By Janet Price, Director of Admissions and Outreach, College Living Experience

For families of students with learning disabilities or those on the autism spectrum, the process of evaluating college readiness can be complicated. Parents of a student with an IEP or 504 Plan who is achieving good grades (with scaffolding and support); taking honors or AP classes; or perhaps scoring well on SATs or ACTs (with accommodations) may see the end goal as a diploma and college acceptance. As education professionals, however, we know that academic ability does not equate to college readiness.

Before I joined College Living Experience, I spent nearly 10 years as an independent educational consultant (IEC) and advocate. I am also the parent of two young adults who have successfully navigated college, graduate school, and their chosen professions with accommodations for learning disabilities and physical disabilities. I know all too well that feeling of elation as a student walks across the stage, accepts their high school diploma, and gets their college acceptance letter: This is it! The struggles are behind us, and no more IEP meetings, ever!

That last part is true. But a whole new set of challenges awaits for which many students, especially those with special needs, are frequently unprepared. That becomes crystal clear when we examine the college graduation rates for students with disabilities compared with those of their nondisabled peers.

Soft Skills and Hard Facts

• About 33% of students with disabilities who enroll in a four-year college or university graduate within eight years; for those that enroll in two-year schools, the outcomes aren’t much better at 41%, according to federal data (Mader and Butrymowicz 2017).

• By contrast, about 60% of students without disabilities who began seeking a bachelor’s degree at a four-year institution in fall 2010 completed that degree within six years (National Center for Educational Statistics 2017).

Why? Students with disabilities encounter a paradigm shift in terms of receiving support when they get to college. The umbrella of laws providing supports changes: students move from being covered under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in elementary and secondary school to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 in college. In a nutshell, we can say that students move from a world of entitlement—IDEA entitles students with disabilities to FAPE (free and appropriate public education)—to equal access.

The responsibility for requesting accommodations, as well as for identifying as a student with a disability, now rests on the student’s shoulders. And it is less the hard academics and more the “soft” skillsets of executive function and self-advocacy that will have the biggest impact on success.

Executive Function Is More Than Academics

Fortunately, there are strategies that families can use to practice executive function and self-advocacy skills beyond academics. The earlier that students begin to practice those skills, the more comfortable and familiar they will become. If we can present this information to our students in a meaningful way—connecting it directly to things that they will need to master to be successful living on their own—we can go a long way towards establishing buy-in.

Looking at executive function as an example, beyond the academic piece of prioritizing and organizing class work and homework, what will our students need to do independently? An often-overlooked skill is the ability to wake up with an alarm and make it to class on time. I have had many conversations with parents who, in picking and choosing daily battles, have felt that this was an easy one to let go. After all, is it worth a fight every morning and ultimately being late to school? Yes, and yes. That is the skill that will be the foundation for everything else that comes next!

For parents who are unwilling to allow their students to learn experientially from planned failure, I have often suggested another strategy. Allow your child to choose a family activity of high value or motivation for the weekend and make it contingent on an early start. It is up to your child to wake up and dress independently for the activity to take place. The consequence of oversleeping won’t be something that the parent isn’t willing to compromise, such as being late to school or missing a test or important assignment, but hopefully it will be meaningful to the child if they are not able to do something that they had a voice in planning and really wanted to do.

Practice Self-Advocacy in Meaningful Ways

Self-advocacy is another area that will become increasingly important as the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) kicks in at age 18. Even with a waiver, college professors are reluctant or unwilling to communicate with parents, and rightly so.

Self-advocacy can be defined in three parts: recognizing that you need help, asking for help appropriately, and accepting help. Students can begin to practice this skill by participating in their IEP meetings. Many parents worry that the meetings will be too long and students will lose interest. They also worry that meetings may become contentious and it isn’t good for students to be exposed to parents and teachers in conflict. Both concerns are valid. A good way around those issues is to invite the student to participate at the end of the IEP meeting, once the team has come to an agreement. Review the goals and accommodations and ask your student what they think. Do the strategies seem helpful? Are there other things they would like to see?

Parents can also model appropriate email communication between students and their teachers. Once in college, email will be a principal means of communication with professors. The more practice a student has in drafting clear, concise, and timely emails, the more successful they will be advocating for their needs going forward.

Consider All Options for Success

Soft skills are more reliable indicators of college readiness than grades for students with special needs. Although it is better to practice them early, it is never too late. Opportunities to fill in those skills deficits should never be overlooked, whether through a summer program, traditional college supports, a gap or PG year, or a postsecondary support program.

References

Mader, Jackie, and Sarah Butrymowicz. 2017. The Low Number of Students With Disabilities Graduating From College Is a Crisis: How Better Soft Skills Might Boost Low College Persistence and Employment Rates. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/students-with-disabilities-college_us_5a0602d7e4b05673aa592cb4.

National Center for Educational Statistics. 2017. Fast Facts: Graduation Rates. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40.

Janet Price can be reached at [email protected].