Learning Disabilities and Diversity

1. Learning Disabilities and Diversity Victoria E Judd M.D.

2. Poster available at www.disabilityisnatural.com

3. Objectives • 1. Describe how disability and diversity cultures relate to each other • 2. Identify the impact on students who have learning disabilities and are ethnically and racially diverse • 3. List ways health and mental health professionals can help

4. Disability • The loss of or limitation of opportunities to take part in the community on an equal basis with others. • It is not something that the person suffers from. • It is the product of interaction of the person and the community.

5. Disability • A disability may impact a part of one’s life yet it is considered the defining characteristic by others.

6. Disability • Currently 1 in 5 American’s have a disability. • 1 in 10 American’s have a severe disability.

7. Who has a disability? • Anyone with a mental or physical impairment that limits one or more major life areas.

8. Walking Caring for one’s self Performing manual tasks Sleeping Eating Dressing Thinking Working Lifting Seeing Hearing Speaking Breathing Learning Reading Concentrating Communicating Standing Others Life Areas

9. Traditional Culture • Oldest model • Places blame on the person for having something wrong with them • Disability is shameful and something to hide

10. Medical Culture • A shift to a scientific understanding of the causes of disability • Focuses on “cure” and “rehabilitation” • The disability is the problem resulting in the implication that the “disabled” individual is never okay.

11. Social Culture • Looks at the strengths of the person with a disability • Identifies the physical, social, etc. barriers that obstruct a individual with a disability • The constructs within society are the problem • Disability is a civil rights issue

12. Students with Learning Disabilities • Learning disabilities (LD) comprise the largest single category of students served under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) • (US DOE, 2002) • Students with LD now represent the largest single category of students with disabilities in 2-year and 4-year postsecondary institutions • Henderson, C. (1999). College Freshmen with disabilities, statistical year 1998. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education

13. Growing Number of Students with Disabilities • 11% of all college students and 9% of first-time college freshmen report some type of disability

14. Growing Number of Students with Disabilities Type of Disability Reported: • 46% - Learning Disabilities • 14% - Mobility Impairments • 11% - Health Impairments • 8% - Mentally Ill or Emotionally Disturbed • 6% - Hearing Impaired • 4% - Blind or Visually Impaired • 1% - Speech or Language Impediment • 9% - Other

15. Leonardo da Vinci • outstanding artist, engineer, architect & scientist • famous for his mirror writing

16. ALBERT EINSTEIN Great scientist but! • unable to read until he was nine • failed first college entrance exam • lost two teaching jobs because of problems with written language

17. Albert EinsteinGalileoMozartWright BrothersLeonardo da VinciCherBruce JennerTom CruiseCharles SchwabHenry WinklerDanny GloverWalt DisneyJohn LennonGreg LouganisWinston ChurchillHenry FordStephen HawkingJules VerneAlexander Graham BellWoodrow WilsonHans Christian AndersonNelson Rockefeller Thomas EdisonGen. George PattonAgatha ChristieJohn F. KennedyWhoopi GoldbergRodinThomas ThoreauDavid H. MurdockDustin HoffmanPete RoseRussell WhiteJason KiddRussell VarianRobin WilliamsLouis PasteurWerner von BraunDwight D. EisenhowerRobert KennedyLuci Baines Johnson NugentGeorge Bush's childrenPrince Charles Famous People with a Learning Disability

18. Gen. WestmorelandEddie RickenbackerGregory BoyingtonHarry BelafonteF. Scott FitzgeraldMariel HemingwaySteve McQueenGeorge C. ScottTom SmothersSuzanne SomersLindsay WagnerGeorge Bernard ShawBeethovenCarl LewisJackie Stewart"Magic" JohnsonWeyerhauser familyWrigleyJohn CorcoranSylvester Stallone Musicians: Mozart, Beethoven, John Lennon, and Cher. Athletes: “Magic” Johnson, Bruce Jenner, Carl Lewis, and Nolan Ryan. Politicians: John F. Kennedy, Nelson Rockefeller, Dwight Eisenhower, and Woodrow Wilson. Military leaders: General Patton and General Westmoreland. Famous People with a Learning Disability

19. Disability as a part of Diversity • College campuses need to be aware that: • Disability shapes students’ experience of learning and of the classroom just like race, gender, national origin, culture • College campuses need to adapt and adopt existing resources for students with disabilities to be included in “inclusive teaching” and “teaching diverse learners”

20. Diverse Students Fear of Disclosure • Fear of Inaccurate Labels • Accused of Faking Their Disability • Experienced a Chilly Classroom Climate • Poor Self-Advocacy Skills

21. What is stereotype threat? • Fear of being treated and judged according to a negative stereotype about one’s group • Occurs when an individual is in a performance situation and is aware that there is a negative stereotype about their group that suggests they will not perform well • Occurs regardless of whether the individual believes the stereotype • Occurs regardless of the accuracy of the stereotype

22. What are the conditions that lead to stereotype threat? • The task an individual is performing is relevant to the stereotype • The task is challenging • The individual is performing in a domain she or he identifies with • The context in which the task is being performed is likely to reinforce the stereotype

23. What are the consequences of stereotype threat? • Decreased achievement test performance • Decreased short term task performance • Vast majority of research has examined these outcomes

24. Proposed mechanisms for effect of stereotype threat on performance • Physiological arousal • Reduced working memory capacity • Anxiety • Excess effort • Lowered performance expectations Source: www.ReducingStereotypeThreat.org

25. Intelligent, motivated student faces a difficult, stereotype relevant test Search for explanation of difficulty Context reinforces stereotype Stereotype comes to mind Student performs test, but performance is disrupted by stereotype threat Student becomes frustrated and demotivated Others assume student that performance accurately reflects ability

26. Women on math tests (Spencer, Steele & Quinn,1999) African-Americans on standardized tests (Steele & Aronson, 1995) Hispanics on standardized tests (Gonzales, Blanton & Williams, 2002) Low SES students on standardized tests (Croizet & Claire, 1998) Women on negotiation tasks (Kray, Galinsky & Thompson, 2002) Men on social sensitivity tasks (Koenig & Eagly, 2005) Whites on tasks that require being non-racist (Richeson & Shelton, 2003) White men (compared with Black men) on athletic tasks (Stone, Sjomeling, Lynch, & Darley, 1999) White men (compared with Asian men) on a math tests (Aronson, Lustinga, Good, Keough, Steele, & Brown,1999) Documented in a large number of groups

27. A Few Suggestions on Overcoming Stereotype Threat • Reframing the task • Deemphasizing threatened social identities • Encouraging self-affirmation • Emphasizing high standards with assurances of capability • Providing role models • Providing external attributions for difficulty • Emphasizing an incremental view of ability • Source: http://reducingstereotypethreat.org/reduce.html

28. Cognitive Dissonance

29. Research on Race Bias

30. Research on Race Bias

31. Research on Race Bias

32. Research on Race Bias

33. Unconscious Bias

34. Unconscious Bias

35. Characteristics of students with learning disabilities • poor short term memory • speaking vocabulary than written vocabulary • struggles with decoding words • poor at computation • refuses written work • handwriting is not legible • difficulty with spelling & phonics

36. Characteristics of students with learning disabilities • struggles with easy sequential material • difficulty with rote memorization • inattentive in class • emotions overpower reasoning • poor auditory memory/listening skills • weak in language mechanics etc

37. Characteristics of students with learning disabilities • needs to be interested to learn • performs poorly on timed test • disorganized • avoids weak areas • foreign languages sequencing memory subjects difficult

38. Diverse Students • Students with hidden disabilities: psychiatric, learning, environmental, cognitive disabilities • “nontraditional students:” working parents, entering college a few years after high school • From culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (CLD), or new immigrants • Low socioeconomic status

39. CLD students with disabilitiesmore likely to face: • Language and social barriers • Negative effects of having grown up in poverty • Difficulty processing “standard English” oral and written information • All of which may contribute to their risk of school failure • Greene, G., & Nefsky, P. (1999). Transition for culturally and linguistically diverse youth with disabilities: Closing the gaps. Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 3(1), 15-24.

40. As a Results CLD students: • In comparison to non-CLD students with disabilities, CLD students tend to: • Have poor transition outcomes (from secondary to postsecondary) • Lower employment rates • Lower average wages • Lower participation in postsecondary education Blackorby, J., & Wagner, M. (1996). Longitudinal postschool outcomes of youth with disabilities: Findings from the National Longitudinal Transition Study. Exceptional Children, 62, 399-413.

41. As a Result CLD students: • Sense of social isolation • Basic mismatch between home culture and educational culture they face in schools • Support programs for students with disabilities tend to focus on academic issues • CLD students may also need focus on social supports to achieve academically Carey, J. C., Boscardin, M. L., & Fontes, L. (1994). Improving the multicultural effectiveness of your school. In P. Pedersen & J. C. Carey (Eds.), Multicultural counseling in schools: A practical handbook (pp. 239-249). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

42. CLD Student Challenges • Transition from high school to college • From IDEA to ADA • Responsibility shifts from school to student • Importance of self-advocacy • Difficult for CLD students: • cultural values against disclosing personal challenges or asking for help • Difficulty in approaching persons of higher status, such as professors, disability support personnel Leake, D. &Cholmay, M. (2000). Addressing the Needs of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students with Disabilities in Postsecondary Education. National Center on Secondary Education and Transition, Information Brief 3 (1).

43. CLD Student Challenges • It is difficult to determine if a student’s learning difficulties are a result of learning disabilities, or due to issues related to their CLD status • Danger of under-diagnosis of CLD students learning disabilities because the assumption is that the problem lies in English language comprehension difficulties. • Shortage of qualified bilingual diagnosticians to determine eligibility for supports D. Shulman (2002). Diagnosing Learning Disabilities in Community College Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 16 (1)

44. Faculty Attitudes • Survey of faculty attitudes and practices • Two-thirds of faculty have limited contacts with students with disabilities • Large majority had little or no experience teaching students with disabilities • Those with experience had it with students with LD and students with visual, hearing, or orthopedic impairments • Least experience with psychiatric disabilities and chronic illness Leyser, Y., Vogel, S., Wyland,S., and Brulle, A.(1998). Faculty Attitudes and Practices Regarding Students with Disabilities: Two Decades after Implementation of Section 504. Journal on Postsecondary Education and Disability

45. Faculty Attitudes • Surveys of students assessing faculty knowledge of disability issues and accommodations • Faculty were evaluated on the low-to-moderate end Roessler, R. and Kirk, M. (1998) Improving technology training services in postsecondary education: Perspectives of recent college graduates with disabilities. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability 13, 48-59

46. Faculty Attitudes • Faculty attitudes towards accommodations for LD • Saw LD as different from other disabilities • Questioning the legitimacy of the LD diagnosis • Concern about academic freedom • Jensen, J., McCrary, N., Krampe, K. and Justin Cooper, J.(2004). Trying to Do the Right Thing: Faculty Attitudes Toward Accommodating Students with Learning Disabilities. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 17 (2)

47. Faculty Attitudes • BUT: focus group of faculty showed strong desire to understand the experiences and concerns of students with disabilities in their classes Hennessey, M. (2004). An examination of the employment and career development concerns of postsecondary students with disabilities: Results of a tri-regional study. Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University.