The jump from high school to college can be a tough transition for any teenager, but for students with learning disabilities, the hurdles are even higher.
"It's pretty shocking for a lot of them," said Imy Wax, a psychotherapist and educational consultant in Deerfield. "They think they just have to get to campus. They don't take into account the level of support they've had [in high school]."
The support that students with learning disabilities receive in college varies greatly from one school to another, so it's up to the students and their parents to research what's out there.
"There is no standard. Every college gives as much as they feel they want to," said Wax, who is co-author with Marybeth Kravets of the book, "The K&W Guide to Colleges for Students with Learning Disabilities or Attention Deficit Disorders" (Princeton Review, $27).
Wax began researching college support services for such children when her own daughter, who had learning disabilities, was in high school in the 1980s. Since then, the number of programs and accommodations made at universities has increased as federal laws changed and as more students in grade school have been identified with learning disabilities.
Fifteen years ago, few high school students with learning disabilities thought about going to college, said Janet Learner, professor emeritus at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, where she taught courses on educating students with such disabilities. Learner said those numbers are now rapidly increasing, "and not only do they go to college, they go to graduate school, they become doctors, lawyers."
A learning disability is a disorder of the nervous system that results in the brain working differently. The disability manifests itself in different ways and can affect areas such as memory, organization, reading, writing or listening skills. The National Institutes of Health estimates that 5 to 7 percent of the U.S. population has a learning disability.
The 1990 federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires school districts to develop education plans for students with disabilities and to provide specialized services for those students. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, colleges are required to provide reasonable and appropriate accommodations that allow disabled students equal access to an education.
Interpreting the laws, though, and defining what is "reasonable and appropriate" can be tricky. That was demonstrated in 1999 when 10 students at Boston University filed a class-action suit against the university for changing several of its policies on learning disabilities. The court issued a split decision, siding with the students on some issues, such as being allowed to waive the foreign language requirement, but not on others, such as the math requirement.
In its decision, the court also rebuked the Boston University president for his remarks that the judge said characterized students with learning disabilities as "fakers who undercut academic rigor."
In Wax's book, she describes three levels of services provided by colleges. At the highest level, colleges have specific, structured programs for these students, usually with specialists who meet with students regularly and follow their progress. At the middle level, schools have some coordinated services on campus and provide more than what's mandated by law. At the most basic level, schools provide only the equal access in the classroom mandated by law.
Services and special accommodations can include tutors, note-takers, extended time for taking tests, waivers or substitutions for language or math requirements, turning in alternate assignments (such as giving an oral presentation instead of writing an essay) and the use of adaptive technology, such as computers that will proofread papers.
Requests not always met
Asking for a support service, though, doesn't necessarily mean getting it.
"The school can say, `We don't have the people to do that,' and then it's a negotiation," said Sheldon H. Horowitz, director of professional services for the National Center for Learning Disabilities in New York. "What the school can't do is discriminate based on a disability. If someone is blind and needs to tape lectures, you can't force them not to. If someone has a learning disability and needs time and a half on a test because they write slowly, those are things you can't deny because it prejudices the process."