Is your teen with a disability really ready to head to college? Has the work your child did in high school enough? Are you confident in their ability to handle college on their own? If you have concerns about your child with a disability heading to college, then listen to Cathi Allen's suggestions about the best ways to frontload or prepare for college. Cathi discusses the importance for students with disabilities to spend their high school adequately preparing and practicing the skills they will need in college. She also shares some technology suggestions that every student should know.
Inclusive Higher Education Certificate Program
Transitioning from Special Education to Higher Education Free ebook by Cathi Allen
Otter.ai
One Note Immersive Reader
cathi@ihecp.org
Insights From a Disability Specialist Free ebook by Mickie Hayes
Is your teen with a disability really ready to head to college? Has the work your child did in high school enough? Are you confident in their ability to handle college on their own? If you have concerns about your child with a disability heading to college, then listen to Cathi Allen's suggestions about the best ways to frontload or prepare for college. Cathi discusses the importance for students with disabilities to spend their high school adequately preparing and practicing the skills they will need in college. She also shares some technology suggestions that every student should know.
Inclusive Higher Education Certificate Program
Transitioning from Special Education to Higher Education Free ebook by Cathi Allen
Otter.ai
One Note Immersive Reader
cathi@ihecp.org
Insights From a Disability Specialist Free ebook by Mickie Hayes
0:00
That's probably the biggest thing is that I don't believe that my students really, in general really understood the level of supports that they received in high school. I mean, this is you think about it's the it's their natural environment. This is how they were raised. This is how people are. And then when that changes, that's a huge disrupter to their life to their self image to a number of things when they land on campus.
0:24
Today, we're talking to Cathi Allen. And Cathi Allen is the founder and executive director of the Inclusive Higher Education Certificate Program, and Cathi is going to talk to us a little bit about what she does and what her mission is, and how you as a parent can help prepare your child with a disability to become a successful college student. So welcome to College, Disabilities, and Success, front-loading your child's transition plan with Cathi Allen on Episode 55, with Mickie Hayes, the opinions in this podcast are my own, please reach out to your college physician or legal services for additional information. Hi, Cathi, it's nice to see you.
1:16
Hey, Mickie. Nice to see you again, too. I'd like to talk a little bit today about my work on campus serving students actually starting with students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and how a college program has expanded to really become a continuum of services. For all students with disabilities attending college, I was a transition teacher with a large school district in Colorado. And I left that and started a nonprofit because I was not happy with the outcomes for my students, I saw my students very capable human beings, leaving the high school and transition setting and having the initial job or the, you know, the initial plan, but then within six months or so I'd run into the student and parent at the mall, which is where you will need all of Sure, absolutely, you know, these, these students had lost a lot of skills in a short period of time. And I really started to study that, you know, what's missing? What's missing from our system, what's missing from our sort of programming for students as they transition out of high school. And I was really attracted to the idea of continuing college because my viewpoint is that college is a transition program. It's the natural transition program from high school to adulthood. You know, it's not going to campus and being on campus, it's who you become on campus, and where you're headed. Your Goals. Absolutely. You know, and in Colorado at the time, there were no inclusive programs. So I left my job. And I partnered with my alma mater, the Metropolitan State, University of Denver, in the School of Education to create inclusive higher education programming. Now, it was not institutionalized, initially institutionalized, meaning the university did not create their own program, I founded a nonprofit to serve students and work in partnership with the School of Education. I'm finishing my seventh year now, we're moving the program into the university, which I'm very proud of, wow. What I want to share with parents and students now is some of the experiences that my students have had coming to campus. And again, a wide continuum of students really needing one on one supports to students starting to explore their own world and seeing where they fit into it to students who are very clear about their outcomes, where they want to go in life, and that higher, they need to have that higher education degree to get there. So, you know, I'm not just bound to one particular diagnosis or another. I'm not bound to a certain suppose an IQ level, my purpose was to serve students. Our mission is to administer and create inclusive higher education programming for diverse learners. Well, that's all of us, right? Exactly. Universal business, and adult agency partnerships. So that's what I've done on campus to date. But like I said, What I really like to share today, some of the experiences that my students have had coming to campus, what their expectations were, what the reality was, and how we can start to support the student. And as I put it, frontload their education before they come to campus, or creating a transition to campus so that their actual learning is meaningful and beneficial to them as human beings and can be sustained that the student wants to continue learning at that level. You've done this work before you've seen the high dropout rates of all students in their first year.
4:55
The first year can make or break a student very, very Easily? Absolutely.
5:01
It can. And that that self-image that a student gets as a learner, I am not cut out for this. I don't have this I, I don't like it anyway. But I don't think that's necessarily true. I think it's more like I wasn't prepared for this. I didn't know what to expect, wow, if I'd only had this in place when I was going to school. So that's really my passion right now is to support students on campus media, we talk about meeting students where they are, but I'm talking about meeting all students where they are to support them through technology, through personal relationships, through mentoring, to really support them through their college experience.
5:46
So if I were a parent with a transitioning student, who I know is hesitant about college or afraid of college, or just doesn't know what to do and think about it, what would be the first suggestion you would make for a parent who has this transitioning student that is hesitant or struggling? Okay,
6:08
the first suggestion I'd make is not to wait until the student is exiting high school, this list boy on good question on going discussion with the student, because you know, without student buy in, this just isn't gonna work.
6:22
This is not gonna work exactly.
6:25
No matter what the parent or what the family dynamic has been, or history has been, the student needs to want to do this, like they want to breathe. This needs to happen. It needs to happen from a social component from an academic component. And from a life skills component. We need to look at all of these things. Then I said the academics Yes. But looking at what does the student want creating a solid Transition Plan towards college during the transition years? Here in Colorado, an IEP must transition IEP must be in place by the time that student turns the age of 15. Okay, I think it should happen. The discussions should happen in middle school. But you know, every state law is a little different. Sure. But I really I want parents to start thinking about college for their student, when their student is beginning High School. What What are barriers that are in high school? What would translate to college? Let's start talking about what does a student need to be? Well? Are they going to be independent on campus? Are they going to be going to a community college? Or, you know, commuter campus? Are they going to need to improve their life skills? You know, what are the academics looking like this? Does the college have a program that can modify coursework for students? Now, modifications, as you know, will not count for accredited classes, you won't earn college credit for it, right? Getting a course or two can be a low stakes point of entry for many students. You know, the biggest thing is preparing your student to be a self advocate. You know, self advocacy is not attending an IEP meeting that adults have set up for you. Self Advocacy is something that happens every single day that a student needs to be aware of they have modifications to their coursework in high school. What about their accommodations? Are? Do we require that the student request the accommodations? We really should the law change, moving from Ida to Ada, shifts the responsibility to the student. So as much as the parent has been an incredible advocate for your student through the K through 12 years, or K through transition years, the onus, the responsibility shifts to the student? And how can we serve best serve a self determined adult? How can we best lift as an adult to become self determined? And I think, really understanding how to make good choices? How using a process perhaps to go through large decisions, you know, making an informed choice, and part of that informed choices? Do you go to college or not? What is that going to take? And how do you prepare for that and preparing for that? In a very supportive atmosphere such as the high school,
9:17
as you have worked with students in the past, what kind of experiences have you noticed, are most beneficial to the students? In terms of if that transition from from high school to college when they're actually at that moment? And starting at college? Where do Where do students need your help? Where do students need their parents help? Where do students need help?
9:41
You know, again, I'm going to push this back into the high school program and in transition, that's really where it needs to start. Okay, and offering offering explicit direct instruction in self advocacy, and then setting up opportunities for students to practice it, setting up exchange explicit and direct learning around community access.
10:04
As a parent, you could set up opportunities for your child to be a self advocate, you just need to step back a little bit and I don't know, read the room, observe the situation for your students.
10:16
So parents may have a tendency of jumping in, right. And, and maybe to speed things up or to clarify or to, you know, it's okay to let a student struggle a bit. Yeah, coming to that conclusion, repairing communication, perhaps could be, you know, an IEP goal and a way to start again, frontloading, this learning that the students going to need, letting the student letting the learner have the process, letting the learner perhaps even fail in high school. And then putting systems in place, I think it's important to not just support our students in high school, but to give them the opportunities at home and in high school, to try and fail. You know, if we, if we send our student or learner into a grocery store with a list and money, and letting that person go through the process of discovering things or not, and seeing where the sticking points are, because those sticking points, wherever that is, whether it's academics, whether it's initiating homework, whether it's behavioral issues, whether it's personal hygiene, those things don't go away, when somebody hits a college campus,
11:31
they don't know anything, they don't know that, if anything, they just they show up bigger, in many cases.
11:39
That's it, because I don't think we realize how much we do to step in to support somebody. And I can assure you, that's something that the students don't understand either. They don't really understand the level of support that they've needed to show success. And so you know, that brings up something else, Mickey is that I think that parents and students really need to understand that there's a huge difference again, between IDEA and ADA, in that IDEA wants to move a student is focused on progress, right, we're measuring progress. We're programming for progress. And that doesn't happen in college. That doesn't happen with ADA. ADA is about access,
12:20
equal access. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And it does impact people understanding that concept of equal access is so very different than what they had under IDEA, where IDEA accommodated for success, or progress. ADA accommodates for equal access. And those are two different things. And parents really need to understand students really need to understand that, you know,
12:48
that's, that's probably the biggest thing is that I don't believe that my students really, in general really understood the level of supports that they received in high school. I mean, this is you think about, it's the it's their natural environment, this is how they were raised, this is how people are. And then when that changes, that's a huge disrupter to their life, to their self image to a number of things when they land on campus. So to help prepare a student by saying, you know, these are the areas of need, but these are the your areas of strength, let's use the area of strength to build and to support you in the area of need. And before we even get there, let's find someone something some way to help you while you're gone from home,
13:33
a mentor, a mentor.
13:36
And that's something that's really coming, coming into its own right now. There are a number of executive functioning coaches popping up all over. You know, I think that's wonderful that helps students with organization planning, Initiation gives them a piece of accountability. It's a model that I certainly use on campus is a coaching model. But again, you can only coach what you've got to think about, like weightlifting, if a student comes to campus and wants to and then bulk up, they're going to start from the very beginning, and they're going to need much more support to get academically girl up, you know, self efficacy bulked up. But again, what if we had started that earlier? Learning the process, understanding what needs to happen practicing and low stakes environment?
14:24
Could you take a minute and talk about the tech role in all of this? Because it's so important. Tech is tech is everything right now in the students life, universal design for learning, and tech, and all of those things make a huge, huge difference for a student at College. What are some tech things that you have done to help students adjust to college?
14:50
Okay, I'm going to start with a big umbrella. And okay, that the the pandemic actually did students with disabilities a favor because As an accommodation that many students have been requesting over the years and denied, but can I get a recording of the class? So I can to it later or maybe if I, because of a disability because of a mental illness because of a hospitalization because of whatever, they can't make it to class that day, but they still want to participate? What if we can record that class and previously, it was no, no, you know, the classes offered on campus and that the we have an attendance requirement. But now with the pandemic, with educators have learned the value of what they call the high flex model, which is you deliver a course in person, you have your your Zoom meeting going, or your team's meeting going so that students can log in through that. And then you during this whole process, you record the lecture, you record the class interactions and even breakout, and you require 100% attendance. This is something that, again, has been requested for years, and was suddenly literally shoved into the norm. So let's just say Yay for that, because tech opens up if we can deliver lessons online, or in the in the mode that the student feels most comfortable in person, online, synchronous, asynchronous. If we have tech, now, we can really start to embed some technology, that technology can be using universal design so that when you have an assignment, you can, you could give an assignment and say, Okay, you have the option of writing a three page paper. On this topic, you have the option of recording an audio recording of you explaining your paper and your thoughts. Or you can give me a video where you can upload maybe charts, graphs drawing, however, you want to help represent this, but you're going to have to give me a verbal guide through it. And something I found is that when we remove the writing component, and again, yes, students need to know how to write. But many times, reading and writing are going to be a barrier to your education. Up until this point, it's been your education, but at the college level, it can be a barrier to your education, and some of the tech that we use at the college level, along with using UDL to permit different modes of learning, and demonstrating your learning, we can use this for note taking, that's always been an issue and can't always always yes, because you never know, you know, whoever you get is how your notes turn out. So note taking now can be recording lectures and transcribing them. And that's something I wanted to talk to your your listeners about is a program called otter otter.ai artificial intelligence. And what this does is you can set it, set it up on your computer on your phone, record your lecture, and within 30, 40 seconds after a 75 minute lecture have a transcribed copy that actually breaks out different speakers. And being a AI, the artificial intelligence, the program will learn somebody's voice over time. So admittedly, the first couple of lectures, there are some words in there that nobody said and fell down. But that's part of the process that I use for my students and re-listening to their lectures is I have them print out their transcript, and highlight annotate, in a sense that's annotating skills which you need as a student, but to highlight the words that were wrong, and then put the correct word in. So that's an active listening technique that I use to relist to listen to lectures, again, not necessarily taking notes on the lectures, but to listen to the lecture for a particular purpose. So that's something
19:02
I had mentioned before. We started today about discovering MOTE, mote. And for anybody who wants to know what that is, you can just check out my previous podcast, I believe it was number 52. That talks about mote and how you can use that to record your own voice in your own comments about what it is you're reading or doing or learning. So it's another tech piece that is viable. So there's a lot of tech out there.
19:33
And there's a lot of tech that's embedded in the learning management systems that colleges use. Yeah, they're they're sort of like the big three. But there are smaller systems too, but there's tech in there. And if you ask your instructor to literally toggle Immersive Reader, everything on that language based page can be read aloud to you, while highlighting the word that's being read. You can speed that up, you can slow that down. So I said there, we can accommodate now through technology and a lot of that technology, a student can carry around in their back pocket on their cell phone. So texting, text, reminders, oh my goodness, I couldn't survive a day without reminders, I put things into my daily calendar and the weekly calendar, I teach this to our students to to use a just one system, a calendar function, and the email that the university use. And typically, that's Microsoft, even though students are trained up in Google. And think about that parents, if your student is has Google skills, will that translate to Microsoft, for some students, it will for some it won't. Maybe there's a period of transition in high school or transition programming, that we transition to the typical business based communication system. But using calendars, using reminders, putting in our schedule, knowing when we have free time knowing when we have booked ourselves to actually do something like study or you know, to study is such a vague term, to do your research to find to literally put it in there and discrete units, find three articles on this topic, that's all you have to do in that calendar entry. And then a little bit later on, annotate those articles, copy bibliography, using your calendar and starting to break it into a task analysis, because we know that most of our students do quite well with visual supports, whether it's a visual schedule, you know, reminders, they can carry this around in their on their phone. And that's an image. And that's
21:41
what you were talking about earlier about that transition period, during the high school years, everything you just mentioned there, those can all be used during the high school years to get your child up and running. So that when they get to college, they're not having to learn new processes and new technology and new techniques. along with everything else, they already know how to handle these things. I think that would make a big difference during the tech products that you mentioned during high school.
22:14
Yes, and that is just something again, that can be written into an IEP as a goal that the student will access, whatever, you know, asking, and I'm afraid to say something because it will talk back to me. But asking one of our Siri or whoever else over there, oh, I got something, you know, using back pocket information, just so that the students stopped skipping over the things that they don't know. Yeah, and looking up becoming an active learner, and rewarding for that. So it's not about the content, it's about the process, you can teach process prior to landing in any new environment, somebody is going to do better. If they help you expect
23:00
when you're not surprised by things, you're ready to handle them. And you can handle the challenges that come your way. And so the more preparation we could do during those transition years, it is huge. It really is that you help your son or daughter be ready for that transition to college, it will increase their opportunities for success, it will
23:22
that's it you know that they have a process to fall back on. Yes, self aware enough, you know, that you've worked with, with this student long enough that they really start to feel like they are self determined human beings, they can make decisions on their own. And with that piece of informed choice making those decisions, they really need to see what works best for them. So you know, whether they're disclosing a disability to somebody in disability service office, whether they're requesting accommodations with a professor, they need practice with this. And this is something that good self advocacy courses will help a student create a portfolio of accommodations that have worked for them at work experience, accommodations that have worked for them and different, you know, different accommodations for different types of classes. This is this would be a wonderful gift to give your student if they if they actually had a process to follow. If this happens, then do that. It's not quite as cut and dried as if then depending on your learner, how they learn, really drawing on that strength and letting them know that you're partnering with them to get them to where they want to go. And I think there's a lot more student buy in with that. And we reduce the attrition rate of first. Yes, students? Yes, actually students with disabilities. Now the graduation rate for students with disabilities is abysmal. So how can we address that as support personnel on campus? And I really do believe that this idea of frontloading no many, many colleges have boot camp or first year success or whatever and I think That's wonderful. You know, again, a learner needs to know when this is how to access it. But the biggest drawback that I see to most of those programs, it's a one hour one and done sort of presentation, we're going to talk about how to organize your coursework. Great, there's an hour now go do it. And we haven't really challenged our learners with the go do it part. Now you go do this, show me what you understood. And is this something that you can sustain over a period of time, like maybe a 14 to 16 week semester,
25:33
those are skills that you can front load during the transition period of the student's life, those high school years,
25:40
as something that can be done in sequential steps to it's not like, here's the whole thing you have to do. Because I do understand that secondary teachers and systems need to show progress towards content. But my belief is that if you have a good process in place, that your content will follow. You know, and if you start this early, so you're really thinking about the the behaviors, the the needs, the approaches, and what your students going to need, whether they're eight years old, or 18 years old. And really, keeping that in mind as we build programming for our students and build operating our programming is so called building opportunities for our students not just to be told what they need to learn, but in practice what they need to learn.
26:30
And when you can't get it done in the hours that they're at school, these are skills that the parent can very easily practice during their hours at home.
26:43
Yes, things such as chores, things such as calendars, you know, that's something Oh, Mickey brought up a good point. Because when it's when I work with many students, a family will typically have a calendar that's attached to the refrigerator, I can tell you that that does not transition well to college. So I think the family needs to think about using technology use a shared system that you can communicate, and that you can share, appointments, needs, you know, I need a ride here, there. But again, everybody carrying this around on their phone and get it off the refrigerator. Because this is something if we're going to have some distance between us, we can still be in touch, we can still see what's going on. We can still lend a hand.
27:30
Yes. And you can share, you can share a calendar, schools, Google Calendar shares very easily. So Google
27:36
does Microsoft shares. Yeah, I'll do and if that's something that's wonderful to use. Yeah,
27:43
yeah. And I don't think I don't always think parents realize that the kids could have their calendar, but the parents could have access to it. And you can make it a project where everybody's working on it together. And it doesn't all fall on one person. Yeah,
27:57
yes. You know, with color coding all all of the wonderful organizational techniques that students have been taught about it gives them a practical application. Yeah. And to bring it into the home. Yeah, we know that our students struggle, many students struggle with generalization of concepts, something that they do in school doesn't necessarily translate to home, or something of a process they use at home doesn't translate to school. But again, this is a good time to share. And to, you know, to create the systems back and forth. So the student really starts to realize that, hey, this stuff works in this environment and that environment.
28:34
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Well, Kathy, thank you very, very much. Is there anything else you want to add? Before we wrap things up,
28:42
Mickey, thank you so much for the opportunity to be on today. I really appreciate this. And the one thing I want to leave parents and students with is that you know what this front loading your supports, and having an idea of what it is you're going to need. This really will help your learner understand what it is they need, it will start to shift the responsibility from parent and teacher centered programming, to student centered programming. And it will really help your your student your learner adjust to new environments, using technology early on in high school is not something that typically happened more and more it's happening. But using it to learn using it to accommodate typically doesn't happen. That's something that we can advocate for law students are in high school. And then the other thing is, is to really help your student become a strong self advocate. And that starts with self knowledge. I would just like to put a little plug in that I just did a quick ebook, transitioning from special education to higher education. It gives some of the ideas that we talked about today. I am on a university campus. 40,000 people a commuter campus. 40,000 people a day diverse learners. We're all diverse learners. So let's start really accepting and appreciating Who we are, how we learn how we approach life and supporting everybody through this process.
30:06
Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Well, Cathi, your your mission with students with disabilities is incredible. It's purposeful. And I know that the parents are really going to take away a lot of helpful information, a lot of helpful tips and insights into the struggles that their kids are facing, and how they can best support their children as they reach adulthood in transition into the world of college. So I thank you for that. And I appreciate all that you're doing. And I look forward to hearing about what's coming next on the horizon for you and your mission statement with the colleges, because getting the colleges on board is so very, very, very important. And the more you can do at the campuses, the more programs that we can develop those transition programs that you're talking about, will make a huge, huge impact on success for students with disabilities. So thank you. Links to those resources thatCathi mentioned in today's podcast, will be in my show notes, along with a link to my free ebook, insights from a disability specialist, which has over 30 questions that you should know the answers to already before you get to that college interview with a disability services. But if you're not sure of the answers, thesis, discussion questions and prompts that you can use at that interview that will help you get a better sense of exactly what to expect. Once your child gets into college. I want to give a special thanks to Kathy Allen for joining us today. She really sees the need for that front loading that parents and children need to do while they're in high school so that when they get to college, they're not surprised by what comes next. And I want to thank you for being here as well. I hope you found value in today's podcast, you can reach me at Mickey teaches@gmail.com. That's mickieteaches@gmail.com And you can find additional resources on my website, mickieteaches.com. In the meantime, have a great rest of the day and we will talk again soon. Bye. Information contained throughout this podcast has been gleaned from my own personal experiences, but to ensure accuracy, please contact the Disability Services at the college of your choice to have firsthand information and the most up to date policies and procedures followed by your particular institution of higher education. The content in any of these podcasts is not intended as a substitute for information from legal, educational or medical professionals. Always seek the advice of your attorney or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have with regards to illegal educational or medical concerns.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai