COLLEGE STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIESA Student's PerspectiveWhat is it like to be a college student with a learning disability? This booklet tries to answer that question, and is organized around the personal story of a college student, Laura Segal, class of '85. In most cases, Laura's story appears on the left side of each two-page section of this booklet. General information related to her experience follows on the right side.Through her own description of what learning was like for her in high school and college, we begin to understand what it means to have a learning disability. It means that incoming or outgoing information often becomes fuzzy or scrambled as it is processed by the brain, making learning difficult. Of course, all of us have difficulties now and then processing information. For example, there are days when concentrating and attending seem nearly impossible. Or we may have occasional difficulty retrieving a specific word, even though it is "on the tip of our tongue." In learning disabled individuals, however, these and other processing problems are so pronounced that they become a disabling handicap, one which significantly interferes with academic or social development. It is only recently that people have begun to understand the frustrating and
persistent nature of learning
disabilities in college students. Previously, highly intelligent students with learning disabilities
who
enrolled
in college tended to drop out because of a lack of understanding and assistance. This booklet has
been written
to help both faculty and staff involved in such programs, as well as parents and students, better
understand the
nature of learning disabilities at the college level. A list of additional resources is available at the
end of the
booklet.
|