Andrew M. Beverly, California State University & Erika Heffernan, Rochester Institute of Technology
This session provided an opportunity for participants to engage, explore, and better understand learning disabilities and how they can affect college students. Both presenters opened up to the group at the beginning of the session, informing participants that they had been diagnosed with learning disabilities for several years. Although they recognized that they had experienced the difficulties of dealing with this invisible disability during college, the two presenters reminded the audience that they were not experts. The session was meant to begin the conversation and dialogue on this topic. Erika Heffernan started by introducing herself as having a BA in photography, ceramics and film. Hefernan indicated that in her struggles with both reading and writing growing up, she learned how to “get around the system” as much as possible. Andrew Beverly informed the group that he was working on an MA in Student Affairs Administration. Beverly was diagnosed at a young age, but despite the support that Hefernan sought out during her post secondary education, did not get tested in college due to the high costs associated with the tests. Beverly decided that he “wasn’t going to have a learning disability” any more. As the two presenters suggested later however, this is not something that you can fix, it’s with you for life. For the purposes of the presentation, Beverly asked the group what they knew about learning disabilities. LD Online defines a learning disability as “… a neurological disorder. In simple terms, a learning disability results from a difference in the way a person's brain is ‘wired’…they may have difficulty reading, writing, spelling, reasoning, recalling and/or organizing information if left to figure things out by themselves or if taught in conventional ways. A learning disability can't be cured or fixed; it is a lifelong issue” (LD Online, 2012). Beverly continued by providing the group with an example from his childhood where he was presented with a new word to the learn – white. In order to understand and read this word, Beverly was taught techniques to identify words like this at first glance. “You learn to recognize what you don’t recognize” (Beverly, 2012). Heffernan agreed with this point, and shared that she had similar troubles with last names, and often could not pronounce last names. On the other hand, Heffernan indicated that because other strengths were required to overcompensate, she was actually ranked in the 99th percentile when it came to visual and spatial related tasks.
At this point, Heffernan began to share with the group her art and thesis work that she had done, titled “Re Learning to Learn.” Heffernan had set up the room with her artwork, and began to flip through slides as well of some of her works. The first was titled “Observations”, and was her first attempt to talk about her disability. Heffernan mentioned that she enjoyed art and pieces like this, as she felt that “it didn’t have a right or wrong answer” as part of it’s interpretation and meaning. This led Heffernan to display other works such as “Last Aisle Second Shelf” (2004) and “End of Aisle 3” (2004). The next exhibit was called “For Puzzles”, which began to portray how a learning disability would look like to someone without one. It consisted of pairings of symbols and their associated terms, but would have a misspelled version for each one. In the piece “To Exsamples” these words were “example” and “exsample” (Heffernan revealed this was how she frequently spelled the word). The next exhibit featured a similar notion, where a computer was located and allowed users to type a message into the computer. However, the computer and art involved a program that would take common words and phrases and output a message that was not what the user had intended to communicate. At this point Beverly chimed in to agree that this was a common experience for him growing up with a learning disability. He further gave the analogy of the professor handing back his paper in red ink, after he was certain that it was completed flawlessly. “It looked right, but it wasn’t. You don’t see the letters the same way that other do” (Beverly, 2012).
In order to further communicate and express herself, Heffernan shared with the audience her piece entitled “Match” – a game with two sides, and a piece that was positioned in the middle. The middle piece, she explained, represented her. “I didn’t feel like I had any moves – it’s like your always in this middle position and I didn’t know where to go next” (Heffernan, 2012). Moving on in the presentation, Heffernan further shared videos that she had created such as “Metacognition”, a piece representing the overflow of information which can happen for people with learning disabilities. The ceramic work involved in the creation of the video was later reproduced into a later piece called “please take”.
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| "Match" - Erika Heffernan |
The final video clip that was shown was called “Learning How to Build”. The video showed four screens of different participants attempting to accomplish a list of tasks aimed at producing a single block building. Heffernan indicated that in noticing that a few people struggled with the task, the majority of the group actually did not produce the correct outcome. Heffernan suggested that this was important, and emphasized the need for educators and supervisors to continually check in with everyone, as we all get lost at some point along the way.
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| 28 Attempts at "Learning How to Build" - Erika Heffernan The session concluded with a few tips on what you can do to support college students with learning disabilities. At the top of the list was ensuring that you are educating both your staff members and yourself. By doing this, you are better able to support students with understanding their own disability. “Now I’m more open about it – but you have to get to that point first” (Beverly, 2012). Heffernan and Beverly discussed the importance of connecting students with others experiencing similar difficulties, and to continue to educate yourself and others on the resources available for these students. You can check out Erika Heffernan's videos and artwork at http://www.erikaheffernan.com! *Above photos taken by Phil Legate, permission received from Erika Heffernan March 26, 2012 at the ACPA Convention in Louisville, Kentucky |
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