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Math Disabilities Hold Many Students Back. Schools Often Don’t Screen for Them

Preschool students practice math using manipulatives at a public school in Boston in 2016. Experts say all students, not only those with dyscalculia, could benefit from using manipulatives to help visualize problems and graph paper to assist in lining up numbers. By Jackie Mader Of The Hechinger Report, The Associated Press Posted October 17, 2023 8:57 am.

Laura Jackson became seriously concerned about her daughter and math when the girl was in third grade. While many of her classmates flew through multiplication tests, Jackson’s daughter relied on her fingers to count, had difficulty reading clocks and burst into tears when asked at home to practice math flashcards.

Math Disabilities Hold Many Students Back. Schools Often Don’t Screen for Them full article

UWinnipeg Accessibility advocate Wins National Award

JUNE 28, 2023

A graduate of The University of Winnipeg has received a national award for her efforts to make campus more accessible to users of wheelchairs and other mobility aids.

Sarah Anderson received the Change-Maker Award from (NHCC) on May 25. The award recognizes individuals who have improved the quality of life for Canadians living with brain conditions.

NHCC is a coalition of organizations that represent millions of Canadians living with brain diseases, disorders, and injuries that affect mobility, dexterity, memory, or the ability to think.

UWinnipeg Accessibility advocate Wins National Award full article

Academics With Disabilities Compare Notes on Campus Accommodations

Conference addresses ‘difficult conversations’ about barriers to learning CBC News, Posted: Jun 24, 2023

A group of academics who took part in an event at King’s University College on Friday said there’s still more work to be done when it comes to accommodating the unique needs of students with disabilities.

The National Educational Association of Disabled Students (NEADS) and Western University’s Society of Graduate Students held a mini-conference with a focus on increasing accessibility and accommodations for disabled students in post-secondary education.

The meeting included two separate panels: one of professors, and another of students.

Academics With Disabilities Compare Notes on Campus Accommodations full article

Individuals With Disabilities Still Carry Burden of Accessibility at Universities, Panelists Say

MAY 24, 2023

When Alicia-Ann Pauld was earning her bachelor’s degree in sociology and sexuality studies in Montreal a few years ago, one of her classes was changed to a location that was inaccessible for her.

Pauld, who has a physical disability, notified the university’s access centre.

“They told me to talk to my professor.- My professor told me to reach out to the access centre. So it was just this – back and forth that seemed to never end. My professor was not reading the emails in their entirety, which meant I had to resend.-

“The burden of accessibility shouldn’t be on the student.”

Individuals With Disabilities Still Carry Burden of Accessibility at Universities, Panelists Say full article

Ableism in the Academy

Disabled scholars say they often rely on ad hoc agreements to get the accommodations they need to do their jobs. The lack of formal recognition has left many feeling unprotected and unwelcome in the academic workplace. BY JOHN LOEPPKY
APR 26 2023

Véro Leduc didn’t intend to become the first Deaf full-time professor at a Quebec university. “I didn’t really want to become a university teacher. It was not necessarily my dream career,” she says. “I feel, you know, like someone who [got] pregnant and didn’t think about it beforehand.”

Ableism in the Academy full article

Supreme Court Unanimously Rules for Deaf Student in Education Case

Politics Mar 21, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday for a deaf student who sued his public school system for providing an inadequate education. The case is significant for other disabled students who allege they were failed by school officials.

The case the justices ruled in involves Miguel Luna Perez, who attended public school in Sturgis, Michigan. Perez’s lawyers told the court that for 12 years the school system neglected the boy and lied to his parents about the progress he was making, permanently stunting his ability to communicate.

Supreme Court Unanimously Rules for Deaf Student in Education Case full article

Canadian Universities Need To Be More Inclusive for Para Athletes, Says Paralympic Athletes’ Council Chair

Erica Gavel says U.S., U.K. schools do better job for Para athletes Mark Keast ,for CBC Sports
Posted: Mar 15, 2023

There’s a yawning chasm between committing to inclusion and acting on it.

That’s the assertion of Erica Gavel, a Paralympic athlete and the new chair of the Canadian Paralympic Athletes’ Council. In particular, she’s concerned that true inclusion for Para athletes isn’t happening at the university level in Canada.

“I feel as Canadians we really pride ourselves on being inclusive,” said Gavel, who competed first as an able-bodied basketball player at the University of Saskatchewan, and after seriously damaging her knee, as a Paralympian. “But in order for a Para athlete to actually participate in a university Para sport athletic program they either need to go to the United States or they need to move overseas to the U.K.”

Canadian Universities Need To Be More Inclusive for Para Athletes, Says Paralympic Athletes’ Council Chair full article

Disabilities and Edtech: How the Pandemic Sparked a Revolution

Students provided digital textbooks can use Kurzweil 3000, a disability solutions software, to download files and convert them to .mp3 audio files. Google and Microsoft provide similar services. By Alcino Donadel
March 2, 2023

When students and faculty were forced to migrate online during the pandemic, that included disabled students with learning impairments. Since then, students and faculty-and therefore, curricula-have changed the way they look at learning in higher education.

“I think the pandemic accelerated the trend that was there, and the trend that’s there is more and more training going online,” said Tim Springer from Level Access, an accessibility compliance service. “Even on-campus student experiences now are a mix of virtual learning and in-classroom experience.”

Disabilities and Edtech: How the Pandemic Sparked a Revolution full article

Unified Sports, Unified Schools: Program Builds Bonds that Break Down Barriers

Shawne Wickham, The New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester
Sat, February 4, 2023

The atmosphere is buzzing inside the Milford High School gym, where a basketball game is underway, the score seesawing as the clock ticks down.

Milford is up by two with seconds to go. Then a player on the visiting Souhegan team scores, and the place erupts in cheers.

This is unified basketball, a co-educational sport in which students with and without intellectual disabilities play together.

Players, coaches and parents say it has changed their schools, and their lives.

“In its purest form, it’s the best of sport,” says Jeffrey Collins, executive director of the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association.

Unified Sports, Unified Schools: Program Builds Bonds that Break Down Barriers full article

Universities ‘Illegally Hitting Disabled Students with Extra Housing Costs’

Exclusive: Students told openDemocracy of receiving unfair charges for adapted rooms or for carers’ accommodation Francesca Hughes
Originally posted 9 November 2022

Students with disabilities say they are being illegally charged extra for necessary adaptations to their accommodation or allocated unsuitable rooms miles from campuses, openDemocracy can reveal.

Students told of the “stress and exhaustion” they have suffered as a result of universities’ failures to provide accommodation that is suitable for their needs at no extra cost.

openDemocracy spoke to a deaf student who says she was asked to pay for a specialist fire alarm, a wheelchair user who claims they were offered unsuitable accommodation more than two miles from campus, and a student who was initially charged extra for a room for an essential personal assistant.

Universities ‘Illegally Hitting Disabled Students with Extra Housing Costs’ full article