In my opinion, one of the most powerful pieces of our system for serving
students with learning challenges is the individual interview.  We
learned this concept when we took Nancie Payne and Neil Sturomski's
learning disabilities training.  There are no prescribed questions.  Any
program can create their own interview based on the information that
would be most helpful for the student, teacher, and program. (We have
changed our questions many times.)

In the process, before we conduct the interview, we always have the
student sign a release of information form.  We tell the student the
purpose of the interview is to get to know them as a learner, so if we
ask them a question that they don't want to answer, they have a right to
pass. (In my own personal experience I have never had a student pass on
a question.)

What gives the interview its power is not the questions that we ask.  It
is that the student gets to sit down with someone who cares about their
learning and who listens to their story.  Many of them have never had a
positive experience like that before.  They love that someone cares and
is going to help them.  They have one more person in their corner, one
more connection to education, one more resource to help them be
successful.  After the interview, we make an appointment to meet again
after we have typed up a summary of the interview including
recommendations for strategies and/or referrals.  The individualized
strategies and/or referrals are based on the information from the
interview.  The student leaves our second meeting with a copy of the
recommendations and a copy is also given to the student's teacher so we
are all on the same page.  The summary itself is confidental information
and is kept in a locked file cabinet.

The interview takes on an average of 30 minutes to conduct.
 <<IIfinal.doc>>  
Judy A. Campbell
Learning Disabilities Specialist
IEL/ABE/CCS

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