Two stories from the West Coast in the news this week demonstrate how including people with disabilities in regular classroom settings help prepare them to live their lives more independently and, just as importantly, help others accept these people into the mainstream.
The University of California, Los Angeles, is the latest institution of higher education to offer a transitional program that gives people with disabilities the experience of what it’s like to go to college. In her article for the university’s newspaper, the Daily Bruin, reporter Kassy Cho talks to several of the participants in the program as it nears completion of its first full year.
Cho begins her story with a group of students gathered in an off-campus apartment to work on a writing assignment. It’s a scene typical to any college setting, right down to the occasional outbursts of socializing to relief the pressure of studying. Students in UCLA’s program take both courses that are both academic and adaptive in nature. They can audit courses on astronomy while also participating in programs that emphasize skills like time management and negotiating social situations. There is also an internship component to the program that gives these students experience in the workplace.
Like many other college students, it’s the first time these young people have lived apart from their parents. Many of them tell Cho that learning to live on their own has been the most valuable component of the program. One such student is Casey Versfelt, who relates a touching story about wanting to go to college ever since she has tried on her older brother’s graduation gown. Casey’s mother, Shail, has seen a marked improvement in her daughter’s ability to handle everyday activities since being part of the program, says Cho:
… [T]he program has helped her daughter learn skills such as cleaning, shopping for groceries, budgeting expenses — typical skills picked up by college students.
Of course, the earlier a program of inclusiveness is put in place, the more effective it will be. In the southern Oregon town of Gold Hill, 14-year-old Ariel Rogers has been sitting alongside her peers in classrooms since kindergarten. Her story is the individual example of success in Teresa Ristow’s Mail Tribune article about Hanby Middle School’s recent Inclusion Excellence Award from the Down Syndrome Association of Southern Oregon (DSASO).
Ariel is part of mainstream classes during 80% of the school day, according to her mother, Joyce, who works as a reading specialist for the DSASO. She gives Ristow a running account of her daughter’s present and future:
Teachers give Ariel modified course work for some assignments, but she participates in classroom lectures and completes work for the same subjects as other students. Once in high school, Ariel likely will pursue a modified diploma, which would recognize her adjusted coursework when she graduates.
Bob Pennell’s accompanying photo of Ariel embracing her friend, Theresa, is all the evidence one needs to demonstrate how inclusivity programs like the ones at Hanby Middle School and UCLA can make life matter for people with disabilities.
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Image by Andrew Czap, used under its Creative Commons license.