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Erin's Story
I am the parent of an adult child with Learning Disabilities. I am sharing our story in hopes that it might be helpful to other parents.
Our daughter, Erin, had frequent ear infections in her first two years or life that resulted in a ninety percent hearing loss. Twenty-five years ago we were not aware of the correlation between this and learning problems. She did not start to talk until she was three, a full year after she had tubes put in both of her ears. When she did start talking, it was essentially unintelligible. At three and a half she was started into a preschool speech/ language program two days a week and had one hour of individual speech therapy through our public school in Denver. She continued speech therapy until she decided she had enough when she was thirteen. We moved from Denver to a small town in Iowa right before she started kindergarten. She struggled in school but always got good grades. When we expressed concern to the school, we were perceived as perfectionistic parents who were putting too much pressure on their child.
We moved to Omaha where she began the sixth grade in a Catholic school. It was immediately evident to us that she was really struggling even though she maintained her good grades. She became depressed and anxious and had frequent headaches and stomachaches, which I related to stress. Through all of this, she never tried to get out of going to school or doing her homework and she continued in speech therapy. At the beginning of seventh grade, things had gotten to the point that, we took her to a psychologist for an evaluation. After her preliminary exam the psychologist asked to do further testing because she felt that Erin had “a unique learning style”. Testing showed that she had a thirty-nine-point difference between her verbal and performance scores. This clearly indicated a learning disability. At the same time that I made the appointment for the psychological evaluation, I had scheduled academic testing at UNO. Their findings were consistent. At that time we had been open to transferring her to a public school if that was the most appropriate setting. Their recommendation was indeed to put her into a public school, but made it clear that she did not qualify for any special services because her academic scores were too high.
We were confused and bewildered at this point, so sought the counsel of the psychologist. She agreed that changing school had no advantages and recommended a special education teacher who had extensive experience with children with learning problems. We hired her to tutor Erin. Her approach was to determine Erin’s areas of difficulty and devise ways for her to work through her strengths to overcome these. The school was willing to let her tutor and the psychologist come in for a staffing with the teachers. They made simple accommodations, like letting her do every other math problem and to do them in her book instead of copying all the problems. When she did copy math problems, she used graph paper. This took a lot of pressure off her. Just knowing that there was a reason for her problems and that she was not “stupid” improved her self esteem enough that she ran for student council in the eighth grade. Not getting elected did not defeat her.
At this point we were again faced with finding the most appropriate educational setting for Erin. We know that she would do better in a smaller school. Our son was at Gross High School, so we talked to the principal both there and at Mercy High School. Both were willing to accommodate her as needed, but neither had any formal services for students with LD (learning disabilities). She elected to go to Mercy because of the smaller class size and the fact that it was just girls meant less distraction. She had her struggles there but ended up being inducted into the National Honor Society as a senior. Her grades were good enough for honors classes, but she elected not to take many because the pace was faster and put too much pressure on her. The best thing that happened in high school was that she became her own advocate. Not only that, but she was being asked to talk to, and in one case, to tutor another student with a documented learning disability. She became involved in activities that she would never have tried in a larger school where she would not have received individual encouragement from the teachers. She was in track, cross country, and speech. She was on the yearbook staff all four years and was a coeditor her senior year. In this process, Erin decided that she wanted to teach Special Education. She received a scholarship to Benedictine Collage in Atchison Kansas. After a year and a half she transferred to UNL, to get the classes she needed. She graduated in four years, with honors. She is now in her fourth year teaching special Education at Papillion-LaVista High School and is working on her masters at Creighton. After completing 18 hours of graduate work with a 4.0 average, she still can’t spell without a spell checker and still takes a lot longer than her classmates to complete written assignments, but no longer thinks that she is stupid. Her learning disability has made her a stronger, more independent and more sensitive human being. AND in case it doesn't show, her parents are very proud of her.
Posted August 13th, 2007
Our daughter, Erin, had frequent ear infections in her first two years or life that resulted in a ninety percent hearing loss. Twenty-five years ago we were not aware of the correlation between this and learning problems. She did not start to talk until she was three, a full year after she had tubes put in both of her ears. When she did start talking, it was essentially unintelligible. At three and a half she was started into a preschool speech/ language program two days a week and had one hour of individual speech therapy through our public school in Denver. She continued speech therapy until she decided she had enough when she was thirteen. We moved from Denver to a small town in Iowa right before she started kindergarten. She struggled in school but always got good grades. When we expressed concern to the school, we were perceived as perfectionistic parents who were putting too much pressure on their child.
We moved to Omaha where she began the sixth grade in a Catholic school. It was immediately evident to us that she was really struggling even though she maintained her good grades. She became depressed and anxious and had frequent headaches and stomachaches, which I related to stress. Through all of this, she never tried to get out of going to school or doing her homework and she continued in speech therapy. At the beginning of seventh grade, things had gotten to the point that, we took her to a psychologist for an evaluation. After her preliminary exam the psychologist asked to do further testing because she felt that Erin had “a unique learning style”. Testing showed that she had a thirty-nine-point difference between her verbal and performance scores. This clearly indicated a learning disability. At the same time that I made the appointment for the psychological evaluation, I had scheduled academic testing at UNO. Their findings were consistent. At that time we had been open to transferring her to a public school if that was the most appropriate setting. Their recommendation was indeed to put her into a public school, but made it clear that she did not qualify for any special services because her academic scores were too high.
We were confused and bewildered at this point, so sought the counsel of the psychologist. She agreed that changing school had no advantages and recommended a special education teacher who had extensive experience with children with learning problems. We hired her to tutor Erin. Her approach was to determine Erin’s areas of difficulty and devise ways for her to work through her strengths to overcome these. The school was willing to let her tutor and the psychologist come in for a staffing with the teachers. They made simple accommodations, like letting her do every other math problem and to do them in her book instead of copying all the problems. When she did copy math problems, she used graph paper. This took a lot of pressure off her. Just knowing that there was a reason for her problems and that she was not “stupid” improved her self esteem enough that she ran for student council in the eighth grade. Not getting elected did not defeat her.
At this point we were again faced with finding the most appropriate educational setting for Erin. We know that she would do better in a smaller school. Our son was at Gross High School, so we talked to the principal both there and at Mercy High School. Both were willing to accommodate her as needed, but neither had any formal services for students with LD (learning disabilities). She elected to go to Mercy because of the smaller class size and the fact that it was just girls meant less distraction. She had her struggles there but ended up being inducted into the National Honor Society as a senior. Her grades were good enough for honors classes, but she elected not to take many because the pace was faster and put too much pressure on her. The best thing that happened in high school was that she became her own advocate. Not only that, but she was being asked to talk to, and in one case, to tutor another student with a documented learning disability. She became involved in activities that she would never have tried in a larger school where she would not have received individual encouragement from the teachers. She was in track, cross country, and speech. She was on the yearbook staff all four years and was a coeditor her senior year. In this process, Erin decided that she wanted to teach Special Education. She received a scholarship to Benedictine Collage in Atchison Kansas. After a year and a half she transferred to UNL, to get the classes she needed. She graduated in four years, with honors. She is now in her fourth year teaching special Education at Papillion-LaVista High School and is working on her masters at Creighton. After completing 18 hours of graduate work with a 4.0 average, she still can’t spell without a spell checker and still takes a lot longer than her classmates to complete written assignments, but no longer thinks that she is stupid. Her learning disability has made her a stronger, more independent and more sensitive human being. AND in case it doesn't show, her parents are very proud of her.
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