RE: An LD Student Who Needs a "Scribe"

[baker@ssu.southwest.msus.edu (Lori Baker)]

I'm breaking from "lurker" mode because I'm so fascinated by this subject,
and because I have encountered the scribe/LD issue this semester both as a
teacher and as director of our Writing Center.

We have a separate center called Learning Resources which works with
disabled students (both physical disabilities and learning disabilities)
and provides them with accomodations, such as a scribe or the appropriate
computer program access, when necessary and after the student has provided
proof of their disability.  It sounds like a separate facility might not be
the case where Suzanne is?  While we're a fairly small institution (about
3,000 FTE students), working with disabled students is a part of our
institution's mission statement, and we have a likely higher proportion
than other universities of disabled students.

I've met with our personnel in Learning Resources several times to clarify
what services and accomodations (and there is a difference--services are
things that any student can receive, such as tutoring or using some of
their computer technology, vs. accomodations, such as oral exams instead of
written ones, and for which students need proof of disability) they offer,
how our Writing Center's mission and tutoring service differs from that of
Learning Resources' tutors, and how to refer students to Learning Resources
without legally stepping on any toes.

We do see LD students in our Center, either because they want additional
help (depending on the disability, some may just need to hear the same rule
over and over again to help it become permanent in their minds) or, in some
rare cases, because they refuse to accept the standards set by Learning
Resources and are hoping to find a place which will indeed write their
papers for them (they aren't very happy when they find out we don't do that
either).  

Many of them seem to struggle with moving from high school settings and
standards to the college standard in which their work must meet the same
criteria for an assignment as everyone else's; "reasonable accomodations"
means that while a format or context for taking a test may change, the test
is still graded according to the same basic criteria that everyone else's
test is graded.  That's my understanding of the practices here; I know
where I taught previously, we would get notes from the office of
disabilities which said things like we should not grade the grammar in a
student's piece of in-class writing, although it was not to be excused if
the student had time outside of class to work on it. 

For those interested, I and two of my colleagues here will be presenting at
4Cs about working with students with disabilities.  I'll be talking about
reconceptualizing the writing process--how applicable our theories of
process are for students with disabilities; my colleague from our Learning
Resources department will speak about the growing numbers of students with
disabilities at institutions of higher learning and about new technologies
available to disabled students; and a third colleague will address how
group work is affected by/affects students with disabilities.

Lori


Lori Baker
Assistant Professor of English
Writing Center Director
Southwest State University
Marshall, MN 56258
baker@ssu.southwest.msus.edu
507-537-7344 (office)
507-537-7155 (English Dep't)