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[addjunk]

Hello everyone:

Please be "PC" when commenting...

1)  What have your experiences been with Special Ed students?

2)  Developmental disabilities often prevent Spec Ed students
from showing their "potential" on ACT, SAT exams.
Therefore, entrance exams, placement exams and other standardized test results should be taken with a grain of salt.

[addjunk]

Hello again:

Okay...let me rephrase my question.

Do other professors think that the offices of "Access/Disabilities" pressure them
to "allow" students more than they seem to deserve?

Just curious.

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

Jalapeno,

The language of these posts indicate that you have little to do with higher ed or special services, so I doubt you are likely to inspire others to jump in and entertain you with their comments.

Not sure what you are trolling for.

[dyst_uk]

Referring to 'Special Ed' students as an homogeneous group makes your query harder to answer too.

[zharkov]

2)  Developmental disabilities often prevent Spec Ed students
from showing their "potential" on ACT, SAT exams.

I have to wonder if you work in higher ed as well.  How many school really use SAT or ACT as the key determinant of admission?

[addjunk]

Hello:

Respectfully,

I DO work in  R1.

But in my "customers" (which is the term that I am encouraged to employ)
are in Access and Disabilities.

J.

[zharkov]

Hello:

Respectfully,

I DO work in  R1.

But in my "customers" (which is the term that I am encouraged to employ)
are in Access and Disabilities.

OP, part of the problem is that your questions are pretty vague....

For example: Do other professors think that the offices of "Access/Disabilities" pressure them to "allow" students more than they seem to deserve?

Give a couple of examples of what you mean by "allow students more."  Allow students more time on exams?  That's pretty common. Do you mean something else?  What exactly?

Also, what do you mean by "deserve"?  Do you mean get what they deserve to address their learning disabilities, for example?  Of do you mean deserve in some ethical or moral sense? 

[sporosarcina]

I teach at an open enrollment two-year college ("pulse and a check" are our criteria) and as such I have seen a wide diversity of special needs students in my classroom.  The question is cluttered, as mentioned earlier, due to a lack of focus on the different catagories.  I will strive to answer with what I have seen.

Severe Physical Disabilities (e.g. severe spina bifida)
I have had a couple of students that have had no cognative problems, but have had severe physical limitations.  This has been a challange in that teach laboratory-based classes and I have had to rework almost every laboratory so that their limited physical skills could still demonstrate a mastery of the material.  I have had pretty good success, but both parties have to be patient and openly communicate about expectations and deficiencies.

Cognative Disabilities (e.g. mental imparement)
Since our school is open enrollment I occassionally get students who have no business taking my classes (generally the second-tier science classes).  I have apporached these by meeting the accomadations that the students is allowed through their evaluation (per our student success department) and being frank with the student if or when they fall behind.  I do not coddle or lower the standards for any students, I simply make the accomadations that are requisite for the particular disability (i.e. note-taker, podcast or lecture, etc.)

Overall I would say the best thing you can do is have open lines of communication with your school's special needs professional(s).  Special needs students have proven to me that they are no different than the rest of my students, just that they may need some adjustment to the format or delivery of the materials and assessments.  That also means that like other students some will fail while others succeed.

[finallyfullprof]

Hello everyone:

Please be "PC" when commenting...

1)  What have your experiences been with Special Ed students?

2)  Developmental disabilities often prevent Spec Ed students
from showing their "potential" on ACT, SAT exams.
Therefore, entrance exams, placement exams and other standardized test results should be taken with a grain of salt.

We don't use the term "special ed."  Our college refers to this population as "students with disabilities."  The experiences I've had vary widely.  Many students in this population need only minor accommodations and do just as well as the rest of their classmates. The only ones with whom I've had serious issues are the ones who are extremely mentally challenged. We have an entry-level developmental course which, as of now, has no prerequisites.  Thus we sometimes end up with students who cannot read or write in the class.  Obviously this causes problems.  We are working on ways to better place and serve these students.

As far as point #2, there are plenty of students in the general population to whom this applies as well.  I had a classmate who graduated with a 4.0 GPA from college but couldn't take standardized tests to save his life. He did very well with anything requiring essay or short answer. It was the multiple choice format that he had problems with for some reason.  My school makes testing accommodations for any student who registers with our disabled students' support center, so that does help some with getting more accurate results. However, I don't put a lot of faith in standardized tests as showing students' true capabilities. I've seen more than one student show up in a class with high placement test scores who obviously did not have the ability to correlate with that result.