Event ID: 1198226
Event Started: 11/25/2008 6:53:34 PM ET
Please stand by for realtime captions.
Starting Wright a series of programs with disabilities in pursuing
science, technology-based careers and provides the steps. Should you be
taking to prepare yourself for college? How you oversome stereo types
and other obstacles that are in your way. If you have questions you
would like to share with us, it's an interactive webcast. The demand
for science and technology based careers is continued to go rapidly. If
you want to be part of that future, now is the time to get started
right. Now here is the host, Mr. Jeff Vernooy.
Good evening
everybody. Director of the office of disabilities services coming to
you on starts Wright. We really appreciate the work that people have
been doing to work on this program and trying to enhance the way we do
it in some of the things that we do. We're going to have an exciting
show tonight and question have some really good interesting things to
talk about. I want to take a minute to talk about -- I'd like to get
started by talking about the review from last week and what we did.
Last week's program we talked act the whole concept of careers. We
discussed that careers are much more than just a job, but there are a a
Serb vees of jobs over a period of time. It can be as much as a
lifetime. We understood that the formula for choosing a career includes
knowing what's your interests, abilities and knowing ha the demands --
what the demands are. We're trying to have the formula which includes
the interest ability and the demands for that particular area. STEMM
careers, science, tech knowledge, engineering math and medicine. Some
of those are the things that when we refer to STEMM careers it refers
to people in those areas. It doesn't mean just biology, it doesn't mean
just engineering, it can include some of the other areas as well.
And we had homework. We asked people to list ten colleges within
200-miles of their home. Jacob from Cincinnati, you listed the hod
statedown -- Ohio state university, Northen state Kentucky Indianapolis
university and mount St. Joes. Those are all institutions that are
around Jacob in Cincinnati. We asked folks to talk about -- list one of
the interests that they had and one of our students Charles from
Dayton, Ohio he enjoys math problems and science and physics. Charles
that's exactly the kind of interests we're looking for people who want
to go in to the STEMM field. Casey from rivercide pays close attention
to details compassionate, small group team player, mechanically
inclined health pful leader, ability to make people laugh, responsive
and creative. Those are great skills Casey and those will do you well
in almost any field including the STEMM fields. What's the demand for
careers that match your interests an abilities. Darrien says his match
careers in psychology. He thinks the demand for psychologists are going
be very high and his interests and abilities match social
psychologists, clinical psychologists, counseling social psychologists.
Interested in Wing with people and learning why people do the things
that they do, that's a lot of what the social psychologists and
clinical psychologists study.
Program 3, tonight, coming up,
we're going to talk about planning for college. Do students with
disabilities really go to college and have STEMM careers? We're going
to talk a little bit about that. We have a couple students I'm going to
use as examples to get a better understanding of some of the things
that go on. Talk about the help and support you can expect when you
receive at college. We realize people are several years from that but
we want you to know what to expect when you get there and what you
can't expect when you go to college. There's a difference and there's a
shift that takes place and how to prepare for that. We have a special
guest in the studio tonight. A parent of one of our students that's on
campus, somebody who's worked really hard with her. She's going to have
two new students at Wright state. What they did to get ready and some
of the things that were important for them. So what do we mean by
college? I use that term all the time. What I'm really referring to is
some sort of a post secondary education. Post secondary meaning after
high school. So a college program can often be done at a university
like Wright state. It can also be done in a two year program or
vocational school. I think those are the important things that you need
to understand, that anything post secondary program that goes on after
high school can be considered college in my, many ways.
In
STEMM areas, college can include a technical certificate. Which may
take a month to a year to take. Somebody who works and get Aztec any
call sore tiff -- gets a technical certificate to learn on various
parts of the car and how to do those kinds of things. That they may
take a couple of courses or they may take an entire year depending on
what they're looking at. Some folks who go to community colleges choose
to go beyond their technical certificate programs and actually get an
associates degree. Someone starts in the field of medicine and they go
and get a certificate to become a nurse's aid and to assist folks, but
may decide they don't want to stop at that. Maybe they want to stay and
go on in to the RN program and get an associates degree and become a
registered nurse to work in a hospital or other areas. Then there are
folks that decide to go on and get bachelor's degrees. Nursing is an
example. You can get a two years associate's degree and be an RN and
work in the hospitals or you can get the additional two years and get
the bachelor's degree which makes you eligible to be managers or work
in various areas. Same thing is true in engineering. You can get a two
years associates degree in engineering. You may do cad design. A
bachelor's degree -- getting some additional training and looking at
those kinds of things. Then some folks get their bachelor's degrees and
then decide that they want to have an opportunity to go on and get
their graduate degree, a masters or a doctors degree. That may require
additional two to four years of studying.
College education
is a reality for students with disabilities. The first program that
provides support services to people with disabilities in colleges
occurred at the university of Illinois. It happened in 1949. As a
result of some veteran's returns from World War II who had been injured
in the war and wanted their opportunity to go to college. The
university of Illinois began the very first program that provided
support services to those veterans to ascend that. -- to attend that.
In 1977 when I came to Wright state university, we sponsored the first
ever association on persons with disabilities in post secondary
education. It was called os pee. There were DOSPE. That represented the
schools in the United States who provided support services to people
with disabilities. Now W the passage of the Americans with disabilities
act, every college and university has a requirement to provide basic
support services to individuals with disabilities. But not all schools
are the same. Some schools take that responsibility to different levels
of accommodation. So some of the things that we're going to talk about
today is the possibilities and realities of what might be there. Let it
be said though, that there are support services that are provided to
students with disabilities. We've got two really good examples here on
the screen right now. That's Holly slack who's working on her Ph.D. in
learning -- psychology and Jenny border who talked with us next week
and was interviewed who is also working on her degree -- her Ph.D. in
psychology.
Then we have other students that are in chairs
and assistance animals. You may have heard on the news a couple weeks
ago that Wright state did one of his first dog parks on the campus for
assistance animals. So students sometimes come and get assistance from
other things like assistance animals that may help them to get around
or provide direction or other kinds of things. Amanda is a student who
is majoring in education. She's coming to class with her dog Marcy.
Then we have Barbie stall. She's a visually impaired student who's
majoring in political science. Barbie had the good fortune of spending
her summer working as an intern in one of our congressional offices and
learning more about what it known work in congress and some of the
things that they did there. But she's gotten some good work experiences
there. She's in a biology class right there and checking out some
tactual materials that we is for her to help her better understand the
pictures that might be drawn.
Then we have Jasonday. Jason is
sitting there having lunch with some friends. Jason is a student who's
majoring in MIS. Management information systems. That's a program that
works with computers in business areas. Jason is actually going to be
working for our program and helping us to develop some of the slides
and other kinds of things that you are going to see coming up in the
winter quarter at Wright state university. Students at Wright state
major in a variety of fields. In reality the Americans with disability
act says that all students should be provided an opportunity to major
in careers that they are interested in. Things that they want to do and
that they want to be a part of. No school is really allowed to counsel
students out of a particular major, but instead, they have to provide
the support services so the students can do that.
Now that
means that if you begin to think about your career, you need to use the
formula that we talked about. Your interests, plus your abilities, plus
the demand to make a good decision about choosing a career.
Going to a college with a physical or learning disability, what can I
expect? Well, one of the ways to look at the support services that
people with disabilities use on college campuses is to view it in four
categories. Academic support, which basically means the support that's
provided for you to be able to do the class work, homework assignments,
attend class and understand some of the lectures and other kinds of
things.
Fiscal support, which basically services that support
those of us who have physical disabilities that support us in terms of
getting up in the morning, going to our class, maybe going out on work
assignments, eating meals during the day, getting our clothing washed,
other things like Louisiana but basically the physical -- like that.
But basically the fiscal things that the students need to be students
on campus.
Technical support is a relatively new area because
computers just came in to the mainstream in the last 20 years. Having
Aidantive computers or adapting technology with a way that students can
use it is really a thing that makes sense and more and more campuses
are providing now.
Finally, vocational support, which is
helping you make the transition from going to college to ultimately
getting a job and learning what kinds of things you're going to need to
do to be successful in those areas. Academic support. We already talked
about that.
But some examples of academic support is, access
to tutors. Here at Wright state university, if you are taking a course
and you have a disability and need some tutoring support, you can go to
our tutoring office and ask to find a tutor in your particular course,
and meet with that tutor on a regular basis during the school year.
Probably an hour or two each week to work on things. You have to get
ready for tutoring. It doesn't mean that student is going to teach you
it all over again. You need to write questions that you have. Ask them
to explain things that you don't understand. Many, many students are
fully capable of taking exams either independently or with a little
assistance but sometimes needs extended time. In our case, at Wright
state if you are taking an camp that has multiple choice questions, if
the regular class gets an hour for the exam, you as a student with a
disability will get an hour and a half. Or if you are taking an essay
exam and you require the -- the class gets an hour to take the essay
exam and you are going to be doing the essay and you need to dictate it
to someone or writing it out on a word processor, you are eligible to
receive up to two hours of assistance. So it's extended time but it's
not an unlimited amount of time. Sometimes people need to take tests in
an area where there's no distractions. Maybe they have a hard time
zoning out people sitting around them. Maybe they feel uncomfortable
sitting in the classroom and so many universities provide a reduced
distraction testing room for students to be able to do that.
In other cases, students may have homework assignments an may need
reading and writing assistance, someone who comes to your room and
reads terribles to you -- materials to you. What you want written. That
reading and writing assistance is direct and so if you are writing the
paper, you need to direct Dick -- dictate directly what you want
written. You can't ask them to fix the spelling words or come up with a
new idea for a paragraph or something along that line.
Many,
many colleges and universities provide Sign Language interpreters. Deaf
and Hard of Hearing folks use sigh language has those interpreters in
the classroom toasts them with that. ADapptive computers. Many schools
have labs that have aDapptive computers. It's in the main computer
science area of our library. If you are capable of blinking your eyes
you are operate a computer in that room. We have all different kinds of
gadgets that are available that will allow you to access that.
Finally academic counseling. Support service programs provide some
counseling to students so that they can begin to develop better skills
to be able to complete more academic work. Sometimes it's not a
question of whether you can do it or not but a question of being able
to do it within a specific period of time.
Physical support.
Now not everybody needs physical support but there are many of us that
have disabilities that impact our ability to physically maneuver on
campus or to get up in the morning or other kinds of things. So
services that allow us to be independent on a college campus are an
important part. The first area that physical support talks about is
providing key accessible campus housing. Information about accessible
office campus housing. People come to our office and talk with our
physical support person about where they should live on campus. What
kind of things. So even they do that and once students have been here
for a year or two they decide they want to live off campus. They
provide information on what apartment complexes are able to do that.
Our disability parks services which provide accommodations for folks
who have cars and need to park somewhere close to the office or near
the classroom. They need to be able to do that can get support services
from us. We also have independent living skills training, skills that
teach you to be independent to do those kinds of things. As well as
mobility orientation for students with visual impairment.
Technical support. There are lots of new gadgets out there but one of
the things we're able to do is textbooks and class room materials in
alternative formats. So providing your books on a disk that you can put
in to a computer and be read, or to be able to turn your textbook in to
Braille or some other kind of enhanced image is going be important.
ADapptivee computers.
Technical support also works with
people who use communication devices and might work with you on
developing a communication device that you ask answer questions in
class and carry on a discussion. And then also, there are some new
technology things with adaptive transportation.
Vocational
support. Help you to take a lookal your career equation L your
interests are and what demand is out there are some of the things that
somebody in the vocational support program can do for you. There are
courses that can work with you on developing skills and planning your
career in a way that you can successfully leave college and begin to go
out and go to work.
Work experiences. One of the things that
we found over the years atweight state is that those students that
participate in some kind of work experience prior to graduation are
really going to find that that pays off when it comes time looking for
a job and find it much easier to enter the job world provided they have
those working experiences. Those can come in the form of internships as
well as work experiences. How do you interview? When do you talk about
your disability? All those things are the types of things that come
through vocational support program at the university that you choose to
attend. Working on and developing kinds of work site accommodations are
going be necessary for you to have when you go out and you go to work.
Going to college with apheses call or learning disability, will it be
different? The answer to that is yes. The law changes when you become
an adult and leave high school. Students who are in sect dare education
-- secondary. It's their mom and dad's responsibility and if there's a
problem that mom and dad go to school to talk with them to do those
things. When you leave high school and go to college it becomes your
responsibility to do those things. In fact, the laws that govern the
K-12 program fall under the individuals with disabilities education
act. IDEA. Where as if you go to college and go to post secondary
education it becomes your responsibility to advocate for yourself and
Americans with diss abilities the ADA and section 504 of the 1973
Rehabilitation Act then takes over to do those things.
What
is the difference between those? Well in grade school and high school,
the schools are required to develop and modify requirements so that
they meet the capabilities of the students and the goals of those
students. Then they make different demands based on what a student is
able to do. So in essence they adapt the curriculum to meet the needs
of the student. And that's what's required under IDEA. At the college
level under the ADA or 504, it's one curriculum for all students. So
all the students in that class have the same assignments and required
to do the same homework as everybody else. Students with disabilities
to get reasonable accommodations like the textbook put on disk or some
extra time to take the exam, but they all take the same exam. They all
get graded in the same way.
Who pays for these services at
college? What's paid for by the institution? What's paid for by the
student? Well the easiest way that you can look at this, that most
services that are provided in the classroom during the class that the
student is taking are covered by the institution. So if we have a Deaf
or hard of hearing student that's in a class that needs a Sign Language
interpreter, it's the institutions responsibility to cover the cost of
those things. Sometimes they get help from thebureau of vocational
rehabilitation. But it falls on the institution or the voch rehab. It's
not up to the family to cover those costs. When it's after school when
we're doing o homework -- homework those things are paid for by the
student. The universities have various ways that they can do that.
Families can apply for support through places like the bureau of
vocational rehabilitation or rehab services administration to offset
some of those additional costs that disability related when going to
college. By in large the easiest way to look at it the university
covers things that happen in class, the family or student covers things
that happen out of class.
There are a lot of different
websites and areas out there that can talk about various things and
it's good to look for resources. One of the best resources that you
could use are the websites on the college campuses that support people
with disabilities. That will give you a pretty good idea of the things
that are available on that campus an how they handle those things.
Also, those will tell you what kinds of support they offer for their
students. I would recommend the first thing that you do is make a
virtual visit to that college campus and go to web page and begin to
take a look at the issues that they talk about and how you get support
for people with disabilities. Once you've had an opportunity to visit
there virtually, it's good to go and listen and talk.
Well, as I said, tonight we're going have an opportunity to talk with a
parent. A parent who's done -- I have to say an outstanding job of
working with other children and getting them ready to go to college.
I've had Kim Holler to come and talk because I think she has good ideas
and has worked really hard. Kim's son Zac who is pictured here at the
front of the class room has a number of different disabilities scene a
very successful student in Wright state. I would like to welcome you to
our program and thank you for coming in tonight.
Well, thank you. I'm happy to be here.
Kim, do you want to talk a little bit about Zac and Natalie and share
with folks a little bit about what their disability is and some of the
things that you've dealt with over the years and high school?
Sure. Both Zac and other people that have things that affect their arms
and legs is that it affects their hearing and vision. So have that
combination and with not being able to use their hands especially or be
able to walk is really what makes it very difficult. The other thing
that's difficult about it is most people who have that severe physical
disability have some type of a cognitive delay. So it's actually been a
struggle for us to be able to be sure that they were right up with
everybody else as far as instruction in school because everything had
to be adopted for their hearing or vision -- adapted for their hearing
or vision. We've had lots of good support all through school and they
can compete with the best of their peers. We're happy about that.
What kinds of [ Lost audio. ]
Mostly like when we were moving from 6th to 7th great at the IEP at the
end of the year we made sure to have the staff members there and the
counselors, the guidance counselors. We've all just really encouraged
them to get to know Zac and looked at all the things they couldn't do
you would never imagine they could be successful. We really stressed
that everybody get to know the kits and we taught people how to -- kids
and we taught people thousand communicate with them. You could see the
motivation that the kids had, it was like they were instantly ready to
do whatever it took to help them. I think that's really what kept the
kids going throughout school not about much we did but what they did.
Zac and malaria teach them to go to -- Malorie. Made people look at
them as a person and not as a disability.
I think you raised
two very important points. That is first of all very difficult to judge
the impact of a disability on an individual by simply reading a report
and that it's important to get to know the person. To understand how
they can cur their disability. You from the very beginning seemed to
have empowered Zac and Malorie to critique those kinds of things and
talk about things they wanted to change and also things that they
liked.
Yes. Depends on the kid's personalities. Zac has been
an outgoing personality. He's the oldest and have been the trailblazer.
But because of that, when a child's willing to talk and speak with
people and articulate their needs, they're showing their intelligence
and showing that they aren't just any other person For Malorie who is
much quieter we have had to urge her to express herself and communicate
with people. A lot of those barriers are going to be taken down because
she is already -- when I see her come out here and she always wants to
come on her days off from school. She's a different person out here
than when she's at the high school. She knows the atmos fer from what
Zac tells her. She's treated like a person, not treated like a high
school student and so -- she's got a long way to go. I would encourage
everyone to do that. I encourage parents to empower their children to
know what it is that they need to work for and to ask for it and how to
show they appreciate it. I've seen kids through the system that don't
usually -- they don't get everything that they really require, well
maybe they don't know the appropriate way to ask or the polite way to
ask to discuss it. But the person who could provide it, but once they
get it they don't really appreciate it. It makes it hard to continue to
provide the services.
Yeah. I think those are important
areas. But they then learn those kinds of skills and can work on those
kinds of things and that's truly been a good thing. What kinds of
things did you talk about? What kinds of things did you think were
important when you got ready to start talking about this next
transition? Moving from high school to college? What were some of the
things that you did to kind of help them to get ready to view that
transition?
We were really fortunate. Our support staff at
school helped us. I didn't really know what to expect. I wiz scare
today death about this transdig but we had orientation of mobility,
vision specialists, psychologists. I'll talk about Zac since he's here.
They knew more importantly what he was capable of doing so they were
very forthcoming in giving us information on helping us know what it
could be. We knew that Zac would go to Wright state because of the
location of it then after we visited several times, that was the key
thing. Visiting a lot and asking lots of questions because neither --
none of us had any idea what to expect and Zac could only envision more
high school. That was the only thing we could envision college being.
So really we just had to bring him out and bring us out. Talk to
different people. Talk about the different services that would be
available here and then just continue working with Zac in terms of
knowing. He doesn't necessarily know who to ask what, or he didn't at
the time. But now he teaches me what to do. Just going over those
things with him certain things might come up. What situations might
come up or who we can get helpful. We did a lot of planning at the IEP
meeting at school. The support staff was really great. They're the ones
that really helped us there and new what the next step was as far as
the process for applying. The process for the different tests. Of
course then when he came out and had his interview with you and you
were able to really enlighten him. That helped a lot too.
Well, he's a great kid to work with. I really appreciate having the tubal and look forward to working with Malorie next year.
Zac still computes from home to school. What do you foresee as the next steps for them.
Well I know that just recently, Zac has been talking about possibility
of moving to campus. That's quite a conversation at our house. It's
great. I hope that's one of the next steps. It's something that I never
dreamed he would say. But honestly when he first started coming to
college he didn't intend to finish. He intended to take a few classes
and stop and get a job and once he got here and realized it was a whole
different world from high school, now he's talking about which degree
he'll get. The next step as we are now, it's quite a learning
experience for us especially with the multitude of disabilities.
There's a lot that he has to learn to be able to do it completely
independently on campus, but that will be the ultimate goal if he can
move out here everyone if it's for a quarter or two. Just to prove that
he can do it. I know you and I talked about can it happen? You ensured
me that it can. I think that's probably one of the next steps. He's
very excited about some internship opportunities and he knows that in
order to be able to do that and to go some place he has to prove that
he can live on campus. I actually look forward to learning about what's
available to help him in succeeding in doing that.
That's great.
Well I really appreciate you coming in tonight and spending some time
with us and talking about that. I'd like to invite you to come back at
a later point in time so we can keep up with the adventures of Zac and
Malorie and all the things we are going be doing.
You're
welcome. I expect that our experience at Wright state will be
continuing over the next several years. I would be happy to come back
and keep you updated any time. Thank you very much.
Great. Thank you Kim.
Okay. So for our next assignment, we have to talk about homework. It's
one of the things that happens regularly in this show. One of the
things we want you to do this week and maybe this can happen after the
turkey, okay? Sit down with your family and have a discussion about
what kinds of support services are you going to need when you go to
college? Maybe make a list of some of these services based on the
things that you needed in high school and that you anticipate. And
parents we'd like to remind you that we would welcome questions and
concerns that you would like to have us address particularly with
future programs. So if you want to send us an email with a question or
a concern, we'll be glad to get back to you an respond to you. Also use
it as planning for some of our future programs. You can send your
answers again for homework to starting Wright@G mail.com. Get it in
this coming Friday, the 28th. You will be entered in to the drawing.
The Wright State sweatshirt could be yours.
I think we have
homework winners from last time. Darrien from shaker heights. Casey
from Riverside and Abby will receive T-shirts from last time.
Our upcoming programs. We're going to take a little break next week and
we're going to be bringing out our next program to you on Tuesday,
December 2nd. It's our holiday break. The following Tuesday December
9th. We're getting ready for college 1 personal skills and attitudes.
We're going to talk about the things that you personally as an
individual need to developindependence, several advocacy, self-efficacy
aeropersistence. How important are they for your success in going to
college.
So we won't be meeting again -- our next program
will come to you on Tuesday December 9th, at 7 p.m. We'll see that
program -- if you want to see this program again, you can go to the
address online that you can use to listen to this program again or if
you'd like to request a copy of this program, you can contact us at LWD
under score starting@wright.EDU. This is Jeff Vernooy saying good
evening and see you at the next starting Wright program.
[ Event Concluded ]