Serving Adults with Special Learning Needs

On the Road with
“Exploring Learning Disabilities”

As certified Bridges to Practice trainers, we have been “on the road” across Texas since 2001, sharing our continually evolving knowledge about adults with learning disabilities, first using NIFL’s standardized Bridges to Practice Training about adults with learning disabilities, and more recently with the training that we developed, “Exploring Learning Disabilities: Why Is It So Difficult for Some Students to Learn?” From El Paso to Houston, from Big Spring to Brownsville, we have presented trainings about teaching adults with learning disabilities to instructors of adult education programs and staff of workforce development centers. We would like to share with you what we have learned “on the road.”

The Bridges to Practice Project about adults with learning disabilities was our inspiration and springboard for our more recent training, “Exploring Learning Disabilities.” “Bridges,” an intensive and thorough training about adults with learning disabilities was developed under the knowledgeable and passionate leadership of NIFL’s June Crawford. “Bridges” is a two- to four-day awareness training designed for a wide audience — social workers, workforce staff, and public policy workers, as well as educators of adults.

As professional development trainers of adult education instructors working with the GREAT Centers of Texas, we were faced with two major challenges in presenting the Bridges training. First, the full-blown Bridges training -- with all its bells and whistles -- can be costly in terms of time available for teachers’ training. And secondly, not all of the Bridges training material is targeted specifically to adult education teachers.

So, we evolved the new training utilizing tighter time parameters and spinning the new training’s content specifically to focus on the needs of adult education teachers. Voila! “Exploring Learning Disabilities” was born. This training will always be a “work in progress” because we read new research and learn new teaching techniques between presentations, hopefully improving the training each time it is presented.

U.S. civil rights laws restrict the labeling of a person as “learning disabled” to state-licensed diagnosticians — licensed professionals who administer the battery of tests to determine and diagnose learning disabilities among adults. Therefore, the rest of us cannot, under federal law, “label” our students. We would not do this anyway, in the interest of being sensitive teachers, but we cannot do this by law, to maintain our own precious civil rights.

Therefore, to accommodate teachers who want to target the learning challenges of their students and help their students find solutions to these learning challenges, we designed the “Exploring Learning Disabilities” training to address the characteristics of students that may present challenges to their learning.

For example, a student having difficulty with spelling or writing may not be hearing the different sounds of a word, and therefore, may be unable to write the word correctly. Or, a student may hear and be aware of the sounds of a word, but may be unable to recreate the word accurately in writing because they cannot remember what letters to use to write the word. Our message: Yes, understand the different categories of learning disorders—in these cases an auditory processing problem or a memory disorder—then be clear about the characteristics of the learning behavior the student demonstrates in your class. Based on these characteristics, select the types of teaching methods, strategies, and activities you will try out with the student. This process is covered in more depth in the “Exploring Learning Disabilities” presentation.

“On the road,” we have discovered many things, collecting empirical data on glaring problems, which we hope someday to research and publish results. Across Texas, adult education instructors share the prevalence of learning challenges among their students, their families, their friends, and acquaintances, and members of their communities from all backgrounds and walks of life. These learning challenges — possibly learning disabilities — often “bring friends along to the party:” demonstrations of hyperactivity, vision and hearing problems and other physical impairments, and the emotional disturbances that can go hand-in-hand with these difficulties and disabilities. Imagine attending school as a child or youth, where you cannot do—cannot succeed at doing—the things the other kids are able to do both in and out of the classroom. Students may be teased, harassed, become isolated, and withdrawn, or exhibit inappropriate behavioral problems. And sadly, some teachers unwittingly exacerbate this process. The result may be a human being with a life altering emotional disturbance along with the learning and other challenges.

We have discovered that families and communities need support in dealing with these challenges. Within a family where one member has a learning disability, frequently more than one family member has a similar disability.

Another problem our students face on a daily basis is the frustration of dealing with bureaucratic repetition when dealing with community and social services organizations whose help they need. Instead of streamlining the processes of applying and obtaining eligibility for services, the process seems to become more and more unnecessarily complicated. As a result of the frustration and powerlessness our students feel when dealing with these organizations, our students who need the most help often get the least.

So, we strive, beg, plead, advocate for system-wide change. That the community and social service processes be streamlined. That eligible and deserving people—and families--receive the services they need to survive and to improve their lives.

Adult education programs, in addition to making sure their instructors are knowledgeable about the characteristics of and best teaching practices for students with learning disabilities, will need to put in place screening processes for students who may be “at risk” for having a learning disability, to determine who may need further testing. Physical problems— vision and hearing—should be screened out first, and affordable and reliable referrals must be made for those services.

If a student’s screening assessment indicates that he or she is “at risk” of having a learning disability, affordable and reliable diagnostic testing should follow — and adult education programs should be prepared to make referrals to licensed diagnosticians who work with adults.

We hope to continue to build awareness among and share best teaching practices for students with learning disabilities among our adult education colleagues in Texas. We have come a long way . . . . and we have a long way to go . . . . “on the road” with learning disabilities.

Carol Speigl coordinates Project Learn to Read, a literacy program with customers from the 0 to 5th grade reading level, many of whom demonstrate the characteristics of learning disabilities. She also teaches ESL in the Adult Education Program at Northeast ISD, both in San Antonio. A former tutor, and training developer for the American Foundation for the Blind, Carol is currently completing her Master’s degree in adult education at Texas A&M—Kingsville.

Alex Baez has taught ESL for adult education and college/university programs throughout Central Texas. A National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) Equipped for the Future framework trainer, Alex is also a past president of TexTESOL III (Central Texas affiliate of TESOL).

Both Carol and Alex are certified by the National Institute for Literacy as trainers with the Bridges to Practice Training and Dissemination Project. Alex and Carol are also the lead trainers and presentation developers of The Texas Professional Development Group (TTPDG).