Rio Hondo College Disabled Student Programs and Services (DSPS) offers assessments for students who believe they may have Learning Disabilities (LD).
This includes screening, assessing, and providing a certification of learning disabilities according to state guidelines.
Services provided to students with learning disabilities include:
- Developing individual plans
- Recommending appropriate academic adjustments to provide academic equity for students
- Teaching compensatory learning strategies
- Fostering awareness of students’ learning strengths and weaknesses
Assessment and Eligibility for Services
To receive a learning disabilities assessments, students will need to:
- be currently enrolled at Rio Hondo College
- apply for DSPS services (if not a current member of DSPS)
- request a learning disabilities assessment from DSPS
- complete the online learning disabilities questionnaire (a link will be emailed to the student)
- upload any disability paperwork into the student’s AIM portal
- meet the pre-requisites to receive an assessment (determined by the LD Specialist)
- attend all required learning disabilities assessment appointments
Student’s will not need a learning disabilities assessment if their current disability documentation already indicates the student has a learning disability.
The Assessment
If the LD Specialist determines the student meets the pre-requisites for assessment, the LD Specialist will schedule a series of appointments that will cover the following areas:
- Intake Screening: review of the questionnaire and student interview
- Measured Achievement: identifies areas of school and/or employment success
- Ability Level: determines potential for success at the community college level
- Processing Deficit: evaluates skill levels in acquiring, integrating, storing, retrieving, and/or expressing information
- Aptitude: identifies areas where the student’s achievement is significantly less than that of his peers with the same ability level.
Both Cognitive and Achievement assessments will be administered to determine the student’s eligibility for services.
What are Learning Disabilities?
It is important to know that many learning disabled individuals are never diagnosed. Indeed, the typical learning disabled student has Average Cognition and meets with a fair amount of academic success. However, the academic challenges and overall demands of college often accentuate this hidden disability. If you find that you are starting to fall behind, earn poor grades and/or hit a wall, be sure to stop by our office and request a learning disabilities assessment.
Definition
Learning disabilities are learning differences, which may interfere with the ability to understand, remember, and/or use information. The effects are quite individual, but it is generally accepted that these difficulties create a gap between a person’s true capacity and his or her day-to-day performance and productivity.
These learning differences may include difficulties with:
- Attention or concentration
- Memory
- Visual and/or auditory processing
- Spatial orientation
- Language
- Reasoning
- Sequencing
These problems with learning are not a result of factors such as educational disadvantage, emotional/psychological disturbance, physical disabilities or limited ability.
Students with learning disabilities experience frustrations with learning that make school difficult even though they have the aptitude to succeed.
Common Characteristics of College Students with a Learning Disability
Following is only a partial list of difficulties that college students with a learning disability often experience. These problems persist even though the student has had adequate academic instruction or remediation.
Reading
- Slow reading rate
- Poor comprehension and retention
- Difficulty identifying main ideas
- Poor mastery of phonics, de-coding difficulties
- Difficulty integrating new vocabulary
Written Language
- Difficulty with sentence structure
- Frequent spelling and/or grammar errors
- Inability to copy from book or blackboard
- Poor penmanship
Oral language Skills
- Inability to concentrate on and/or comprehend language
- Difficulty orally expressing ideas which he/she seems to understand
- Written expression is better than oral
- Cannot tell a story in proper sequence
Math Skills
- Incomplete mastery of basic math facts
- Reverses numbers, confuses symbols
- Copies problems incorrectly one line to another
- Difficulty recalling sequence of operational processes
- Inability to understand or retain abstract concepts
- Difficulty with word problems
Organization and Study Skills
- Short attention span/inability to listen to lectures
- Time management difficulties
- Slow to start and complete tasks
- Difficulty following oral and/or written directions
- Lack of overall organization in notes and essays