College Is Possible for Students With Intellectual Disabilities
New support programs and federal funds can help students with intellectual disabilities
"I can't stress how exciting it is to see so many doors open, to see so many opportunities for young people with intellectual disabilities to be as independent as possible, and to see so many of these young people become part of a college campus like everyone else," Lee says.
To help colleges and universities develop programs based on best practices, the University of Massachusetts Boston's Institute for Community Inclusion will use nearly $5 million from two federal grants to help create the first national center and the first research consortium for the postsecondary education of students with intellectual disabilities. Though the Higher Education Opportunity Act's grant money cannot be distributed until Congress appropriates its funds in March, ICI researcher Debra Hart says her organization's work is already underway.
"In just the last week, we found 54 new programs, and we expect to discover about two to three times that many more programs we have not heard of already," says Hart, a woman who others in this field have dubbed a guru of postsecondary education for students with intellectual disabilities. Hart began her research 10 years ago when she received a grant to determine how these students could participate in college. Since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act provides federal funding for intellectually disabled students to attend elementary, middle, and high school with ordinary students, why could there not also be a way to help these students experience college? Hart says she asked herself back then. "Everyone deserves to go to college," she says, "students with intellectual disabilities included."
One model program whose work Hart and others applaud is the Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Program at Massachusetts Bay Community College. As Program Coordinator Molly Boyle likes to say, students enrolled in her program hardly recognize that they are enrolled in anything more than community college classes. Program participants' education is completely inclusive, and the support they receive from the program is provided on an individualized basis, Boyle says. She added that most of the ICE program's students come to "MassBay" two to three days per week and take one to two classes per semester that they choose based on personal or vocational interests.
Because IDEA funds disabled students' education through age 21 or 22, depending on their state of residence, Boyle's main job is to coordinate the program's partnership with the public schools where prospective students are enrolled. Without programs like ICE, intellectually disabled students often continue attending high school, where they take life skills classes or are given jobs most frequently in the food service or landscaping industries until they age out of the federally funded program. Considering these outcomes, Boyle says the benefits of a student auditing even a single college class is huge. "These students have been closely monitored and supported their entire lives," Boyle says. "Programs like ICE help them gain independence, and for so many of our students, this is their first, well-deserved taste."
Reader Comments
IN THIER SHOES
To those of you who believe our intellectually disabled sons and daughters do not deserve what you take for granted, I challenge you to walk one day in their footsteps.
I am the mother of not one, but two daughters with intellectual disabilities. Not for one moment in my life did I expect even one child with a disability, nor do you. I am intelligent, educated, never smoked nor consumed drugs or alcohol during pregnancy. My first child was a son with an extremely high IQ and gifted in math, my second child was born normally but slowed developmentally during her first year. She is 26 years old and spends 3 days a week in a sheltered workshop and that is her life. She must rely on family support the rest of her life.
My 17 year old has an intellectual disability related to reading and auditory processing but is not related to IQ nor ability. She simply learns at a different pace and in a different way. What are your suggestions? Should she work at Walmart and live below the poverty level for the rest of her life? Should she accept the SSI she would be eligible and sit home and watch tv? Or should we give her the same opportunity you or your childrent have, the same rights afforded to evey American? I have worked my entire life and I believe I have contributed enough to this society to acquire the right to have some extra support for my daughter in a college program.
We must educate every member of our society to their fullest potential and all to often, high schools are not a measure of that potential. Only when we do so will we be the greatest country on earth.
College is possible for students with intellectual disabilities
Persons with disabilities (physical and intellectual) hopefully represent the "last frontier" for equality for all citizens. Why is it that we think these people need to be locked in institutions, and unable to contribute to society? Some of them have gifts that we will never know about because they are never given the chance. I would surely love to see my daughter attend some college classes (degreed or not) to help her get a better paying job. As someone said already,"Why should she have to wait on me at McDonald's"?
Why should we place her in a "community service provider" situation where she will not have the ability to decide if she wants to attend a "program" or not on a particular day? Why should she not have a job to make almost enough money to support herself with little governmental support? There are so many un-knowns in this world and we all think we know best. The world is meant to be explored and lived in and for people to care for themselves and each other. It is not here for us decide who gets to participate and who doesn't. Can you imagine if persons with itellctual disabilites ran the country? There certainly wouldn't be the financial mess we are in right now - they see with their hearts and love, as apposed to those who only see "What's in it for me?" and who care about the others....
College is possible for students with intellectual disabilities
Persons with disabilities (physical and intellectual) hopefully represent the "last frontier" for equality for all citizens. Why is it that we think these people need to be locked in institutions, and unable to contribute to society? Some of them have gifts that we will never know about because they are never given the chance. I would surely love to see my daughter attend some college classes (degreed or not) to help her get a better paying job. As someone said already,"Why should she have to wait on me at McDonald's"?
Why should we place her in a "community service provider" situation where she will not have the ability to decide if she wants to attend a "program" or not on a particular day? Why should she not have a job to make almost enough money to support herself with little governmental support? There are so many un-knowns in this world and we all think we know best. The world is meant to be explored and lived in and for people to care for themselves and each other. It is not here for us decide who gets to participate and who doesn't. Can you imagine if persons with itellctual disabilites ran the country? There certainly wouldn't be the financial mess we are in right now - they see with their hearts and love, as apposed to those who only see "What's in t for me?" and who care about the others....
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