Video Narrative
I have a student in my college composition class who likes to verbalize class notes as I write them on the board. I tell Camron he is my personal synthesizer, a machine that converts written language to spoken language. Camron does not have any special learning needs, nonetheless, he is a good example of those students who need to experience language in more than just written form. For Camron, written language is not difficult to read or write, but for many other students, the jump from spoken language to written language is very difficult.
I want to describe a type of disability that can make the manipulation of written language very difficult. Traumatic brain injury is an injury to the brain caused by the head being hit or shaken violently. Students with TBI may have difficulty concentrating, talking, and listening to others. They may have difficulty with reading, writing, and understanding the sequence of events. According to IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, traumatic brain injury affects language, memory retention, information processing, and speech. Each year, more than 30,000 children suffer a brain injury that causes lifelong disabilities. TBI falls under a larger category of disability, learning disability. Learning disability, defined by IDEA as a “disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using spoken or written language, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations.” It is important to understand that according to the law, learning disabilities do not include problems that are the result of mental retardation or environmental or economic disadvantage. A learning disability, therefore, is not the result of poor home environment or lack of educational background; it is the result of a condition that impacts the brain, such as brain injury, dyslexia, or brain dysfunction. A child who has reduced brain function due to attention deficit disorder falls under the category of learning disability. According to information from the U.S. Dept. of Education, approximately 5% of all school-age children receive special education services for learning disabilities. Students with traumatic brain injury make up a small percentage of the students who are considered learning disabled.
A second disability I want to describe is emotional disturbance. According to IDEA, emotional disturbance is a condition exhibiting (1) an inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual factors, (2) an inability to maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships, and (3) inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances. Students with emotional disturbance often have trouble concentrating, and they often achieve below grade level. Each year, more than 400,000 students receive services for emotional disturbance. For those students, the IEP usually includes a program that focuses on mastery of academics and development of social skills, self-control, and self-esteem.
An
excellent source for descriptions of disabilities with links to federal and
state agencies can be found at the web site for the National
Another excellent source for parents or other advocates of children with disabilities is the web site for the Council for Exceptional Children: www.cec.sped.org. At that site, you will find listserv, excerpts from the journal published by the Council for Exceptional Children, and a link to eric.org with instructions for finding information about various disabilities. I typed in traumatic brain injury and quickly found 20 articles.
I want to focus on two types of learning experiences that disabled students may find formidable and I want to show how assistive technology can make learning easier and more enjoyable. First, let’s address reading.
Students in grades K-5 are often required to earn reading points as part of their grade. If they have difficult with reading, a teacher can help by allowing them to use recorded books that they can listen to and reduce their frustration at not being able to read as fast as the other students or as well. A large collection of recorded books, including hundreds of titles that are part of the popular Accelerated Reading program, are available from a company called Recorded Books, LLC. The collection includes complete and unabridged audiobooks that provide a multisensory approach to learning. High school students will find a large collection of short stories and novels typically required on high school level. The phone number is 1-800-638-1304. The web site is recordedbooks@recordedbooks.com. For many students, listening to a tape or a CD on the computer while following along with the matching print text gives them multisensory support for overcoming obstacles to reading.
Another type of assistive technology is software. Elementary students will benefit from a software program called Kurzweil 3000 that reads aloud text that has been scanned into the computer. This software can be placed on classroom computers so learning disabled students can listen and read in the regular classroom using headphones. High school students can use the software for the same function; in addition, the software includes features, such as the following: the ability to highlight texts in different colors easily, adjustable reading speed, and word prediction for writing assignments. The Kurzweil products can be found at the following web site:
http://www.kurzweilaustin.com/. Another software program that can be used for writing, science, and history is Inspiration. Inspiration is a program that allows students to use symbols and images to create and organize their thoughts. For students who have difficulty with sequencing, they can easily move their thoughts on the computer monitor as they plan an essay or project.
Assistive technology encourages cooperative learning for students who want to share their compositions but have such bad handwriting that other students can’t read it; with word processing, papers can be shared and peer editing can be a productive process. With software programs, students can use Inspiration to do web-mapping, and with tape players and CD-rom drives on computers, students can enjoy high interest reading by listening and following along with the written text.
Now, let me
sum up my report on disabilities with a review of two of the assistive devices
I have discussed. First audio tapes and
CD’s are available in large quantities and designed for school use at Recorded
Books. The student needs a tape player
or computer with CD drive and headphones.
They are re-usable and can be checked out by hundreds of students year
after year. Even a kindergarten student
has the psychomotor skills to load a tape or CD. Itasca ISD has found Recorded Books to be a
reliable company. Several students at