RE: An LD Student Who Needs a "Scribe"

To: <wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu>

Subject: RE: An LD Student Who Needs a "Scribe"

From: "Jeanne H. Simpson" <csjhs@ux1.cts.eiu.edu>

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 16:11:19 -0500

Importance: Normal

In-Reply-To: <43EF72FA90B0D211BFC2000629172F482C4D1B@moe.eiu.edu>

Reply-To: wcenter@listserv.ttu.edu

Sender: owner-wcenter@listserv.ttu.edu

Suzanne

Here is another place where knowing something about institutional policies and procedures should help you. The Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, requires that reasonable accommodations be provided. The issue then becomes determining what is a disability and what is a reasonable accommodation. Generally, a disability has to be officially identified, that is, by someone other than the student or employee--it has to be documented and certified by an expert such as a physician or physical therapist. And then the provision of reasonable accommodation is determined by the nature of the disability, the resources available, and the options for assistance.

I would advise you right off to call the provost's office and find out what your campus policies and procedures for meeting ADA mandates are. And then use them. Do not let yourself be bullied or cajoled into improvising. Again, this is lawsuit territory, though this case is probably not as dangerous as the one Mary described. If your campus does not have an ADA procedure in place--I would be amazed if it did not--then ask for guidance and just make sure your supervisors all know you are asking for that guidance. Your goal is 1) to help the student and 2)abide by institutional policies and procedures and 3)abide by federal law. You have to do all three, not just one.

Jeanne Simpson

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu [mailto:owner-wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu]On Behalf Of Suzanne Diamond
Sent: Monday, October 04, 1999 3:50 PM
To: wcenter@ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: An LD Student Who Needs a "Scribe"

Dear All:

I've got a new (to me) issue to run by you all. How would you handle
a student with a learning disability who came to your writing center
asking for a "scribe"?

I'll give you the background. A few weeks
ago, our new learning center coordinator--an expert delegator, I have
witnessed--sent me an e-mail recounting a meeting she had with a
student whose learning disability entailed an inability to write. This
student, she claimed, had used a "scribe" in the writing center in
the past (he is a junior), someone to whom he dictated his papers.
She "asked": Could he come over to the writing center and get this assistance? I responded that no student had, to my knowledge,
used the writing center in this fashion since I took over in the fall
of 98, but that I believed that there was software out there that
converted the spoken word into text in this manner. (Her position
and budget have been funded by a $150K Teagle grant for two
years.) I suggested that she invest in this software, especially if,
in her judgment, there would be other LD students who might
require it.

Two weeks later, the student was in my office. He said that the
learning center director had referred him to the writing center.
We had a long talk about his past use of "scribes." I wondered
aloud what he would do eventually when he needed to prepare
a report, say, on the job, or write a letter, say, to his local
councilperson. "As a teacher," I told him, "I feel I would be
doing you a disservice to just offer you a scribe, and that is NOT
because I don't want to help you; I very much DO." We talked
for a while longer, and I proposed that he put whatever prose he
could produce on the page for us to look at. Though he seemed
intrigued by this option, his objection was odd and telling: "My
grammar and spelling," he warned, "are awful!" I told him I was
not going to be focused on these at first, that many writers come
to us with these concerns, and that I just wanted to see how he
shaped meanings in his writing.

Because I have a policy of updating instructors about students
who register for sustained help at the center, I left voice mails
(without all the detail of my note above but basically) laying out
the plan the student and I had agreed to for his upcoming tutoring
session. Wierdly, I had a voice reply on my own machine today
from one of those instructors, stipulating along the lines of "no, no:
that's not what the student gets at the center. He needs to tell
someone else what he's going to write and they need to write it
for him." I left a gentle reply back, saying that we should at least
at first be guided by the student's own enthusiasm to try this on his
own, and suggesting that we could regroup after his first two sessions
or so to weigh results and strategies.

But I need some expert advice! Am I right to find this a very
troubling way to use the center, or am I just being blind to the
necessity that we accommodate a disabled student? I do not trust
my own responses here, but these responses sure are strong! Any
light any of you might shed on this would be most welcome.

Yours,
Suzanne Diamond
Assistant Professor of English and Director,
THE WRITE PLACE
Marietta College
diamonds@marietta.edu