Students With Learning Disabilities in Postsecondary Institutions: Challenges and Opportunities

• In Event: Canadian Association for Educational Psychology (CAEP): Supporting At-Risk Learners: Applications of Educational Psychology in Canadian Contexts

Abstract

The number of students with learning disabilities (LD) accessing postsecondary education has increased steadily in the past two decades. In the United States, “an estimated 11% of undergraduates―more than two million―report having some type of disability” (Schelly, Davies, & Spooner, 2011, p. 17). This is an increase from 3% in 1978 and 9% in 1998. The largest growth has arisen through larger attendance rates of students with non-apparent disabilities, such as learning disabilities (Schelly et al.). Statistics from the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities (MTCU) in Ontario for the 2008-09 academic year paint a similar picture showing that 36,277 students registered for disability services in the province’s colleges and universities (an increase to about 4% of the student population from 1.5% 15 years previously). Of those, 13,627 or 37.5% were identified as having LD as their primary disability (Holmes, Silvestri, & Harrison, 2011). This review of literature identifies the challenges students with LD experience in post-secondary contexts and emphasizes the opportunities implied in these challenges.

Students with disabilities are legally entitled to provision of appropriate accommodations, services, and supports in their postsecondary programs to ensure that their impairments do not become an impediment to their college or university success (Katsiyannis, Zhang, Landmark, & Reber, 2009). As a result, these students must be provided with services such as learning strategy tutoring, coaching in the use of assistive devices, and accommodations in compiling class notes and taking examinations (Lee & Templeton, 2008). Not only do these accommodations allow students with disabilities to participate equally in their courses (Nichols, Harrison, McCloskey, & Weintraub, 2002), but, along with other transition services, they encourage students to make the transition to the postsecondary environment in the first place (Janiga & Costenbader, 2002).

But enacting policies and legislating programs is not enough to ensure academic success of postsecondary students with learning disabilities. Their graduation rates tend to trail those of their peers without disabilities (DaDeppo, 2009). The quality of the support they receive varies from institution to institution (Troiano, Liefeld, & Trachtenberg, 2010). Postsecondary students with LD still tend to believe that others hold a negative stereotype of their intelligence (May & Stone, 2010). Inclusionary practices in the K-12 system may have brought these students to the postsecondary landscape, but these practices have not shifted perceptions of these students.

Adding to these difficulties, attendance at postsecondary institutions puts stress on undergraduate students academically, socially, and motivationally. The academic demands of the postsecondary environment generally exceed those of secondary school. Socially, students move from a social sphere they have learned to navigate to a new confusing sphere, peopled by strangers, where social rules are not closely monitored by parents and teachers. And the motivation at the postsecondary level must largely come from within as ongoing parental and teacher supervision is largely absent. For many students, including a large number of students with LD, these academic, social, and motivational challenges must therefore be addressed. These challenges will be the focus of our presentation.

Authors

• John G. Freeman, Queen's University

• Allyson Harrison, Queen's University

• Ena Bronnum Holtermann, Queen's University