Maine Perspective Front Page
Taking Note of Individual Learning Styles
From 1988-98, there was a 26 percent increase nationwide in students with learning disabilities within the population of first- year students declaring disability.
Such demographics, coupled with landmark legislation in the form of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, are indicators that an increasingly dynamic chapter in the post-secondary years of college and university students with disabilities has begun, according to Diane Jackson, a doctoral student in the College of Education and Human Development, and the president of the Learning Disabilities Association of Maine.
"We are now seeing the beginning of a wave of students with special needs who had very good instruction in public schools, and know they have the right and intelligence to access higher education," Jackson says. "There is more dialogue about helpful strategies and awareness of differences. It is clearer than ever that differences don't mean people can't achieve."
Jackson spent seven years as a special education teacher in public schools before enrolling at UMaine in 1989 to begin her master's work. Her doctoral studies began in 1994.
"I've always been fascinated by individuals' learning differences," Jackson says. "That interest started from the time I was in an undergraduate program looking at learning styles. I am intrigued by the cognitive differences in students with average or above average intelligence. I want to more fully understand those differences and how they play out in society."
In her teaching career, Jackson worked with elementary, middle, and high school students. In elementary school, special education focuses on skill development, which is most critical for establishing the foundations for reading, writing and mathematics. As students with special needs progress through the grades, their education includes compensatory strategies for decoding language and making sense of the world.
By the time she started her graduate work, Jackson said she had "a natural curiosity to see what happened when students with learning disabilities went to college." With the cooperation of UMaine's Onward Program, Jackson began to learn about the needs of adults with learning disabilities through assessment studies.
Jackson planned to return to special education teaching in public schools following her master's degree, but the adults with learning disabilities with whom she worked made such an impression on her, she realized that there are many related areas to be explored in higher education.
"Students with disabilities have to be more active in communicating their needs, including those for accommodations," says Jackson, who has taught in the College of Education and Human Development for the past six years. "Just as important, they also need to articulate their strengths. But often they describe themselves in the terms commonly used in formal assessments, and the rest of the world may see them with deficits. All of that affects their adult lives.
"In adults with learning disabilities, the level of their frustration is a good indicator of how they handled academic skills in secondary schools, and how they will fit in to general education college classes. The amount of frustration and anxiety can be a factor in learning. However, adults who make the decision to pursue a college education have a commitment often different from when they were required by law to attend secondary school."
Working with UMaine students with disabilities, Jackson was particularly aware of some frustration caused by the difficulties with notetaking, which is often accommodated by providing peer notetakers. "I was hearing confusion in how to work with peer notes, which led to my research questions," she says. "But surprisingly, my research showed that this perception is a minority view."
Jackson surveyed students with disabilities who use peer notetaking services at six land-grant universities. Jackson's research did not look at peer notetaking quality but its perceived effectiveness and how students were using the peer notes they received.
Results indicated that respondents studied the peer notes by reviewing them and highlighting or underlying key points for increased retention of the material. Jackson also found that the college students she surveyed preferred to have peer notetakers underline or circle important points or terms in the notes, and to avoid using abbreviations. Overall, Jackson found the surveyed students with learning disabilities satisfied with peer notetaking as an accommodation for improving their academic grades and ability to participate in class.
"What we also found is that those students who responded to the survey are survivors in college," Jackson says. "Just as it's difficult to pinpoint how many students with learning disabilities are using peer notes through formal and informal arrangements, it must be realized that use of peer notes may not be as effective for those facing so many challenges they are forced to drop out."
Jackson found students with learning disabilities used peer notes to assist in processing information and to capture vocabulary, particularly spelling of technical words.
"For any student struggling to capture lecture points, skeletal outlines provide a guide to professors' lectures," Jackson says. "Printed material received ahead of a lesson allows students to listen better for key vocabulary and prioritizes information being transmitted.
"On any college campus, the issue has to be awareness of individual differences. It is important to be receptive to how each of us learns and to look at teaching styles. A variety of presentation styles is critical. Lectures demand listening and some visual skills. For some students, it is hard to integrate the two and come up with a product for studying."
Jackson says the number of students and University-employed individuals with hidden disabilities who came forward during her research to discuss their needs was a surprise. "It shouldn't have been, but it was," she says. "As a society, we must be very aware that, even if people's needs aren't visible, they are real. We must become more cognizant of issues that arise because they impact not only students' needs but the needs of many people in our daily lives."