Research suggests that students with LD transitioning to post-secondary environments often face a variety of academic, social, and emotional challenges as they navigate changes and differences between the secondary and post-secondary settings.
When the Ministry of Education announced it would require students to take online courses in order to graduate, there was concern about whether students with learning disabilities (LDs) would find success. In response to this concern, the Ministry amended their original plan and announced that students with LDs could be exempt from online learning. This has sent mixed messages to students with LDs and their parents and may have convinced many that online learning is not possible for students with LDs.
Teaching math online is a challenge for many teachers. It has become necessary for teachers to find virtual strategies or incorporate new platforms into their teaching.
Parents can help reduce back to school stress for students with LDs by reducing the working memory load so their child can focus on the job of learning; it will directly impact their child’s experience going back to the classroom this September.
If academic and applied streams are amalgamated, there is a possibility that students who require more support - such as students with LDs - could fall through the cracks. Educators should be aware of the following potential challenges that may be caused by de-streaming.
We may not know what September holds for our schools and communities, but we can be sure that supporting students with an LD will require serious thought and precision.
There are hundreds of assistive technologies available, and simply too much information for one person to track. To help with this problem, Dr. Todd Cunningham, a clinical psychologist at the University of Toronto/OISE, specializing in AT, and his team of graduate students have gone through and compiled as much information and research as they could find. All this information is available on the website ATSelect.org.
When a student refuses to complete homework, the first step to helping is to understand why. If we do not know how the student became “lost” in trying to carry out the task, our guidelines might not be very useful.
The following questions were received during the LD@school webinar, Assistive Technology & Distance Learning – Developing Skills with Accessible Tools During COVID-19.
This article has been updated to reflect the new set of guidelines for diagnosis created by the Cross-Sectoral Psychology Working Group on Learning Disabilities, adopted by the Ontario Psychological Association in 2018, and the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario in 2019.
