Dyslexic Kids and College
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Anonymous
| So my dysexic son is making his way through MCPS with the help of accomodations and an IEP. His grades are good dispite the fact that his writing/spelling is far below grade. I can't help but wonder where he will end up when school ends and the real world begins..without a scribe and modified assignments. College? Job? MCPS seems to feel everything is fine but I am afraid we are setting him up for limited choices on graduation. Everyone keep sassuring us he is a bright boy..but I think he needs to be able to write a legible sentence. |
Anonymous
| OP, I don't have first hand knowledge yet (our DC is still in elementary) but I believe most colleges have an office of disability. If your child qualifies, he could seek accommodations for college entrance exams and for course work. If he has a specific learning disability he could qualify for Bookshare and get his texts online, which features a computerized voice to read the text. Also consider technology such as Kurzweil, Ginger and Dragonspeak. Is your son typing yet? With today's technology, there's no reason to think a person with dyslexia can't go to college solely because of the dyslexia. Talk to your son's guidance counselor/IEP advisor and see what info/resources they can suggest. Some on these boards have suggested reading Jonathan Mooney's book Learning Outside the Lines. He is severely dyslexic and went on to graduate from an ivy league college. No reason that's closed off to any of our kiddos with dyslexia. |
Anonymous
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There are lots of colleges that accommodate ld kids:
http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2011/09/21/20-incredible-colleges-for-special-needs-students/ |
Anonymous
| My husband is dyslexic. He went to a big state school, works in IT system development as a government contractor. He is not the best at helping my daughters learn to read, and his handwriting is horrible, but other than that he is perfectly fine. |
Anonymous
| You'd be surprised at how many non-dyslexic adults can't write a legible sentence. My brother is one of them, and I had a handful of college friends who couldn't write to save their life. They can get by. |
Anonymous
| OP again, Right now DS will not use any technology (despite being a good keyboarder) because it is not the norm and he does not want to stick out. |
Anonymous
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OP, what grade is he in? Do you ever see you requesting the IEP be "lifted"? How long has he had the IEP?
Just curious... we just had our 2nd grader tested for dyslexia. He has already benefited so much from private tutoring. |
Anonymous
I'd be pretty confident that he'll get over that by college! Seriously, there are tons of dyslexic adults who are successful in college, grad school, and careers. The accommodations allow your DS to progress cognitively along with his peers, so that when he's ready to use the technology he'll be able to produce good work. |
Anonymous
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http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/dyslexic-advantage/
Wired: What are the major strengths of having a dyslexic brain? Brock: We outline four major strength profiles in the book, and fundamentally each of these profiles reflects a different but related way in which dyslexic brains are especially good at putting together big pictures, or seeing larger context, or imagining how processes will play out over time. Some dyslexic individuals are especially good at spatial reasoning. Putting together three-dimensional spatial perspectives is easy for them. They may work in design, 3-D art, architecture, be engineers, builders, inventors, organic chemists or be exceptionally good at bagging your groceries. Interconnected reasoning is another kind of strength. These connections can be relationships of likeness — analogies for example — or causal relationships, or the ability to shift perspective and view an object or event from multiple perspectives, or the ability to see the “gist” or big-picture context surrounding an event or idea. Many dyslexics work in highly interdisciplinary fields or fields that require combining perspectives and techniques gained from different disciplines or backgrounds. Or they’re multiple specialists, or their work history is unusually varied. Often these individuals draw the comment that they can see connections that other people haven’t seen before. Most dyslexics tend to remember facts as experiences, examples or stories, rather than abstractions. We call this pattern narrative reasoning, which we consider the third strength. These kids have a very strong ability to learn from experience. It’s very common for their families to describe these kids as the family elephant. They’ll be the go-to person when someone wants to remember who gave what to sister for her birthday two years ago. They might be the family historian, but they can’t remember the times tables or which direction the three goes. These individuals excel in fields where telling and understanding stories are important, like sales, counseling, trial law or even teaching. In addition, a large number of professional writers are dyslexic. For example, Philip Schultz, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, recently wrote a wonderful piece for The New York Times about his new memoir, My Dyslexia. He shows the kind of profoundly clear and vivid memory of personal experiences even from very early in his life that we commonly see in dyslexic individuals. The fourth ability we outline is the ability to reason well in dynamic settings when the facts are incomplete or changing. People strong in this area often work in the business field, in financial markets or in scientific fields that reconstruct past events, like geologists or paleontologists. These people are comfortable working with processes that are constantly changing, and in making predictions. Wired: Do most dyslexic individuals demonstrate a particular strength, or do they show combinations? Brock: Most dyslexics show combinations of these strengths. Probably 80 to 90 percent of the dyslexic individuals we’ve worked with show a narrative-type brain, and many of these individuals show strengths in dynamic reasoning. Interconnected reasoning is similarly common. Surprisingly, spatial reasoning, which is often viewed as the quintessential dyslexic skill, is a bit more hit or miss. In the book there is a great interview with Douglas Merrill, who was the Chief Information Officer at Google for several years and a tremendously impressive person. He said, “If I close my eyes right now I couldn’t tell you which direction my door is.” But he was very strong in all of the other mind strengths we describe. |
Anonymous
| Pick a field/degree that works with his strengths. Expose him to different design fields, Landscape architecture, graphic designs, music, engineering, computers, etc. I know you can call a firm and ask if your son can shadow someone for day. Get a feel for what they do. Also, Vtech has a design and planning school in Alexandria. Call over and get a tour. Better yet, ask when midterm pinups are. They are open to the public. He can see the students defend their work. Which is mostly drawings. |
Anonymous
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My dyslexic kid couldn't read in 2nd grade, much less write a sentence, but now is a good writer and is at a selective liberal arts college. It took many thousands of dollars of testing, tutoring, private school, etc, to get to that point of course.
There are some colleges that are specifically for kids with LDs (Landmark in VT is one), and lots that are willing to work with LD kids, and some that just aren't. If your DC is already in HS in MCPS there seem to be lots of college resources for special needs kids. Or try Judith Bass, an educational consultant. We heard her speak and she was excellent and knows tons about specific colleges and which are fits for certain types of LDs and which aren't. Keep in mind that colleges are not required to provide the same accomodations as secondary schools so it is important to find one that will. |
Anonymous
As an example - my DC gets extra time on tests/exams, and can get notes, and some other things, but is NOT excused from the language requirement, despite having been excused from it in HS. |
Anonymous
| the language requirement are a bitch. Make sure you know about those. Some programs do not have have them- like architecture. |
Anonymous
| 16:43 Where did your child go to school? Thanks! |
Anonymous
I am dyslexic and went to a top 10 liberal arts college (if you trust US News!) I received a 4.0 in my Master's program. I graduated from MCPS when there were many fewer supports-in fact I received more support at college than at MCPS. I'm a success!  Good for you for being such a caring parent but don't worry. I am a better person because I'm dyslexic.
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