Frequently Asked Questions

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Frequently Asked Questions
Updated January 2016

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Alexia Disorder  (Acquired dyslexia)

My student has been diagnosed with Alexia following a stroke.  How can I help him learn to read again?


Alexia is an acquired disorder of reading subsequent to brain injury or stroke in a person who was previously literate.  There are several types of alexic disorders, which are characterized by the types of paralexias (incorrect production of words used in oral reading) produced, and by the properties of words that tend to affect reading performance. 


.There is a comprehensive explanation of Alexia at http://brainmind.com/Dyslexia43.html, and apparently the extent of the acquired reading disability depends on which parts of the brain were damaged.  How severe does it seem to be?  Can he recognize letters?  Any words?  Can he sound anything out?  There are descriptions of the different types of alexia at http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/friedmar/alexia.html.


The information regarding the research of effective treatment plans indicate that the student will have to have both a tactile and verbal approach to learning.  This means spelling the words out loud while tracing the letters with his fingers, and he may need to first learn the letter shapes by tracing them on something really rough, like sandpaper or a piece of masonite – something with a lot of texture on it.  He might move from that to writing the letters/words with sidewalk chalk – still lots of texture.  It may or may not help for him to use a keyboard to write and practice writing.  The research suggests that this approach to remediation works for teaching the student sight words, but not word attack skills, because the area of the brain damage is the same area that controls phonemic awareness.  So basically, the issues are the same as for someone with severe dyslexia; the difference is that remediation may be very limited due to the brain damage.  However, by using other channels to learn (tactile and verbal), the student may be able to learn enough sight words to function more independently.


During the (probably long) process of remediation, you should introduce the student to some technology that will help him to function and read on his own.  For example, he may want to download a free text-to-speech reader like Natural Reader at www.naturalreaders.com.   Books on tape/cd are always good.  Something like the Reading Pen might be helpful (http://www.wizcomtech.com/usaeng/catalog/a/readingpen/default2.asp?type=0) and the AALRC has some of those you can borrow if he wants to try one. But they’re only good for scanning and hearing a word or phrase now and then, not a whole page.  But it might be helpful after he’s learned a lot of sight words.


Be sure that both he and the tutor or teacher understand that he’ll have to practice his letters and words every day – not just once or twice a week.  Otherwise, his brain will not re-route to establish the new learning pathways.  He needs lots and lots of drill and repetition.  They might want to make some flash cards with that puffy paint stuff so he can practice feeling the letters and words when he’s not with his tutor or teacher.  As always, it’s good to put a picture with the letter or word on the flash card to remind him of the sound or the word.

 

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD)

What documentation do adult students with AD/HD need to request accommodations on the GED®, and who can conduct the evaluation?


To request and receive accommodations on the GED® for documented AD/HD, the documentation must be no more than 3 years old. Certified professionals for diagnosing AD/HD include medical doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists.


When the student goes for the initial appointment, s/he should take a copy of the Request for Testing Accommodations, AD/HD so the doctor can complete Section 3 of the form following the evaluation.  You can download this form at http://www.GEDtestingservice.com/testers/accommodations-for-disability#Accommodations4.  The doctor should return the completed form to the student, along with a signed letter (on official letterhead) stating the diagnosis of AD/HD and providing supporting diagnostic evidence of this disability. Information presented must clearly document how the ADHD substantially limits the candidate's current ability to take the GED®  Tests under standard conditions, and identify the accommodations that are requested in light of those limitations. Each suggested accommodation should include a brief rationale for the accommodation. Further, the documentation must confirm that the ADHD symptoms are not due to other emotional/mental health factors. A DSM-IV diagnosis must be included with the certifying professional's or advocate's signature attesting to the diagnosis of ADHD.


For a sample template letter that you can send to the doctor to make the process easier, click here: Sample letter for AD/HD accommodations.


For students with documented AD/HD, what accommodations should be applied and when should the accommodations be used?


Students with documented AD/HD should receive accommodations for any TABE tests, classroom instruction, and the official GED® Ready practice test and GED® Tests. Usually, a student with AD/HD will benefit from distraction-free testing and teaching (private room for testing), frequent breaks, and extra time to complete tasks. It may also be helpful to take only one test per day for GED® testing.  GED® Testing Service will ONLY approve extra time, frequent breaks, and a private room for testing for students with AD/HD, unless the student has additional disabilities that warrant other accommodations.

 

Auditory Processing Disability

 

What instructional strategies would help me teach a student who has an auditory processing disability?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Autism Spectrum Disorder

 

What instructional strategies would help me teach a student who has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Blind/Visual Impairments

 

What testing and classroom accommodations are available for students who are blind or visually impaired?

 

 

Deaf/Hearing Impairments

 

Can a sign-language interpreter be used to administer the GED® tests?


A sign-language interpreter can be used only to interpret test instructions and the essay topic but not for the multiple-choice test questions. The interpreter must be certified by a national or regional certifying agency. When an interpreter is hired, it should be made clear that the interpreter will be signing only instructions.


Resources to find interpreters in Arkansas:

Arkansas Rehabilitation Services (ARS)
Zania Musteen, 501.686.9684, zcmusteen@ars.state.ar.us

Communication Plus+ Interpreter & Consultation Service
Myra Taff-Watson, Liz Watson, 501.224.2521, mgtaffwatson@ualr.edu

What instructional strategies/tools will help a student who is deaf or hearing-impaired?

GED®  Testing Accommodations

 

What types of disabilities qualify a person to receive accommodations on the GED® tests?

 

How does an individual apply for accommodations for the GED® tests?
Individuals who request GED® testing accommodations must provide appropriate documentation of their disability and the need for the requested testing accommodations. The Adult Education Center/GED Testing Center will provide a form that a professional diagnostician such as a physician, psychologist, or psychiatrist must sign and include specific documentation of the disability. The forms may also be downloaded at GEDAccommodation Request Forms page.

The Adult Education Center/GED Testing Center will submit the information to the Arkansas GED® Testing office for review. In some cases, the documentation will have to be sent to the national GED® Testing Service in Washington DC for review.


Is there a Special Education version of the GED® tests?

No, there is not a special education version of the GED® tests. All test forms are essentially the same level of difficulty. Accommodations are available for students with documented disabilities who are approved for accommodations by the GED® Testing Service,  and there are Spanish or French versions. The accommodated and special edition tests have the same questions as the regular versions.


Can a 16- or 17-year-old student get an accommodation based on a diagnosis from their local school district?

Yes, if the documentation meets the requirements of the GED® Testing Service. See individual GEDTS® Request for Accommodations forms for descriptions of what tests are approved for each type of request at http://www.GEDtestingservice.com/testers/accommodations-for-disability#Accommodations4.


Are there some accommodations that can be given without special approval?

Yes. The following are examples of accommodations that do not require special approval: Earplugs, one test per day, priority seating, large-print test, straightedge, temporary adhesive with spatial directions, magnifying device, colored transparent overlays, clear transparent overlays with a highlighter, and the use of graph paper for working math problems.


General Referral Information

What can parents do if they think their K-12 child may have a learning disability?

They can submit a written request to the child’s school that the school provide testing to determine the existence of a learning disability. The school has 90 days to respond to the request. The parents will need to have some convincing evidence in the letter to show a basis for the request, and it would be best if the child’s teacher would also make the same request. The parents should also contact the Arkansas Disability Coalition (ADC) at 800.223.1330. They provide help for parents and kids with disabilities in the K-12 system, including parent training. ADC may also send an advocate to go with the parents when they meet with school officials.
If the school denies the request, the parents may want to schedule an evaluation with a private psychologist or a local mental health center, or at the Arkansas Children's Hospital (if they’re anywhere near Little Rock).  Local mental health centers and Arkansas Children’s Hospital accept AR Kids First, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. if the family doesn’t have insurance to cover the costs. The mental health centers sometimes do this evaluation on a sliding scale, too. Some private psychologists may also accept AR Kids First, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.


Where can I find more resources to help my students with disabilities?

There is a referral directory at the Referrel Directory page.


Intake/Classroom Accommodations

How do I know what accommodations my student should have for their disability?

If the student is not sure what accommodations would be the most effective for teaching and testing, the teacher and the student should partner to discuss and determine the most effective and appropriate accommodations for that individuals needs. Discuss the types of accommodations that are most commonly requested for the person's disability. These are listed on the request forms for accommodations at http://www.GEDtestingservice.com/testers/accommodations-for-disability#Accommodations4.


It should be helpful to test accommodations by applying them to a short test, e.g., the survey TABE, just to get an idea about whether or not the accommodations are effective and appropriate for that individual.  Those test scores are part of a screening process, and should not be reported on AERIS unless the student has current documentation of a disability.  You should document the process of choosing accommodations with the student, for your own accountability and your students self-advocacy. If you have test scores available with and without accommodations, you should include that documentation with your student’s request for accommodations on the GED® tests. There is a form for showing the test comparisons here in the policy manual .


When are accommodations provided for students with documented disabilities in adult education and literacy centers?

In general, accommodations should be applied during all testing and instructional settings, including any intake tests.

 

LD Referral Process for Diagnosis & Documentation

Where can Arkansas adult education and literacy programs refer students for diagnosis of learning disabilities?

Referral directions are located here.   Please note that the arrangements for contracted psychologists and the agreement with Arkansas Rehabilitation Services are ONLY for students who are working towards a GED®  diploma.

 

Math Skills

What can students with learning disabilities do to help them work on math skills?

Sometimes it helps students both understand and remember math concepts and skills if you can find ways to make the abstract concepts/applications more real for the student.  Raiding your kitchen/workshop is good for lots of stuff to measure with or relate to basic math like fractions/decimals/percents, geometry, etc.  You can bring in sale flyers and figure cost of items with percentage or fraction discounts.  Or make recipes bigger/smaller.  Anything you can think of related to real life.


Here’s some websites that might be helpful in terms of making abstract concepts more real using videos or ideas for class activities you can do together (or the student can do at home):

 

 

There’s a good book for teaching algebra with manipulatives:  Hands-On Algebra, by Frances M. Thompson, available at amazon.com for $2.15 if you buy from an outside vendor.  It might be used, but still…the book usually costs $20, and it teaches you step-by-step how to teach every single aspect of algebra using manipulatives.  It’s pretty amazing.

There’s an animated math dictionary at http://www.harcourtschool.com/glossary/math2/index6.html that has moving graphics that might help students remember concepts.  Or you might watch some of the moving graphics and re-create those in real life by cutting out shapes or whatever and letting the student demonstrate it.

If the student is practicing math at home and forgets how to do something, s/he can go to www.webmath.com.  Just type in the problem and it shows you how to solve it.  Categories include math for everyone, general math, K-8 math, algebra, plots and geometry, and trigonometry and calculus.


 Memory

What can students with learning disabilities do to help them remember what they've learned from one class to the next?

There are many things a student can try to help them remember what they’re learning.  Of course, it depends on the individual student’s learning strengths, because they should use their strengths to remember.  Here are some ideas students might try:

 

 

 

Psychological or Psychiatric Disabilities

What documentation do students with emotional/mental health disorders need to provide to request accommodations on the GED® tests, and who can conduct the evaluations?

The form for requesting accommodations on the GED® for emotional/mental health disorders is available at http://www.GEDtestingservice.com/testers/accommodations-for-disability#Accommodations4  The certifying professional or advocate should complete Section 3 of the form, and there should be a letter from the doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist who diagnosed the student that clearly states the diagnosis, the date of diagnosis, and any additional supporting documentation not covered on the form.  The letter should include a list of suggested accommodations, and each suggested accommodation should include a brief rationale for the accommodation. A DSM-IV diagnosis must be included with the certifying professional's or advocate's signature attesting to the diagnosis of ADHD.


For a sample template letter that you can send to the certifying professional to make the process easier, click here: Sample letter for psychological or psychiatric accommodations.


The GED Examiner at the adult education center will have to complete the rest of the form and send it to the State GED Testing office - the sooner, the better, so the student knows what accommodations will be applied during instruction and testing.

 

Reading Skills

What can students with reading disabilities do to increase their reading speed?

In general, people should read more slowly when they find:

In general, people should increase reading speed when reading the following:

 

 

How can my student increase reading comprehension?


The “guided reading” principles work well to increase both reading comprehension and metacognitive skills.  Work one-on-one to read some passages aloud to or with him.  Talk first about what kinds of strategies he plans to use to help him comprehend the passage better.  Make sure he includes (1) reading the questions at the end of the passage FIRST, (2) identifying words in those questions that look like key words he should watch for while he’s reading, and (3) if he doesn’t recognize any words, take a few minutes to google the word and find out what it means.  Then ask him some “pre-reading” questions, and these should be so generic that you can ask them prior to reading just about anything.  Then read the passage to or with him, stopping every sentence or three to ask him to paraphrase what he’s reading.  It might help if he maps out the key concepts of the passage while he reads it , either on paper or using graphic organizing software like Inspiration®.  Then read the questions at the end and see how many he can answer.  Finish up by asking him what strategies he used to increase his reading comprehension, what worked, what didn’t, etc.

Sometimes a student can increase their reading comprehension on their own by using Inspiration® if the student uses it while reading.  I would ask the student to create a graphic organizer (picture) of the sentence, paragraph, and/or passage, using the instructional strategy of paraphrasing the information to better comprehend the meaning of the text.  Students who use this approach to reading challenging text are better able to both comprehend and retain the information.

The graphic organizers can be as simple or as complicated as needed for the level of the student. 
For more information as well as graphic examples, please go to www.inspiration.com.


Writing Skills

How can I teach writing skills to a student with learning disabilities who is a tactile-kinesthetic learner?

Here’s something I used to do with my own students that I call  “Experience Before Labels”:  The majority of students with learning disabilities are primarily tactile-kinesthetic learners, and  many will benefit from learning new concepts, facts, and methods with a concrete, tactile/kinesthetic introduction to the new information.  Below is one example of how to allow the students to experience the learning (concrete) before applying any labels (abstract).


To introduce sentence structure and parts of speech, give the student a list of words to copy on colored index cards.  The word list can vary depending on the student’s instructional level, but one example might be like this (although your student may need smaller words):

 

Pink

Green

Yellow

Blue

Orange

White

neighborhood

is

a

to

intelligent

!

workplace

are

an

below

hungry

,

school

going

the

above

demanding

.

supervisor

eats

A

across

beautiful

?

student

believes

An

over

helpful

;

dog

appears

The

behind

interesting

,

place

follows

 

of

challenging

.

opportunity

tries

 

under

silly

.

 

Some students will want to add their own words to the list, which is great, but may require some discussion about what kinds of words need to be with certain colors.  Try to discuss the words’ functions, not labels.  (Ex:  Ask the student, “What’s the difference between the pink cards and the green cards?  Can you see a ‘school’?  Can you see an ‘is’?  Can you ‘eat’?  Can you ‘neighborhood’?” etc. Avoid talking about the labels; e.g. nouns, verbs, etc.)  After the student has transferred each word to its color-coded index card, ask the students to arrange the cards into sentences.  One sentence might look like this:

Text Box: The

Text Box: hungry

Text Box: dog

Text Box: follows

Text Box: an

Text Box: intelligent

Text Box: student

Text Box: to

Text Box: a

Text Box: place

Text Box: of

Text Box: opportunity

Text Box: .

 

The student should continue to make sentences until they have at least one paragraph.  (This is more fun if you do it together.)  At some point – and this point varies with each student – he or she will begin to see sentence patterns by color.  (Ex:  “Every sentence has a pink card and a green card,” or “There’s always a pink card after a blue one, but sometimes there’s a yellow one before the pink one.”)  Eventually, you can add more parts of speech with different colors, but only when the student expresses a need for more complicated sentences.  There are some students who should begin this activity using only nouns, verbs, and articles. 


After the student can see and explain the patterns in the sentences they write, you can introduce the labels.  This is where you bridge from concrete to abstract.  Have the students label each card with its part of speech, and know that some words will fall in more than one category.  Let the student decide how to handle those words:  separate cards or make one card be half one color and half another.


Students with learning disabilities think more in terms of images (concrete) than words (abstract).  By learning sentence structure and parts of speech with the creation of color-coded images, students can refer to image patterns for increased instructional retention and retrieval.


How can students with learning disabilities improve their writing skills?

Adults with learning disabilities sometimes have difficulty with writing assignments for a variety of reasons, including problems expressing their thoughts in writing, coordination and fine motor skills, spelling, mechanics, and visual perception.  There are a number of instructional strategies that may help – here are a few that may be helpful for some students:

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Workplace

Should students with learning disabilities disclose their disability to their potential employer?

The answer usually depends on (1) the potential employee, and (2) the potential employer, so this decision should always be made on an individual basis. There are some places that I would advise the person to disclose upfront just because I know the employer is familiar with LD issues and the fact that there are strengths, not just weaknesses. Or, if the person has terrific self-advocacy skills, they can usually sell themselves on their strengths with a "sandwich approach" to advocacy: "I'm really great at following directions (strength), although it's sometimes more difficult if the directions are only given orally (weakness). But if I get those directions in writing (accommodation), I will follow your directions exactly every time (strength)." So they kind of sandwich the weakness between strengths....works best if they can link the strength to an explanation of how this helps them meet the employer's goals. I've seen this work really well for people who are afraid the employers will be mad if they disclose after they're hired, and that does sometimes happen. So they get the job, but if they don't prove how good they are really fast, it can be a bad situation.


The most comprehensive website that address this and other workplace disability issues is the Job Accommodation Network at http://askjan.org/.


Other online resources include:

http://ldaamerica.org/aboutld/adults/index.asp#workplace

http://ldlink.coe.utk.edu/jobseekers_employers.htm

http://ldlink.coe.utk.edu/ld_work_issues.htm (This one is an online tutorial.)

 

Arkansas Adult Learning Resource Center | 124 W. Capitol Ave, Suite 1000 Little Rock, AR 72201
Phone (501) 907-2490 | Email info@aalrc.org