Bill Fagan wrote - ... While I don't have statistics,  it seems that if LD
students reach university they do well. The expectation is that they are as
intelligent as the next student, they only need an accommodation to  help
them demonstrate the knowledge they have.

The bottleneck seems to be in the school system, when strategies, programs,
plans, are not available to unlock the potential students have and they fall
by the wayside and do not make it to university.


Bill, I fully agree that school systems aren't doing enough to promote
continuation on to postsecondary learning for students with LD. I agree that
schools should be doing more to help students learn to problem-solve and
strategize, and certainly to be self-aware. But I think our biggest failing
is low expectations. Too many students fail to even consider continuing on
because no one is telling them that it's a possibility. Some are capable of
attending highly competitive colleges; others need to find settings with
less rigorous academic demands. But even students who don't look like
traditional "college material" have options to continue. According to Dr.
Loring Brinckerhoff, who wrote the postsecondary chapter in my book, the
majority of students with learning disabilities who enroll in post-secondary
education start by spending a year or two at their local community college,
where there is generally an open admissions policy, meaning a high school
diploma or a GED is all that is necessary for admission. There are many
financial and academic  advantages of the community college option, but
there is a potential psychological benefit as well, since, as a
non-residential institution where all students are commuters, students are
able to ³try out² the college experience close to home, near family and
friends. 

The fact is, in the US (you mention your province, so I'm guessing you're
from Canada), only 20% of students with LD enroll in college, and MANY of
those (nearly half) never graduate. So, once they do matriculate, we would
do well to make sure students with LD have access to more than just
classroom accommodations. Coming back to my comments yesterday about
community living skills, we should see to it that there's support for their
adjustment to the many changes that come with college life. We need to help
them adjust to larger classes, to less structured time, to having to balance
academics with social demands, to less frequent feedback from instructors,
to having to manage their finances independently, to dealing with roommates,
and on and on. Time management alone is a HUGE challenge for students on
college campuses. So, in high school and in postsecondary settings, we need
to help students prepare for the broader demands of the college experience.
As I keep saying over and over again here, LD is far more than just about
reading and writing!
Arlyn