachment
oSelf-regulation
oAffiliation
oAttunement
oTolerance
oRespect
Attachment

The first of the six core strengths occurs in infancy. It is the loving bond between the infant and the primary caregiver. Early attachment theorists’ conceiver of the primary caregiver as the mother but it is now recognised that it could as well be the father, grandparent or any loving person. The primary giver, when providing consistent and predictable nurturing to the infant creates what is known as a “secure” attachment. This is accomplished in that rhythmic dance between infant and caregiver; the loving cuddles, hugs, smiles and noises that pass between caregiver and infant. Should this dance be out of step, unpredictable, highly inconsistent or chaotic an “insecure” attachment is formed. When attachments are secure the infant learns that it is lovable and loved, that adults will provide nurture and care and that the world is a safe place. When attachment is insecure the infant learns the opposite.

As the child grows from a base of secure attachment he or she becomes ready to love and be a friend. A secure attachment creates the capacity to form and maintain healthy emotional bonds with another. Attachment is the template through which we view the world and people in it.

Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is the capacity to think before you act. Little children are not good at this, they learn this skill as they grow if they are guided by caring adults who show them how to stop and think. Self-regulation is the ability to take note of our primary urges such as hunger, elimination, comfort and control them. In other words, it is the ability to postpone gratification and wait for it to arrive. Good self-regulation prevents anger outbursts and temper tantrums and helps us cope with frustration and tolerate stress. It is a life skill that must be learned and, like all the core strengths, its roots are in the neuronal connections deep inside the brain.

Affiliation

Affiliation is the glue of healthy human relationships. When children are educated in an environment and facilitates positive peer interactions through play and creative group learning projects they develop the strength of affiliation. It is the ability to “join in” and work with others to create something stronger and more lasting than is usually created by one person alone. Affiliation makes it possible to produce something stronger and more creative than is accomplished by one alone. Affiliation brings into the child’s awareness that he or she is not an “I” alone but a “We” together.

Attunement

Attunement is the strength of seeing beyond ourselves. It is the ability to recognise the strengths, needs, values and interests of others. Attunement begins rather simply in childhood. A child first recognises that I am a girl, he is a boy. Through the early years of education it becomes more nuanced: he is from India and likes different food than I, she is from Kenya and speak with a different accent than I. Attunement helps children see similiarities rather than differences because as the child progresses from seeing different colour skin and different ways of speaking he or she begins to recognise that people are more similar than different. That brings us to the next core strength.

Tolerance

When the child develops the core strength of attunement it learns that difference isn’t really all that important. The child learns that difference is easily tolerated. Through this learning the child develops the awareness that is difference that unites all human beings. Tolerance depends on attunement and requires patience and an opportunity to live and learn with people who at first glance seem “different”. We must overcome the fear of difference to become tolerant.

Respect

The last core strength is respect. Respect is a life-long developmental process. Respect extends from respect of self to respect of others. It is the last core strength to develop, requires a proper environment and an opportunity to meet a variety of people. Genuine respect celebrates diversity and seeks it out. Children who respect other children, who have developed this core strength, do not shy away from people who seem different. An environment in which many children are grouped together to learn, explore and play will foster the core strength of respect.

How the Brain Grows

The brain grows from the bottom to the top. Each of the core strengths is related to a stage and site of brain growth. In infancy attachment bonds are acquired and lay down emotional signals deep within the brain. At the same time the brain stem is seeing to it that bodily functions can be self-regulated. Later on in childhood the emotional centres of the brain come under increasing control so temper tantrums disappear and the child controls their emotional life. In mid-childhood the child’s brain begins to develop the capacity to think and reflect on the external environment. It is at this stage when the frontal areas of the brain begin to mature and it is at this stage in brain growth when the core strengths of affiliation, attunement, tolerance and respect can mature as well.

The Classroom and the Brain’s Core Strengths

The education of young children must be undertaken with the core strengths in mind. Classrooms where there is peace and harmony among a wide variety of children will create opportunities for affiliation, tolerance and respect to develop. These classroom must be characterised by play, creative exploration of objects, lessons which are activity-based not teacher-lectured. There must be challenge to the brain in the form of innovative lessons and teaching methodologies. Cooperative learning activities must be part of the school day. The classroom should occasionally consist of an opportunity to engage in cooperative, mixed-ability groupwork. There must be an opportunity for long-term, thematic projects to be explored. The teacher should be a guide, always teaching with the core strengths in mind, always observing children and noticing which of them need more structure and guidance as they grow through the core strengths. The teacher must also be a person the children perceive as predictable and caring, patient and kind; a person who will not obsessively focus on mistakes.