WP3: Invisible “Illness”
When it comes to what has impacted me the most in my intellectual journey, the answer has to be my learning disability. When people think of a learning disabled student, they most likely think of someone who is on the autism spectrum or is physically disabled. Basically, someone who “looks” disabled. However, not all learning disabled students fit this mold of “looking” disabled, and that’s where I fall. I have a learning disability called Dysgraphia. The simplest way to describe it is Dyslexia but for writing instead of reading. It can come in many different forms and have different treatments depending on those forms which include anything from handwriting practice to having to forego writing all together and type for all written work. However, because there are different forms and people don’t fully understand the symptoms, this leads to many people assuming that Dysgraphia students make up their diagnosis. These sorts of ideas have plagued me for the majority of my life from when I was diagnosed to even now and have impacted my life in ways that it will never be the same.
After 5th grade, I was diagnosed with a “Specific Learning Disorder with Impairment in Written Expression” (DSM-5 315.2) rooted in Dysgraphia. This specific learning disability is protected under Section 504, which “is a federal law designed to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities in programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education (ED)” (“Protecting”). Throughout 6th-8th grade (and now), this covers my accommodations of: use of a computer for all schoolwork and extended time for math/science tests/classwork because formatting math equations on a computer is more time-consuming than handwriting. These accommodations have been adequate for allowing me to reach my full potential in terms of showing off what I know in classes. However, from 9th-11th grade, these were not the accommodations that I was allowed because of my high school’s harsh stance on Section 504.
While many agree that accommodation plans should be “what that child needs in order to have an equal opportunity to compete when compared to the non-disabled”, which implies accommodations allow a student to achieve their full potential, my high school decided this was not the case (Durheim). In section 504, there is a part referring to “free appropriate public education” (FAPE) that states “FAPE consists of the provision of regular or special education and related aids and services designed to meet the student’s individual educational needs as adequately as the needs of nondisabled students are met” (“Protecting”). While on an initial read this seems to state the same thing as the interpretation before, my high school interpreted it as them only having to bring students up to the average even if they are gifted students who are smarter than average. This discrepancy between “average” and “potential” is never cleared up in the law, and while most humane people will take the “potential” interpretation, there are still places that do not. Because of this interpretation, I was only granted the use of a computer for all schoolwork, however not granted the extended time needed to account for how time-consuming math on a computer is — which led to three agonizing years of fighting over inadequate accomodations eventually culminating in me deciding to drop out and get my GED from the state so I could pursue higher education without having to suffer anymore.
For some reason, people have this idea that, if you have a learning disability, you cant’ be smart. However, “current US research suggests that 14% of children who are identified as being intellectually gifted may also have a learning disability” which is more than the “4% of children in the general population” (Wormald). So, when a student like me, who was advanced in their classes, enters a school district, the district was resistant towards accepting and providing my accommodations. For me, I took Algebra II Honors and Chemistry Honors in 9th grade instead of the normal Geometry Honors and Biology Honors since I had taken those classes at my 8th grade school. This led to many comments in Section 504 meetings and in hearings later on in that 9th grade year that were along the lines of “she doesn’t have a learning disability, she’s just stressed”. While using my inadequate accommodations, I ran out of time on all of my math exams and some of my science exams. This was not because of stress like the district kept pushing, but instead because math on a computer is laborious and takes longer than “normal” students’ handwriting. I failed so many tests and kept running out of time that in order to get a good enough grade, I had to forego my accommodation and write my math and science tests for the rest of the year.
While this does not seem like a big deal, for me it was. My specific disability affects me in a way that while writing and for hours afterwards, I can’t think straight. Which, unfortunately, led to worse grades in my other subjects (most notably Spanish since it was right after Chemistry). So, it became a mental health nightmare cycle of: have a math/chemistry test; barely think straight for the rest of the day negatively impacting my other classes; and receiving a bad grade on the math/science test due to not being able to think straight. All I needed was 1.5x extra time, nothing more. But, every plea I made was met with ignorance and hostility, eventually culminating in an independent hearing spanning 4 days where my dad and I campaigned to get this 1.5x extended time accommodation while the district tried to prove that I didn’t even have a learning disability.
Luckily, my family ended up winning this case. While my 10th grade year had me start out with the inadequate accommodations, once the decision from the hearing came in and stated I should get extended time, I was able to have the accommodations I needed to reach my full potential. However, the year after would bring back the same challenges as 9th grade since I began Calculus. In Calculus, integrals are over 50% of the course material. And, unfortunately, on Microsoft Word (which is what I was using), integrals are even more difficult to deal with than the formatting in algebra or even the equation parts of geometry. So, my family and I were back to pleading for more extended time from the district and the district still refusing to give it.
My grades began tanking, not only in Calculus, but in other subjects due to the mental toll of being back to pleading for accommodations from the district and calculus homework taking too much time ultimately causing me to fall behind in my other classes. I stumbled across USC’s Resident Honors Program that accepted high school juniors with enough potential and figured it could be an escape from the suffering I was enduring. However, my grades from freshman year and the first couple marking periods of 11th grade year tanked my GPA and I wasn’t accepted. This eventually gave me the idea of going to a local college for a year and then transferring to a better university. So, that’s what I did. I went to a small local Jesuit college, Le Moyne College, for a year.
When I initially arrived at Le Moyne’s disability center, they asked me “what accommodations do you need?” and I answered with a computer for all schoolwork and 2x extended time for math and science. They immediately responded “sounds good, anything else?”. There was no questioning, there was no doubting, there was only acceptance. They treated accommodations humanely, as things to help students succeed and reach their full potential rather than things to restrict or bring students up to the average and nothing more. This same outlook on accommodations carried over when I transferred to USC, my dream college. And I was only able to transfer because of the humane accommodations allowing me to thrive for a year and repair the harm done to my GPA.
If I hadn’t escaped high school after 11th grade, I definitely wouldn’t be at a school as good as USC and also probably wouldn’t be alive right now. And given how many gifted students also have learning disabilities, I know I’m not the only one who was in a bad situation like this. I share this story, not to state what happened, but to inspire disabled students currently living through this to find a way out. There are other possibilities, you don’t have to finish high school. There are activist groups that can help advocate for your rights as a learning disabled student. Because of my experience getting my GED and suffering through high school, I want to help students learn about these opportunities and take them. To those who aren’t learning disabled, if you know someone who is going through a similar experience, help them. Empower them to leave their oppressive environments and seek alternate methods to achieve their goals.
These “invisible” learning disabilities are hard to deal with and diagnose, and because of this, children suffer for years without knowing what’s wrong with them. My dad, for example, also has dysgraphia. However, he didn’t even know it existed until I was diagnosed after 5th grade, which is well past when the accommodations would actually be useful for him. Even with students, “children with dysgraphia struggle to write, often causing them to experience emotional stress and anxiety. Because they have good verbal skills, parents and teachers expect them to write at the same level as they speak; when they don’t, they may be mistakenly thought of as lacking motivation or careless” (“Dysgraphia”). Rather than labeling kids as “lacking motivation or careless”, we should be encouraging them to get testing done to diagnose their learning disabilities and get them the accommodations they need. Spending your developmental years with an undiagnosed, invisible learning disability can lead to feelings of being “stupid” for not being able to easily pick up on basic skills, and we as a society need to stop the stigma around these disabilities and move away from labeling kids as “dumb” or “careless”. And we certainly need to stop questioning their experiences and doubting their disabilities. Students shouldn’t have to “look” disabled for their disabilities to be recognized.
The public school system as a whole currently is not suitable for learning disabled students. Most of the time, learning disabled students aren’t treated as well as neurotypical students and can even be ostracized and discriminated against. As well as all the denying appropriate accommodations, something else I had to deal with as a learning disabled student is taking tests in a room completely separate from the teacher and other students. While this doesn’t seem like a huge deal, teachers wouldn’t be completely available for questions from this isolated part of the school. They also had draconian policies like giving students one page at a time of an exam and not allowing them to go back to correct anything later on if they had extended time. These differences can negatively affect a learning disabled students’ chances of performing to their full potential. I know that I like to skip around on questions, so this practice negatively affected me until I was able to appeal to get it removed from the requirements for me.
Another thing that isn’t suitable for learning disabled students like me are teachers who pressure learning disabled students into foregoing their accommodations or acting more like normal students for an “exception”. These “exceptions” turn into more and more “exceptions” until the student is just peer-pressured into foregoing their accommodation entirely even when they don’t have to. This happened to me in my Chemistry class where my teacher asked if I could do the “Do-Nows” on paper given that they are short and need to be handed in at the beginning of class. I eventually agreed to do this, however it then snowballed into me writing everything in her class from the labs to the homework. She then used this against me in the hearing as a “gotcha” for me having the ability to handwrite (even if she knows that it took a lot out of me). Teachers like these need to stop because what goes on in our heads mentally when this sort of stuff happens is detrimental. I’m 100% sure that if I “looked” disabled, I would not have been asked to forego my accommodations like this.
Lastly, a piece of advice for all the learning disabled students who use a computer for math. Do not under any circumstances (except for the SAT) use Microsoft Word for math. It’s laborious and time consuming and will most likely crash your computer if you use it too much. On the last day of my 11th grade year, right as I was about to head out, we had another Section 504 meeting. In this meeting, my Calculus teacher who had watched me suffer for an entire school year, decided to let me know about an app called MathType that apparently all the teachers use and is faster than Microsoft Word. Why she didn’t tell me about this during the school year as I was running out of time on her tests while using the computer astounds me, but I still took the advice anyway. While at Le Moyne, I used MathType and can confirm that it is faster and easier to use than Microsoft Word. So, please save yourselves the trouble, and get MathType.
While I am in a better place right now in terms of my learning disability, the mental toll it had on me was irreversible and still affects me to this day. I learned to hate my disability and myself in general. This disability is something that I can’t change or cure, so I’m stuck with it for the rest of my life. And it’s sad that I went from accepting this part of me to loathing it with my entire being. The words said during that hearing and the Section 504 meetings have stuck with me. I don’t want any other learning disabled students going through this same pain, so if my experiences and advice can help even one person, that would be enough.
Works Cited
Addabbo, Elyse, and Pamela Palomeque. “In the Matter of a 504 Hearing Regarding REBECCA WHITE.” 2017.
Durheim, Mary. A Parent’s Guide to Section 504 in Public Schools. 2013, www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/section-504-2/.
“Dysgraphia: An Overview.” Smart Kids, 15 Oct. 2019, www.smartkidswithld.org/first-steps/what-are-learning-disabilities/dysgraphia-an-overview/.
“Protecting Students With Disabilities.” U.S. Department of Education, 10 Jan. 2020, www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/504faq.html.
Staake, Jill. “What Teachers Need to Know About Dysgraphia.” We Are Teachers, 30 Nov. 2018, www.weareteachers.com/dysgraphia/.
Wormald, Catherine. “Intellectually Gifted Students Often Have Learning Disabilities.” The Conversation, 2015, theconversation.com/intellectually-gifted-students-often-have-learning-disabilities-37276.
