Empowering Students with Hidden Disabilities

Margo Vreeburg Izzo,LeDerick R Horne

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781681251141
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Difficultés d'apprentissage

How can you empower students with invisible disabilities to manage their challenges, accept and advocate for themselves, and reach their goals and dreams? This guidebook has inspiring and informative answers. Told with the authentic voices of adults with hidden disabilities, this encouraging, eye-opening book will help you guide students on the Path to Disability Pride and support their success in the classroom and community. Personal stories blend with powerful strategies as the authors share reflections on their experience with disability—and offer up practical teaching tips and interventions based on the latest research. An essential resource for educators, families, and self-advocates, this book will help students with non-visible disabilities dare to dream big and unlock their full potential.

DISCOVER HOW TO

• promote disability pride within students, schools, and communities
• teach critical life skills, including social-emotional, executive function, reading, and coping skills
• reduce the stigma of hidden disabilities
• develop mentoring programs that connect students with advice and encouragement
• assist college students as they navigate the challenges of campus life and classes
• prepare young adults to launch fulfilling careers and responsible, self-determined adult lives
• help students develop authentic and meaningful relationships with others
• support students with a range of hidden disabilities, including ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, and emotional and behavioral disturbance

PRACTICAL MATERIALS: A helpful "Path to Disability Pride" framework that readers can use to track their own path to pride or help advocate for someone else's; ready-to-use Teaching Tips for the classroom; candid stories from and interviews with people who have hidden disabilities.

1

Why Do So Many People with Hidden Disabilities Struggle?

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

—Albert Einstein

People with hidden disabilities live in the community and go to school and work in every venue imaginable. Some are identified as having a disability when they are young children by parents and pediatricians. Others are identified by teachers and psychologists in schools. Others discover in adulthood that there is a label that describes many of the characteristics they feel. Some adults are never identified and land on their feet with a satisfying career and family life that provides the right balance of challenge and support.

Many students and adults with disabilities, however, do not get the right supports in school or find the right job, the right partner, or the right friends who accept them in total, especially during the awkward moments when their hidden disabilities are exposed. They may turn to drugs or alcohol during these awkward times to numb the inner voice that keeps shouting, “You are stupid!” or “You do not fit in!” They do not have a sense of belonging, but they still need to connect to a group who accepts them for who they are. It can be difficult for others to accept them when they have not accepted themselves.

The goal of this book is to help teachers, parents, counselors, therapists, administrators, and self-advocates realize that there is hidden potential behind every struggling student with a hidden disability. Parents and professionals are crucial supporters who help students with hidden disabilities gain an accurate and strength-based acceptance of who they are and how their disability affects their learning and their relationships. Helping all students—those who are struggling as well as those who are proficient—realize their potential and dare to dream is the most important mission of schools.

This book also is written for students and adults with hidden disabilities who have made (or want to make) peace with their disabilities. Every day they can pass as people without disabilities because no one can see their disabilities. Some people will use the term hidden disabilities, whereas others will say invisible disabilities or use terms such as learning disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), intellectual disabilities, or autism. Whichever term is used, the most important mission of this book is to help people with hidden disabilities accept themselves—their strengths, passions, disabilities, and challenges—and pass along the wisdom they have gained to others who get caught in the struggle to realize their potential. The goal of this book is to broaden people’s understanding of disability by using an asset-based approach to assist people with hidden disabilities to identify their strengths, accept their challenges, and gain an identity full of disability pride.

HOW MANY STUDENTS HAVE DISABILITIES?

Students with hidden disabilities cut across a number of disability categories. Although the majority of students with hidden disabilities are labeled with some form of a learning disability, speech-language disorder, or ADHD, students with hidden disabilities can also include those with mild visual impairments, behavior disorders, or autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). All people with hidden disabilities share the perception of being normal by the outside world. They lack the visual indicators that shout “disability”—the signs that easily conform to society’s perception of disability, such as using a wheelchair, walking with an impaired gait, or speaking with an obvious impediment. Having a hidden disability gives students the option to either hide or disclose. They have the choice to deny this aspect of who they are or incorporate disability into their identity.

The true number of people with hidden disabilities will never be known. It is impossible to count because there is not an agency or a census that can systematically assess each citizen to determine the true number of children and adults with hidden disabilities. Many people go through life struggling with certain tasks or daily activities but never receive a formal diagnosis. Schools have a mandate to identify, serve, and report the number of children with disabilities who receive special education services, so data collected by the U.S. Department of Education is a good place to estimate the number of students with hidden disabilities.

More than 5.8 million students with disabilities ages 6–21 received special education services in 2014, representing about 8.4% of the general population (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004 (PL 108-446) regulations define each category of disability. The definitions of categories of students with disabilities, as well as the approximate percent and number of students ages 6–21 served under IDEA by disability category in 2014, are provided in Table 1.1.

Specific learning disabilities is the largest disability category and represents about 40.1% of the more than 5.8 million students identified as having a disability, followed by speech-language impairments (18.2%), other health impairments (13%), autism (7.6%), intellectual disabilities (7.3%), and emotional disturbance (6.2%). Students who receive special education services and have ADHD as their primary disability are included in the other health impairments category (U.S. Department of Education, 2014).

More than 75% of the disability categories defined in Table 1.1 state that the impairment must adversely affect a child’s educational performance to qualify for special education services (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Students may have any of the disabilities listed in Table 1.1, but if the disability characteristics do not adversely affect the students’ educational performance, then they do not receive special education services and are not counted as students with disabilities. Therefore, the number of students who may have hidden disabilities is most likely larger than what is reported.

HOW MANY STUDENTS HAVE HIDDEN DISABILITIES?

It is difficult to determine how many students with disabilities served by special education have hidden disabilities. Students with learning disabilities, speech-language impairments, and ADHD are the obvious categories. Many students with autism or vision or hearing impairments can perform in a class without being identified as having a disability. Students’ disabilities may be unknown to those around them unless they choose to disclose. If students with specific learning disabilities, speech-language impairments, emotional disturbance, other health impairments, and autism are included, then approximately 55%–85% of the 5.8 million students in special education have hidden disabilities, ranging from 3.2 to 4.9 million students (see Table 1.1).

The incidence of other health impairments and autism has increased by 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively, from 2003 to 2012. Although still considered a small percent of the population, students with other health impairments, including students with ADHD, are increasing, whereas rates of specific learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, intellectual disability, and speech-language impairments are a decreasing percent of the disability population (U.S. Department of Education, 2014).

WHERE ARE STUDENTS WITH HIDDEN DISABILITIES EDUCATED?

The majority of students with hidden disabilities ages 6–21 are educated in general education classrooms due to a trend toward more inclusive classrooms and access to the general curriculum (Sailor, 2014). Fewer than 20% of students with disabilities are educated in a separate classroom with a special education teacher for the majority of their school day (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Students with learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, and hearing and visual impairments are increasingly educated in the general education classroom versus special education classrooms (Crawford, 2012; U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Cosier, Causton-Theoharis, and Theoharis (2013) reported that reading and math achievement for students with disabilities is strongly and positively correlated to time spent engaged in the general education curriculum. Kalambouka, Farrell, and Dyson (2007) reported that including students with disabilities resulted in either positive or neutral effects for classmates without disabilities.

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Text Box 1.1—For More Information on Inclusion

Dan Habib advocates for inclusion in the TEDx talk: Disabling Segregation. Habib makes a powerful case for ending the systematic segregation of students with disabilities. See the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izkN5vLbnw8.

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WHY ARE SOME STUDENTS WITH HIDDEN DISABILITIES NOT IDENTIFIED?

There are many reasons why students with hidden disabilities are not identified or fall through the cracks—the eff...