The Autism News | English

PUTNEY, Vt. – They have developed strategies to stay focused when lectures get boring, picked up tips for staying on top of homework and brushed up on their rights as college students with documented learning disabilities.

Now, they are working on their handshakes.

“No wet dishrags. Look me right in the eye,” Landmark College professor Roxanne Hamilton coaches her students, who would soon scatter to campuses across the nation to start their freshman year. She tells them that a firm grip will project confidence when they ask for what they need to succeed — be it extra time on tests, access to an instructor’s notes or a distraction-free place to study.

A growing number of students with learning disabilities are enrolling in college, yet few are likely to get the level of support and encouragement available at Landmark College, one of a few small, private colleges that specialize in educating students who struggle with conditions such as dyslexia or attention-deficit disorder.

Nearly nine out of 10 of the nation’s two- and four-year colleges enroll students with disabilities, and of the 86% of those that enroll students with learning disabilities, only 24% say they can help disabled students “to a major extent,” says an Education Department report published in June.

That’s why a growing number of short-term opportunities are cropping up to help college students with learning disabilities hone the skills they will need on a mainstream campus. Landmark, which runs three such boot camps on its campus here each summer, last year added a fourth, in Oregon. The non-profit College Internship Program this year offered similar residential programs on five campuses, up from one program three years ago. And a biopharmaceutical company awarded scholarships this year to 25 students with ADHD. Those scholarships include cash plus one-on-one coaching.

Through the programs, students learn to build on their strengths, navigate the terrain and, perhaps most of all, how to advocate for themselves.

Many students “don’t have the ability to speak up for themselves, because their parents were advocating for them” in high school, says Robert Tudisco of the non-profit Edge Foundation, which pairs coaches with college students with ADHD. Even when students do speak up, he says, “colleges, to a certain degree, don’t have a good handle on what these students need.”

The sessions at Landmark have made a difference for Brandon Tobasky, 18, who has an anxiety disorder that sometimes impedes his ability to focus on schoolwork. Now, as a first-year student at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, N.H., Tobasky says he feels “a lot more confident and a lot more prepared in general about just about every aspect” of college, both academically and socially.

While at Landmark, Tobasky worked on his note-taking, something he never had to do in high school for students with special needs because teachers gave study guides. He also fretted about whether he would make friends. Now, he says, “I’m thinking, wow, I have so many friends. I hope I don’t have too much fun.”

But students participating in another Landmark program warn that the transition can be bumpy. Ksenia Bradner, 19, a sophomore at Goucher College in Baltimore, says she had a professor last year who insisted “there’s no such thing” as attention-deficit disorder or depression. “I was shocked because all my life people had been understanding,” Bradner says.

“You feel under attack sometimes,” says Benjamin Staton, 20, a George Washington University sophomore with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia. Last year, he says, one professor “was angry at me because I was asking for help. She had to go out of her way to help me.” This semester, he says, he is communicating more effectively with faculty and staying on top of his course load. “It’s really important to not, like, sink, which would have happened in the past,” he says.

Rising numbers

The proportion of college students with any sort of disability has inched upward, to about 11% in 2008 from 9% in 2000, but the number who report learning-related disabilities is growing far faster, says a 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Dyslexia and similar language-based disabilities increased from 5% to 8.9% in that period.

USA Today

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