See if THEY can pass YOUR Test!

See if THEY can pass YOUR Test!

Here is a test on disabilities and their affects on learning that you can administer to teachers and/or administrators individually or during meetings to help them comprehend how your child’s disabilities affect learning.  

This is for those nonbelievers, who think you are making excuses for your child. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Would they accuse a person known to have had stroke of not trying hard enough, being lazy, faking it, etc., if they had trouble remembering something as a result of having the stroke? I don’t think so. ADHD, Dyslexia, and many other learning problems ARE neurological (so is having a stroke). What about someone complaining of chest pains with a known heart condition (you can’t see their heart), would they call them a hypochondriac?    

Science continues to advance diagnosing neurological LD’s via brain imaging, one day, if not already in the present, you can show them an image of your child’s brain, and give them physical evidence of an impairment eventually, until that day you can simply give them a test.    

In addition to the below  test  here is a link which has several different disability simulations pertaining to disabilities and their affects on learning:

www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/intro.html  

See if they can pass YOUR Test:

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE RYAN

I often wondered what affects Ryan's Learning Disabilities & Abilities had on Ryan (while in school, out of school, both physically & mentally). It is often difficult for me to understand/comprehend those things in which I cannot see, feel, or hear. It is easy to see, understand, and have empathy for someone who has an impairment that is obvious, such as a person with only one eye, or one arm. It is much more difficult to understand an impairment that is located inside our brain (neurological impairment). Try to think about it this way, there are many things that we do not normally see, feel, or hear (without the aid of scientific and/or medical tools), that we know exist without question. Some things that exist without question are; the air we breath, viruses, high or low pitched sounds (beyond human hearing capabilities), and many more.

Neurological impairments, from my research, often appear to affect behavior, which in turn makes the child seem lazy, and sometimes defiant.

The impairment itself is not the cause for behavior, but the result of the impairments effects on the child performing what we would call "normal academic task". The child not knowing or understanding the reason for their difficulties in completing task in which their peers seemingly complete with little effort, along with the inability to communicate their problems, I believe is the cause of this type of behavior.

Over a period of time, in order to keep their sanity the child must develop certain coping strategies to deal with situations that would overwhelm an ordinary adult. Some of those strategies I have noticed in Ryan, after years of research include; "shutting down" (refusing to do any school work, but not really a behavior problem), "skipping class" (didn't do this until High School, only did it when teacher did not understand his disabilities, or the class work was either frustrating to him or was boring and beneath his capabilities). I think Ryan skipped classes (this may sound strange) not to get into trouble but to stay out of trouble, for not doing his work.

Here are some examples of this: Dyslexia affects people in many ways, some of those include; time management (could look like carelessness), sequential learning (may appear the child hasn't made the effort to study), organization (child keeps losing papers, and has a messy desk, it would seem apparent he just doesn't care).

After doing some online research along with consulting the Occupational Therapist, who conducted a portion of his most recent educational evaluation, this is the answer I have attained;

On average, people write (handprint) at about 31 words per minute for memorized text, and about 22 words per minute when copying text (Brown, 1988). It is interesting that the original Remington typewriter was sold with the promise that it would enable users to enter information 'twice as fast as they could write.'

www.keller.com/articles/readingspeed.html

There are 16 words and 82 characters in the test phrase, therefore an avg person should be able to complete writing the phrase well within the bounds of one minute (if they had no disabilities).

Therefore give the teacher, administrator, etc., ONE Minute to complete this TIMED Test! Each of the 16 words in the phrase is worth 6.25 points, take off 6.25 points for any mistakes and/or messy work/penmanship, the entire test is worth a total of 100 points.

Grade the Teacher's and or Administrator's test and make a copy for your records (you may want to bring some carbon paper for convenience).

Imagine this is you:
A teacher or your supervisor assigns you to write a phrase with your left hand (if you are left handed use your right hand) backwards on the paper (starting right to left). You will be timed, and graded on neatness, accuracy, and comprehension.

Now add ADHD to the equation:
Imagine that the person next to you is doing something very distracting. perhaps tapping their pencil, whistling, etc., while you are trying to write your phrase.

Now ad Punishment (or performance stress) to the equation:
After you have tried your best to do what was asked of you, you are still unable to satisfy your parents, teachers, boss, etc.. They all know how smart you are, but believe that you are lazy, and unmotivated. Now think about this happening over and over to you on a daily (several times per day, if not all day long) basis. Keep in mind, this also affects your ability to go places in the afternoon, recess, have friends over, getting your drivers license, pay increases, allowance, job security, job promotions, you get the idea.

Here is your phrase to write, write down the time before you begin and when you finish:

" Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years. "

How do you feel now? This was very enlightening for me personally. Do you feel like you passed the test?   Just for fun can you remember the phrase that you wrote, without looking back? If not look back and write down how many times the letter "F" occurs in the phrase. This is not a trick, the letters are not hidden. How many "F's" did you find? See below for the answer.
 

There are 6 "F's" in this phrase for some reason our mind doesn't always recognize the "F's" in the word "of", similar to how my son's mind processes information differently than others.