Landmark College Denise Higgins MS MAT Kathleen DAlessio MEd CPCC Lucy Stamp MEd MAT NACADA 2015 Las Vegas Nevada Learning Outcomes Participants will Understand why the transition to college may be difficult for students who learn differently ID: 634823
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Slide1
Rewriting the Script:
The Advisor’s Role in Re-storying the Experiences of Students with Learning Differences
Landmark CollegeDenise Higgins, MS, MATKathleen D’Alessio, M.Ed., CPCCLucy Stamp, M.Ed, MATNACADA, 2015Las Vegas, NevadaSlide2
Learning Outcomes
Participants will:
Understand why the transition to college may be difficult for students who learn differentlyAppreciate the role that emotion plays for students with LDsGain an understanding of advising strategies and best practices that students have reported to be successful for themUnderstand how to help students reframe their thinking about their learning strengths and weaknessesUnderstand how the advising relationship can help students rebuild/ re-write their storySlide3
The Transition
to College for Students with Learning DifferencesSlide4
Guiding laws about
AccessStudents approach professors
Professors rarely modify assignments or deadlinesStudents expected to be self-directed and read the syllabusStudent responsible for self-advocacy & securing accommodationsGuiding laws are about SuccessTeachers approach students
Teachers modify curriculum &
pace
Teachers remind students of deadlines
School arranges accommodations/ parents participate
A Shift in Roles, Routines, Relationships, and Assumptions
High School
CollegeSlide5
Shift from external advocacy to self advocacy
Advisors role in re-storying the script
Advisors can help the student shift towards self advocacy and begin writing the new script with the student in control of his academic journey.Empowering students with LD is a necessary step for self efficacy and self determination.Before entering college, parents were often the major and sometimes only advocates for students with LD. Advisors can take on this role once the student enters college.Slide6
The role of emotion for students with LD
Many students with LD report feeling frustration, anxiety, tension, pressure, shame, hopelessness, embarrassment, humiliation and a host of other negative emotions.
Students with LD can form their identity based on how their families, teachers, and peers see them. (Cooley’s Looking Glass Self)For some, by the time they get to college, they have already been steeped in a lifetime of feeling bad about themselves as students.“ I always thought, people like me don’t go to college.”Slide7
Other Factors Impacting Transition for Students with LD
Situation:
Student’s prior educational experience? Who initiated the transition? Does the student perceive the transition positively, negatively, or with ambivalence? Is the timing right? What are the student’s coping strategies?Self: What are the student’s strengths and challenges? Explanatory style? Values? Psychological, social, and functional age?Support: Type of support (family, relationships, friends, institutions & communities); Function (emotional, affirmation, honest feedback, financial support); Measurement (The student’s characterization of his/her support?)Strategies: I
s the student able to cope by (1) changing the situation, controlling the meaning of the problem, (3) managing stress?Slide8
Catherine: The old script
Situation:
“I kept being told that I was below average. I knew I had trouble reading, but I was good in math. When the resource room teacher started doing my math homework, I felt like they took away the one thing I was actually good at.”Self: “I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I thought EVERYTHING was wrong. I was bad at everything. Support: “Teachers did my homework for me. I think they got frustrated waiting for me to finish.”Strategies: “It was easier just to let them do it. I couldn’t do it myself and I didn’t want to irritate anyone. I thought maybe I am lazy.”Slide9
Catherine: The Rewritten Script
Situation: I learned what my LD is and that not everything is wrong.
Self: I know that I am not stupid. I have more confidence.Support: I know what I need to be successful and I know how to ask for support and accommodation.Strategies: I don’t see myself as a lazy student; I am confident, and I advocate for myself a lot more now.Slide10
Strategies
Meet with Advisor weekly to create and monitor goals.Create daily and weekly schedule to structure work and school tasks.
Self Advocate for accommodations.Use assistive technologies for reading.Use One Note for recording lectures while taking notesUse campus resources (learning center and Business Support Center)Slide11
Anna
23 years oldSlide12
Anna: The Old Script
Situation: “My anxiety disorder makes it extremely hard to break from those negative and obsessive thought patterns.”Self: “I am ashamed of myself for being insanely anxious.”
Support: “I am frustrated and buzzing with a passion for life.”Strategies: “I am depressed and not motivated, I worry about what my peers may think of me.”Slide13
Anna: Re-Story
Situation:
“ I learned that by trying, doing, working hard, having a positive attitude and learning in school, that my brain could unravel the negative neural connections and piece together the new positive neural connections.”Self: “I am fully capable of advocating for my needs”Support: “ I am an excellent writer and praised highly for my excellent work… my advisor believes in me.”Strategies: “Keep it simple… go to support services, re-verbalize what I need… turn off my anxious brain.”Slide14
Anna’s Specific Strategies Slide15
Jake’s Story
Age
19Autism Spectrum Disorder Slide16
Jake: The Old Script
Situation:
Parents driving force in transition; student ambivalence; questions about developmental readiness for collegeSelf: strengths: curiosity; verbal & math reasoning, rules & routines. challenges: processing speed, self-advocacy, sensory integration, EF difficulties, and limited copingSupport: Parents primary source of support and structure
Strategies
:
Difficulties with stress management; Deals with sensory overload by humming withdrawing; difficulty with positive self-talk; avoids activities he finds unpleasant/ focuses on rewards; needs reminder s on phone; AT for writingSlide17
Facilitating Change: Rewriting the Script with Jake
Situation: Shifting Responsibility from Parents to student Self:
Using Jake’s strengths to address areas of challenge (Preview, role-play, extrinsic motivation, scaffolding for high stress social interactions).
Support:
Scaffolded, wrap-around support to facilitate self-regulation and self-advocacy
Strategies:
(a) explore options for addressing sensory overload; (b) frame problems in concrete, data driven terms; (d) teach discipline [learn to do what you don’t want to do]; (e) stress benefits of social interaction; (f) facilitate continuity from one environment to next; (g) Focus on rewards
(Wahlberg, 2010, p. 140) Slide18
Jake: The New Script…
Greater sense of competency
& autonomy Greater awareness of strengths and limitations:“have been able to do more independently than ever before…now know what to expect from college…. A lot more writing than expected…will be better prepared next time… I need to make sure I’m not off task when I’m working…Need to use Dragon”.“Don’t necessarily need to use Inspiration, but something similar”Greater self-acceptance and self-awareness through reframing experience of disability…Slide19
Reframing experience of ASD…
“I
have had broken bones and lost a loved one, but my most significant hard time is permanent, because I have autism…In the past, I responded by letting my autism define me. I internalized my disability and decided that I could not write and would not try. More recently however, I have come to the realization that in order to be successful in today’s world, I cannot let my disability define me. I have to learn to write and to manage my time.…My hard time is even harder than most people’s. It is permanent, but as I am learning, I can change my attitude towards it. My autism will always affect me, I will always have to respond to it, and it will always affect the people around me. But autism is no longer who I am; it is now just something I deal with.”Slide20
Countering the effects of Shame and Stigma
Simply being heard was one of the most effective ways of diminishing the shame and allowing myself to move on. Having my past witnessed and accepted did more for my self-esteem than years of medication and therapy
~James Rhodes Slide21
Rewriting the Script through Parent Education
Parent as advocate > student as self-advocate
Parents must assume role of helper vs. rescuer to facilitate independent problem solving and executive function skill developmentImportance of reframing the parent experience in transferring greater responsibility to the student:Overly involved parents often feel judged by their experience as caregivers, which “does not conform to ‘the cultural script’ (not the least of which is the seeming inability to ‘protect’ their children), thereby leaving them with intense feelings of guilt, shame, and failure” (Valle, 2011, p. 185).Slide22
What happens in advising stays with the student…
“…making connections is awesome. And education MUST be human and personal.”“helping me be organized and reassuring me that success is possible despite hardships. Being a calm positive voice of reason that I could vent to and receive advice from without judgment. I will always remember you.”
“You always expressed a sincere interest in how I was doing, both inside and outside the classroom. Because of this, our advising relationship always felt special, never superficial. During our meetings, it was clear you valued what I had to say and where I was both academically and emotionally at that time.”Slide23
What happens in advising stays with the student…
“[I] think the biggest impact it [advising] had on me was learning that in order to overcome my issues with work completion, I need to set up a structure in which I have a responsibility to someone else to get my worked done. There needs to be a third party holding me accountable.”“The weekly advising sessions had helped me feel more confident and content. This feeling of confidence and contentment contributed to my ability to cope with future challenges in my college career. What stood out for me was when you had advocated for my admission into the Statistics class.”
“Helping me understand that sometimes you have to do those tedious things without expecting a benefit, but knowing that there could be many benefits and that those possible benefits far outweigh the tediousness of the task.”“Whenever I was feeling stressed, you would help me lay everything out and organize (on paper) when I was going to get what done. It would usually help me see that my workload wasn’t as much as it felt like and was definitely accomplishable. Now I use scheduling as a tool to overcome as well as prevent the onset of stress.”Slide24
Factors impacting adjustment to transition & Implications
Schlossberg’s transition theory
(Goodman & Schlossberg, 2006)Implications for students with learning differencesSituation: Prior educational experience? Who initiated transition? Does the student perceive it positively, negatively, or with ambivalence? Is the timing right? Coping strategies related to transition?-- mix of overprotection and failure experiences
--external locus of control/ learned helplessness
--student not always driving decisions
--lack
of persistence
Self
: What are the student’s strengths
and challenges? Explanatory style? Coping mechanisms/ resilience? Values? Psychological, social, and functional age?
--move
beyond diagnostic labels
--fixed
vs. growth mindset, self-efficacy
--low self-efficacy > avoidance/withdrawal
--self-awareness/ self-knowledge; developmental lag
Support
:
Types: family unit, intimate relationships, friend networks, institutions and communities Functions: Affect, affirmation, and honest feedback, financial support; Measurement
--rescuers vs. helpers (stages of change)
--social anxiety
--objective, non judgmental
feedback
--
scaffolded
, targeted, pro-active support
Strategies
:
coping by (1) changing the situation, (2) controlling the meaning of the problem, and (3) managing stress
--lack
of structure may undermine persistence
--negative self-talk can derail efforts to change
--learning how to learnSlide25
References
Brown, T. E. (2014). Smart but Stuck.
Jossey-Bass. San Francisco, CA.Cooley, Charles Horton (1998). On Self and Social Organization. (1st ed.). University Of Chicago Press. Field, S. & Hoffman, A. (1999). The importance of family involvement for promotion self-determination in adolescents with autism and other developmental disabilities. Focus on Autism and other developmental
disabilities
, 14(1), 36-41.
Goodman, N. & Orr, A. C. (2010).
People Like Me Don’t Go To College: The Legacy of Learning Disability.
Journal
of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research. 4 (213-225
).
Goodman
, J., Schlossberg, N.K., & Anderson, M.L. (2006). Counseling adults in transition
(3rd
ed.).
New
York:
Springer.
McPartland, J.C.,
Klin
, A., and
Volkmar
, F.R. (2014) (2
nd
edition).
Asperger syndrome. Assessing and treating high functioning autism spectrum disorders
. New York: The Guilford Press.
Rhodes, J. (2015). The last word. Editorial. The Week, 1025, 56-57. June 6
.
Stamp, L., Banerjee, M., and Brown, F. (2014). Self-advocacy and perceptions of college
readiness among college students with ADHD, 27(2), 139-160.
Valle, J.W. (2011). Down the rabbit hole: A commentary about research on parents and special education.
Learning Disability Quarterly
, 34(3), 183-190.
Wahlberg, T.J.
Finding the gray: Understanding and thriving in the black and white world of Autism and Asperger’s
. Geneva, IL: Wahlberg and Associates.