Good day and welcome to Best Practices in Accommodating Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders, Intellectual Disabilities and Other Emerging Groups within Postsecondary Education. At this time, all participants are a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require audio assistance during the conference please press star zero to reach an operator. I would like to turn the call over to Robin Jones.
Great. Thank you and good morning and good afternoon to everyone depending on where in the country you are connecting with us today. I am glad that you all have decided to join us for this session. This is the last session or the 12th session in our Audio Conference Series for 2008/2009. October will start our new series and I will talk about that towards the end of our hour today. Just as a reminder, the ADA Audio Conference Series is a program of the National Network of Regional Disability and Business Technical Assistance Centers, often referred to as DBTACs or also ADA Centers. So there are ten of us across the country. If you are not familiar with the ADA Centers, I would refer you to our national website which is www.adata.org This program is provided as a monthly basis, addressing a variety of issues and topics related to implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and related legislation. The program is being brought to you today using three different formats. Some of you are on telephone, some of you are listening to us through streaming audio on the internet and others are connected through realtime captioning. There is an audio recording being created of this program as well as a written transcript, both of those will be available on our ADA Audio website as an archive within 10 to 12 business days following the end of this session. And that archive of all of the sessions for the last seven years can be accessed on our website at www.ada-audio.org. I am happy to have this session as I think we are at the beginning of the school year for postsecondary education. Some schools are in session already, others will be getting in session in the next few weeks. It is a timely issue from the kind of questions and concerns that I know our office receives as well as my counterparts across the country. And it is an ever-growing area as we see more and more individuals with different types of disabilities accessing post secondary education due to or based on some of the increased opportunities they have had in the K through 12 system due to a variety of other types of legislation. So I am going to turn our program over and to our speaker and first I would like to introduce him. Scott Friedman has his masters in Adult and Higher Education from Northern Illinois University and he is currently seeking his doctoral-degree in Disability Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is an Adjunct Professor at Elmhurst College and also a Faculty Access Consultant at the University of Illinois at Chicago. So he has a variety of different experiences in both delivering services within postsecondary education to the population he is going to be talking about today. But also serving as a resource to other faculty who may have issues and concerns related to their own ability to accommodate this group of individual in their classroom studies. So I think that you will find that he has a unique perspective and experience around those issues and some insights. So at this time, I am going to go ahead and just turn over the microphone to Scott. And Scott, it is all yours.
Great, thank you, Robin. And I would like to just welcome everybody today. I will do my best to enunciate very well on the next slide and also mention the slide number. Just in case you are flipping along with the power point presentation that has been provided so we can all try to stay on the same page. If you do get lost at any point or need clarification or perhaps an example on one of the points, please feel free to interject during the presentation. It should take about 45 minutes to get through the meat of the presentation and then we will reserve about 30 minutes for questions and answers toward the end. All right? I am now flipping to Slide 2. Again I just want to give my welcome to everybody. Robin pretty much summed up my background. At Elmhurst College I do work in a specialized program called the Elmhurst Life Skills Academy. I will discuss a little bit of what we do. We are a very unique and innovative program. All of our students have some cognitive disability, most of them also have learning disabilities, physical, but primarily intellectual and developmental disabilities so all of the students that I teach do have disabilities. In my role here at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I spend a lot of time working directly with faculty and staff in training and awareness-raising about the ADA and other disability issues. I have also provided direct support services to some of our students here. Aside from my PHD, which keeps me busy on research, I am earning a second master''s degree here at UIC in Special Education just to get more of the background on the K 12 system, some of the issues of transition and assessment and how those play in. And as I just mentioned my research does focus on college students with disabilities as well as the services being provided and how those are afforded. All right, I am moving to Slide 3. This is just a brief overview of the presentation, each of the sections. We will start with the current status of college students with disabilities in the U.S., I will then very briefly give you an overview of three different models that offices use throughout the country. We will briefly discuss the law and how its interpretation is affecting these emerging student groups. Then we will get into the real meat of the presentation with the emerging groups. I will give you an overview for those of you who are less familiar with some of them, and then discuss the accommodations that might be applicable to students with these disabilities as well as best practices that can be used in the postsecondary environment. Next, I will briefly explain how universal design fits into this entire scheme and how we can utilize universal design to improve the outcome for these students. Lastly, I will just give you a little bit of the future, on what some of the research is showing and just in talking with other professionals throughout the country where we are going with some of these emerging groups. All right, Slide 4. Throughout the presentation, I may use these abbreviations, I may not, but just to get everyone on the same page. ASD is autism spectrum disorder, AT, assistive technology, IDD, intellectual and/or developmental disabilities, LD, learning disability, P-21, preschool through age 21 education, I am talking public education. Of course in some states it is up to age 22 now. So it varies a little bit based on state, but primarily the elementary, middle, high school for students. TBI is traumatic brain injury and UD for universal design. I also want to let you know that there are several terms that can be used to talk about our colleges and universities. In this presentation, postsecondary is the term used and I think that is the most appropriate for this presentation. I may also say "higher education" or college or university. In terms of this presentation I will just use those interchangeably to mean the same thing. I will also make an effort to differentiate between some of the accommodations and best practices for our undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in degree-seeking programs versus some of our students who are enrolled in nontraditional programs. All right, Slide 5. In terms of the status of college students with disabilities, I think if we take a broader look at the numbers, we look at the U.S. Census Bureau reporting right now as of December, so very recent data, that 19% of Americans are identifying as having a disability. If we look a little bit closer at our colleges and universities, in the 95 and 96 academic year, we got about 6% of students who are readily identifying as having a disability which is important because in higher education of course the law states that students with disabilities who would like to request services have to self-identify. It is definitely for those of you who are less familiar a big difference from our, from our P-21 system where the law mandates that special education teachers and interventionists seek out students with potential disabilities and then do the assessment. If we jump more recently to the 2003/2004 academic year, which is some of the most recently available data on students, we are looking at an increase to 11% of students with disabilities who are identifying. I will tell you I was at a national convention presenting in April and went to a few sessions and heard that data that is currently being processed says that about 17% of students on our college campuses are now identifying as having disabilities. So as you can tell from the mid-1990s up through now and the last 15 almost 20 years we got a huge increase in the number of students. So this trend is definitely very, very important for us to watch. Slide number 6. We do have some issues that I would like to point out real quickly. I mentioned the self-identification for services that is a big issue. Another area of concern that comes up is consistency in terms of the categories that we use, because a lot of these state higher education agencies do request data, but on the national level, we don''t have a consistent set of categories. So that causes a major concern in terms of what disabilities are we looking for and how do these numbers relate from state to state? Another big issue is not just an issue to the United States but to higher education throughout the world and that is a benchmark for readily available data and tools. We are not 100% sure how accurate some of these numbers are because we have potentially left out students with different types of disabilities that are some of the emerging students and at the same time we have issues of categorical definitions. So all those things do play into these numbers and future numbers that we will see. Just keep that in mind when you see data on the number of students that the categories do differ, and there are a lot of potential variations between different studies. The last point I want to bring up that is an issue with the current statistics. There are a lot of brand new programs for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, a lot more nontraditional programs. Because most of these students are not degree-seeking and many do not qualify for federal financial aid they don''t get counted the same way as our traditional undergraduate or graduate students. So it is a big speculation right now as to the number of students in some of these innovative programs. Alright, slide number 7. As a background, there are three models of disability that are prevalent throughout the United States but play very specifically into postsecondary disability services. One of my colleagues just did some research on this very recently and talked with disability service providers about the different models they use and the rationale behind is that the philosophy in each model definitely changes how students are served. The individualistic model, that is where we are focusing today and in this presentation. We are talking about those accommodations that equal the playing field. So really looking at the documentation a student brings and figuring out what works for them to make sure they have equal access. That is where the vast majority of post secondary disability service providers align. The next model is more of a universal approach and a lot of offices do this, a lot of universities do this as well. But it is more of working to make the physical and technological aspects readily accessible to all students. In effect it is a universally-designed approach that reduces some of the need for those individualized accommodations. For example, putting some of the assistive technology software, readily available on your university''s main frame computer or in computer labs throughout the campus so that the students don''t always have to come back to your disability services office to use that technology. The last model which is the least-used is the social model of disability which alliance very closely with the disability studies framework. And essentially it is work by everyone, everyone who can be an agent of change, to remove these social and cultural barriers that prevent people with disabilities from participating. The great thing about the social model is it has a lot of grass roots potential and the social model plays in very closely with the universal model so those two together really help to reduce the barriers that are out there on our campuses and bring about a new awareness so that our staff and faculty can more effectively serve students. The expect slide, Slide 8. Briefly on the intent versus the spirit of the law. I think we are all aware that the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as the Rehab Act and other disability-related legislation, we definitely have the practice versus intent discrepancy. And there are some sections that relate to our students at the college level that we need to take into account because we want to make sure we are serving them, we are meeting their needs and at the same time we are protecting our colleges and universities from complaints, federal lawsuits and not following the law. That is always a concern that disability service providers have, to make sure that we are effectively providing services and being reasonable. But we do have limited budgets and some of our service providers are definitely underprepared. We have a great deal of inaccessible university space throughout all of our universities, even in the newest buildings and it is very possible that the reasonable accommodation is not always the best accommodation for our college students. And those of us working in the field, we know that the limitations of budget and time definitely impact what we can provide to our students. On the other hand we do have a major issue where students do not understand what their rights and services are. Part of this comes from the P-21 environment where everything is handled for this student. A lot of times students and families don''t understand the IEP process. So in that, during the transition period to college, a lot of our students just don''t have that background on what their rights are. And I would definitely say a lot of service providers, it is obvious that there are students who will come into the office at the beginning of the year halfway through the semester and had no idea they qualified for services or what services are even available. One thing I would like to briefly discuss about the law is the fact that nondiscrimination is key. And when we are talking about the ADA, you know, nondiscrimination that is our number one priority we need to get to and it is a big issue when we are talking about such a broad range of potential students with disabilities on our campuses. I will tell you one thing, one that is used from time to time that the reasonable accommodations are done the vast majority of the time and students use those accommodations quite successfully, issues between faculty and students or institutionally are worked on with your disability service providers or ADA coordinator. Most of those things are worked out. There are, however, when we are talking about emerging student groups, something we need to take into account that in terms of nondiscrimination, when we have students who are emerging who might not fit the traditional student profile, we are talking potentially about students who need accommodations that fundamentally alter the nature of a program, of an academic program or activity. And of course we know that the reasonable accommodation side of things works wonderfully but when we are talking about going in and really changing a curriculum, that is where we get some sticky issues and I just want you to keep that in mind. The vast majority of the time reasonable accommodations are worked out perfectly in a collaborative process or this student comes back and says, you know, I need a modification. But for the most part, those work out. It has been the rare circumstances, and especially with some emerging student populations, where providing accommodations does fundamentally alter the program and that can be an issue at your institution. All right, Slide 9. The four student groups I am going to discuss today, autism spectrum disorder and Asperger''s syndrome, traumatic brain injury, intellectual and developmental disabilities and finally injured veterans. Next slide number 10. In terms of ASD and Asperger''s, imagine that you are looking at a continuum. On one side you have students who are classified as autistic, you are talking about impaired cognitive, verbal, social delays, often with significant limitations. ASD is being assessed at a very young age in children and early intervention take plays. Asperger''s syndrome, on the other hand, on the other end of the spectrum, often has some of the socializing issues and repetitive patterns and interests but there is rarely significant cognitive or verbal delay with Asperger''s. So in terms of our emerging groups I am going to focus on Asperger''s because a lot of the students with autism spectrum disorder may not have the cognitive capacity to do college-level work. Again, it is a continuum and the assessment varies from clinician to clinician. But most of the students that you find within this group in this spectrum disorder are more toward the Asperger''s side where it is definitely social functioning and repetitive interests versus the significant cognitive or verbal delays. Next slide, number 11. In terms of Asperger''s generally accommodations are not necessary because Asperger''s itself is really a social functioning disorder. However, you will find a lot of students with Asperger''s syndrome who have a learning disability on top of it. When these learning disabilities and Asperger''s syndrome are together, you will find some of the accommodations such as extended time for assignments or exams. Lots of assistive technology out there, excuse me, for learning disabilities. Alternative formats for textbooks, for course room materials, a lot of students with different learning disabilities may need to have the print text scanned in to an electronic format so that they can follow along or they may use text to speech readers. One area, breaks, a lot of students with chronic fatigue do need to take breaks during exams in order to conserve their energy to complete the exam. But when we are talking about Asperger''s syndrome we can have instances in which some of the symptoms exacerbate and sensory breaks are often potential accommodations that these students could use. By pairing that with priority seating so perhaps the student needs to step out of the classroom for two minutes, you are using those accommodations together in order to assure the student can remain focused. Another issue is assistance for required out-of-class activities. Of course we are talking about social functioning. So when we have classes where we say well, everyone is required to go to the art museum together, you know, we are talking about issues where the student may not be able to have that same social functioning as the rest of their peers. So supports may need to be provided. Next slide, number 12. Some of the best practices when we are talking about students with Asperger''s or autism spectrum disorders, and one of the clear ones that comes up in terms of the social awkwardness or social functioning limitations is that the student may not look at or posture toward another individual. That happens quite often. The student with ASD, you know, their eyes may be looking in a completely different direction or they may be talking to you but their body is turned 90 degrees away from you. Being aware that social relationships can be extremely difficult, especially as instructors we assume all students are at a college level and they can be collegial to one another. At the same time we need to know that students with Asperger''s may not be able to function at the same level as other college students. The next one I have in quotations, "teach through repetitive mannerisms and patterns. And let me explain that briefly. It is something that I use in my teaching, I do have several students who fall along the autism spectrum and teaching through is more of a process I utilize. Basically some of these repetitive behaviors are very disruptive to the class and the instructor. And this process takes a lot of time, it is not very easy to do, but essentially the instructor realizes that there is this distraction but continues teaching i.e. teaching through. And not only does it require the instructor to be very much aware of what is going on and focus the attention of students but the instructor really have to know their students and know what the trigger mechanisms are. I will say it doesn''t work in all situations of course, some classes and some groups will be thrown off very significantly when we are talking about some of these emerging students who are degree-seeking and some of their mannerisms or behaviors will throw off a class. Sometimes those need to be addressed. At other times when you know you have a significant number of students in the class who have these repetitive mannerisms, you can teach through that. And doing so creates a pattern in your class where the students begin to notice if I could do the same thing as my instructor, and just tune out what is going on over there with that other student, I can continue focusing on the work. Utilizing partnerships to strengthen social behaviors to make them appropriate. We do use a bunch of different things within the program where I teach. Partnerships such as student mentors who are undergraduate students that connect with our students, and go with them for off-campus events or even on-campus events such as sporting events where there is a certain level of behavior they need to maintain. Social contracts are another great thing for students with behavior issues. You know, the contract itself, being social is part of college life and we want to make sure that students are following the code of conduct in their social interactions as well. So those contracts can really help set that foundation. Utilizing resources that other offices have, you know, some of our students may need counseling in order to deal with their social issues. So there are other resources that might be available on your campus either through a counseling office, perhaps through your student activities office where they can say, you know, I have got a student, they need help, they would like to go to social events but these large events are a problem. Can you recommend any smaller events? The last point on here is really understanding that most people with Asperger''s, most of your autism spectrum disorder students who admitted to college, have only the social functioning issues and no cognitive deficits. I think it is very hard for people who aren''t aware of this continuum, this spectrum, to understand that a student classified as Asperger''s really has the social functioning issues but often these are incredibly bright students. You will find many of them, many students with Asperger''s who have PhDs in the hard sciences where it is more of an individual focus and less social. So really keeping in mind that the cognitive delays are generally not found in students with Asperger''s. Next slide, number 13. Traumatic brain injury. We are talking about what an individual has a brain injury either something pierces their head or they hit their head hard enough to cause an injury. TBI is also along a spectrum. And some of the following functions or all of them can be affected following a traumatic brain injury. Issues of cognition, intellectual capacity, their sensory, which the sensory can also include a result in physical disability from this injury. Communication, whether verbal, ability to use eyes, any of the senses to communicate, also behavioral. And behavioral is important because people can have a traumatic brain injury without any of the others but have strange behaviors or behaviors that seem out of the ordinary to their companions. And that can also be one of the signs but over the long term, behavior does plays a pretty significant role in how our students are acting in the classroom and whether a behavior is negatively affecting their cognitive ability in terms of academics. Traumatic brain injury is becoming a big player in the case of returning war veterans and I will get to that group of returning war veterans shortly but I do want to bring that up. Next slide, number 14. In terms of accommodations for traumatic brain injury, a lot of times we are seeing students both with traumatic brain injury and with other types of brain disorders. We are talking about extended time for assignments and testing. Use of notes, books, dictionary, calculator for exams, of course these are all dependent on the students cognitive level. I will give you an example, we have a couple different students with brain injury here at UIC, and they both receive extended testing, extended time for assignments, but in terms of testing, one has to use the book and notes every time because the level of memory and cognitive recall is not there for this student to complete the exam and in a timed exam period. However, the student can recall when they are not in an exam period, so that is one of the cognitive deficits that can come with traumatic brain injury. Note-taking or voice recording can be extremely important when it comes to labs and lectures. Some of the students of traumatic brain injury may not have the sensory functions to take notes or the cognitive capacity for that recall. The voice recording is extremely important because a lot of our students not only have the visual aspects from the lecture but they have voice recording they can listen to again and again to make sure that they have that material. Assistive technology. There is a lot of assistive technology out there that is available for students depending on what the impairment is that comes along with their traumatic brain injury. Alternate formats, again, if we are talking about the need to modify anything in terms of electronic format from text so that it could be used on a screen reader or another assistive technology software package, breaks during classes or exams, it depends on the student''s limitations and what the results are. You know, a traumatic brain injury often has a very extensive assessment that follows the injury. So the student may have some impaired functioning in different areas in which they need to have those breaks. Assistance during orientation or any out-of-class activities. Because some of our students do have impaired cognitive ability and impaired memory recall, they may need that additional assistance at the beginning of the semester to remember how to get from one class to another. It is just that repetition, that support to know that the student has support of the university and to make sure they understand and have the recall so that it is not an issue of them wondering, oh, I forgot how to get to class, how am I going to get there, who is my resource. Adapted athletics, those are a potential accommodation for students depending on the level of severity and the type of impairment. Another potential accommodation that is not on here is again priority seating and that depends a lot on the student''s needs. Alright. Next slide, number 15. In terms of traumatic brain injury, like I mentioned, there is generally a very extensive assessment following the injury from medical professionals and utilizing the documentation that these professionals provide your disability services office can help to determine the best classroom accommodations. Since those different areas can be impaired, a student may not need an accommodation in the classroom if they don''t have any impaired cognitive ability. So it is very important to utilize that documentation to determine what is the most reasonable accommodation. Again, realizing that TBI can span a number of different functional areas, and that even if some are very severely affected, others may not be affected at all. Disability services staff must work collaboratively with students with TBI as well as all students with disabilities, to determine what has worked in the past. We have a lot of students who are mobile, who are transferring in between campuses, and a lot of students who are older that are now coming back to college who have different injuries. So there are definitely some students who are well aware of what the best accommodations are for them in terms of learning. And as service providers it is important we make the effort to let them know it is a collaborative process. We want to know what works for you and how we can make the best in terms of your outcome of completing college. Frequent contact with instructors, definitely beneficial. A lot of students with learning disabilities have the accommodations that they need and may not have a reason to meet with the instructor frequently. Because with learning disabilities there is not an exacerbation of symptoms generally. When we are talking about students with traumatic brain injury, there is an important thing to keep in mind. The exacerbation of symptoms can result in further loss of functioning at any time. And another issue that really comes into play with traumatic brain injury is that most students will not get significantly better in the future, even with rehabilitation. Traumatic brain injure is being studied quite extensively. It has been in the media with celebrities and it is important to keep in mind these students were people who had lives before the traumatic brain injure and are now coming back to college. So we need to remember that there is an impairment there but at the same time functioning can be exacerbated. So that frequent contact is important, it is good for students to let their instructors know and their disability service staff know, you know, I am having more issues with cognition recently. My memory is not as good as it was. And this is all related to the TBI. And often accommodations can be changed to meet those exacerbated needs so it is important to keep that frequent contact. Next slide, number 16. Intellectual and developmental disabilities. Again we are talking about another area where we are looking at a spectrum and generally we are looking at the severity or increasing limitation when it comes to students with intellectual and developmental disability. Of course throughout the history of higher education, we have had students with mild intellectual and developmental disabilities, even moderate, use accommodations to be successful in their academics careers. Now, with the significant increase in the number of students attending college in the U.S., over the last 50 years, we are looking at more and more students with intellectual and developmental disabilities who are gaining access to higher education. Of course one of the biggest areas is the community college atmosphere where we are looking at most of our community colleges having open admissions, open enrollment processes. So more and more students who are coming in with a cognitive impairment and we are looking at what services that we need to ensure that these students can advance academically. Often you will find students with intellectual and development disabilities on top of their cognitive deficit, also having learning disabilities or learning disabilities as being the result of that cognitive impairment. Some of the general categories that come from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM, which psychiatrists use to look at different levels and identify different disorders and levels of functioning, one of the big one is mental retardation. Of course the spectrum disorder, motor skills comes into play very much in different classroom environments. And some there is not a big issue there and in others if we are talking about labs or athletics or very in-depth programs where a lot of motor skill functioning is necessary, then there may be concerns there where accommodations are needed. Communication disorders, there is an extensive array of different communication disorders that can come into play that are affected by the cognitive limitations. Some of the pervasive developmental disorders and disabilities, we have already discussed autism and Asperger''s, there is another one that fits on the autism spectrum disorder, Retts which affects more females than males whereas autism and Asperger''s affects in male much more than female. These pervasive developmental disabilities, a lot of times you will find some cognitive delay or lack of development there. Down''s syndrome, of course a genetic disorder, which often has a cognitive deficit impact. And again, these categories do come from the American Psychiatric Association of DSM-IV manual, and you can definitely look through those. There is the criteria in there for defining these different disabilities. The next slide, number 17. Some of the accommodations that you might find for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities who are enrolled as undergraduates or graduates in more of a degree-seeking, more of a traditional setting, extended time for assignments and testing. You will often find that the student may have a lower level of recall or lower level of ability to respond to questions so they may need that additional time in order to achieve equally. Again, use of notes, book, dictionary, calculator, you will find some students with mild intellectual and developmental disabilities who may just need a calculator for mathematics. One that helps a lot is answering directly on the exam, a copy of the exam, and getting that answer sheet out of there. That is often another distraction in the room, testing environment. This accommodation often happens to students with attention deficit and it is just removing one more barrier from the student testing environment to assure they can succeed. Again, note-taking or voice recording, being able to have either notes if they are unable to take notes that they can comprehend or the voice audio file for them to go back to. Assistive technology, very important, especially when you have some of the limitations that look like learning disabilities. When you are talking about things like impaired ability to read, students can use an array of different assistive technology software programs that allow either text to speech so that they can hear that verbalization or different technologies that do highlighting. So a student can have an electronic copy of their textbook or the materials from class, load them on the computer, and then a yellow marker will highlight the word and move from word to word. So that as the student scans, they will be able to see those words highlighted and they can change the speed in the software so that the student and the software are at the same reading level and the student can focus on that one word at a time and be able to have a higher level of comprehension. Orientation assistance. Again we are talking about students with impaired cognitive capacity so they may need to have that extra assistance during orientation to make sure they are ready for classes. They know where they are going, they know how to deal with potential emergencies on campus and that they know how to contact their instructors and disability services staff if an issue should arise. Verbal description or physical manipulation. For some of the students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and for all our college students, there is an exploration of what is new and unique and things you have never seen before. One of the things that instructors can really do to increase comprehension is verbally describe these new concepts and new images, especially in the hard sciences, you know, giving more of the description can help students with IDD. But realistically, it is more of a universal process and you are allowing even more access to the curriculum for all of your students. Physical manipulation. That can be extremely important for students who are extreme visual and tactile learners. Take, for example, a psychologist, an introductory psychology class and the instructor puts up on the overhead an image of the human brain and they are talking about different areas of the brain and how there may be a psychological disorders that are related to did different areas. Well, some of your students can see that but not all of them are great visual learners. Increasing one level would be the verbal description. So now you have more of your students but you still have a number who are very tactile learners. They are hands-on people. Well, can you bring in a model of the brain and pass that around? Label the different areas so a student can hold it in their hands and look at it. There is definitely opportunities here. They really help a lot of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. At the same time, you are increasing access in your classroom for all students. Adapted athletics may be one area where students may need accommodations and also priority seating depending on the different symptoms, different limitations and what the student needs in terms of their accommodations. Next slide, number 18. Some of the best practices here, again, we are talking about a range of impairment that can be very mild but very significant. It all depends. Again, a lot of the LD accommodations and assistive technology options work extremely well for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities who may have that co-morbid learning disability. Frequent contact, again, making sure that students are on track, that they understand what is going on, extremely important. The last one, students enrolling in specialized programs and let''s go to Slide 19. And I will explain this a little bit more. There are a lot of colleges and universities as well as some private organizations and nonprofit groups who are saying, you know, preschool through age 21 or 22, you know, accommodations were provided for the student but there is more, there is a higher level. And these postsecondary programs are popping up all throughout the country. They are becoming extremely popular and there is a bunch of different options. I will briefly go over an example in the Elmhurst Life Skills Academy is the program within which I teach. And that is located at Elmhurst College here in suburban Chicagoland. And Elmhurst College is a private and somewhat expensive but definitely an academic-focused institution. This program is a four-year, very innovative program. There is five different tracks of type of courses everything from independent living to academic courses including math and science, social issues. So our students, they must have completed or been completed out based on age for high school and be able to read and write at a third grade reading level. A lot of students use assistive technology in order to make sure that they can read and write at that level. Each of the classes are tailored to meet individual needs. Of course we provide a syllabus and the structure of the course, the assignments. At the same time the instructors really do go through, get to know the individual students and find out what their needs are. Very, very important. In ensuring that we meet the needs of the individuals and we have such a broad range of potential disabilities. One of the nice aspects of this program is that students are integrated into a bunch of different aspects of college life. Our students are required during their freshman year to get involved in two student activities. We have a lot of our students who have gotten involved in the social, excuse me, the service fraternity on campus so they get involved with volunteering activities, with fundraising. We have several students who love going to sporting events and there has been strategic partnerships between our program and student activities, between athletics with other students to help with the social relationships. But really we are looking at that end product, what are our students getting? So we are providing this academic experience, along with the social collegiate experience and those opportunities, as well as preparing them for employment after completing the program. So, the ELSA program is a very innovative type of program out there. There are plenty of others, for example, there is programs that are more vocationally and career oriented. So a lot of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities come in, they learn a vocational skill, the institution works to get them into some type of internship or job shadowing. They go out and do that for a time and then really go out and get a career. Some programs are more of a pure life skills approach. Maybe we have got students who already know what they want to do, have already worked in that field, but don''t have some of the life skills basics like can they cook? Do they know how to clean? Do they know what it means to have a sanitary living space? Can they wash their own clothes? Can they use transportation to get to work from where they live? So there are some programs that focus more on life skills and then there is more of the blended programs which take the academic side as well as a big portion of life skills and independent living. A lot of these programs do have intensive supports, significant tutoring, some of them which admit undergraduate students with intellectual and developmental disabilities really have academic tutoring with reduced course loads maybe, modified assignments and curriculum. And then like I said there are holistic programs which take each of these and work to create the programs that best meet the needs of these students. Next slide, number 20. By far the group getting the most attention right now are injured veterans and certainly deserving of this attention within postsecondary education. Because there is extreme broad access because of financial support, there are a lot of veterans attending college right now. Very recent data from this year Vance and Miller did a study of disability service providers in higher education trying to find out what are these new veterans, what is their makeup and what supports work for them. 34% of males, 11% of females, psychological disabilities directly resulted from combat. Acquired health conditions 16% of males, 4% of females and then you can see on down the line, learning disabilities, physical or mobility impairment, hard of hearing or deafness. All these are combat related injuries and I will say it is the entire sample of males and females combined that was done from this survey. Slide number 21. A lot of the accommodations that we are talking about for other emerging student groups also fit in well for veterans because there is a huge range of potential disabilities our veterans are facing, both in war situations and returning back to the postsecondary environment. Extended time for assignments or testing, again, note-taking or voice recording, assistive technologies should the student need them for a range of different disabilities, including learning disabilities. The possibility of alternate formats for some of our students who may need the text to voice reader. Classroom relocation or accessible furniture, this really is an important one for students who have a physical disability who may be wheelchair users, or may need adjustable furniture on the classroom. It is important for service providers to think about the number of inaccessible classrooms and spaces on campus and then have a plan in place for those students to really go forward and say, all right, it is time to get an accessible location for this student. How can we do it efficiently and quickly? Breaks during class or exams, again, assistance during orientation or out-of-class activities if it is needed. Adapted athletics, lot of our veterans still are very physically fit and active and want to be involved but may have some impaired physical functioning. Perhaps the institution already has some activities that are available in terms of athletics. Maybe they have wheelchair basketball or wheelchair rugby. Housing or parking accommodations, definitely important for our veterans who are driving who have physical disabilities. And again priority seating may be another accommodation for our veterans depending on their impairment that comes from the disability. Next slide, number 22. The best practices, again, this comes from that recent study by Vance and Miller, coordinated campus services are vital. They are the most important thing. And really making sure that your financial aid or your veterans services office on campus is connected with the disability services to provide those classroom accommodations. Your psychological and counseling centers, should students need those if they don''t take advantage of what the VA offers, of course a lot of our students have those as one of the services available on campus and a huge area was career counseling. We are talking about men and women who fought in the military, who were injured and now are thinking about a complete change in career from what they learned during their military training. Coordinating those service areas is huge for veterans, it is a great way that institutions can start to work together to be more effective for serving all students with disabilities, but veterans especially. A welcoming and respect-filled environment, huge. And then another interesting aspect is providing services and course work during the evening. A lot of the veterans are returning for physical therapy or occupational therapy during the day, and their only time to take those classes or go and get those services is in the evening. So coordinating those and thinking about when is the best time to serve our veterans is extremely important. Next slide, number 23. Briefly I just want to hit on universal design. And it is not really part of the presentation but it is a huge area within disability services and higher education and when working with individuals with disabilities in general. It started as an architectural principle, expanded to technology and now education. It really allows for an increased in access and inclusiveness. Really we are working to remove those unnecessary barriers that are out there or prevent them from occurring in the first place. Providing multiple means of representation. Not only as instructors giving multiple methods to explain the same thing, showing perhaps video and audio, tactile experiences if they are available, and allowing for multiple methods of assessing learning. So many of our colleges, the students are used to paper, pencil exams or writing research papers or essays ask there are a lot of different methods for assessing learning, yes, it is certainly does take the instructor a lot of time but utilizing those allows the student to show you how they best learn the material and comprehend it. Universal design when we are talking higher education it is taking that proactive approach, not the reactive side. We are always reacting to these situations but we really want to be proactive. Next slide, number 24. Some of the future best practices and I will go through and hit on each of these emerging groups. Asperger''s, really institutions becoming more aware and figuring out how to provide that social support. Also assessing what accommodations are working for students with Asperger''s on a large scale, including Asperger students with learning disabilities. For traumatic brain injury, utilizing more assistive technology. A lot of times it is already there on campus for your other students so figuring out what works in terms of AT to support their education. Again, providing a flexible accommodation. Flexible accommodations are huge as the situation changes for students with TBI Developing guidelines in advance, you know, there are times that situations happen where a college student receives a traumatic brain injure and they may go to physical and occupational therapy and return to college, other times not. As an institution you should think what is our responsibility and what can we provide to help reintegrate this student and help them continue their education after injury. Again, better assessment should lead to more broadly being able to have those accommodations targeted. Next slide, number 25. Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, again utilizing more assistive technology. Training the students to use what the university already has and letting them know there are supports there for their learning. Allowing more flexibility and assessment of learning, allowing the student to let you know, let the instructor know how they best learn the material. Incorporating more universal design. It is not just physical, but really into lectures and assignments. For our veterans, really, this is pretty straightforward but this disability service providers and instructors need to keep in mind that we are talking often about physical injuries and psychological needs. One of the articles that I was glancing at over the weekend said that it is estimated that 53% of returning veterans are not utilizing psychological services through the Veterans Affairs Office. So a lot of these students are ending up on our campuses and we have, again, opportunities for them to take advantage of services that they might not through the VA. We need to keep that in mind. Again, for our students who do utilize services through the VA. Finding out how that collaborative partnership can work to support the student. And again that collaborative process of getting together different offices that serve our veterans on campus, and making sure everyone is on the same foot so that serving each individual is effective and quick. Next slide, number 26. In terms of disability service providers, one of the areas that I think is lacking that is more of the standardization. Each college and university has a slightly different process for providing accommodations and a different set of criteria and when we are looking at medical and psychological professionals who provide this documentation, on the national level, we are definitely talking about variations in terms of what accommodations are provided. More comprehensive and systematic training in the field, aside from the National Conference for the Association on Higher Education and Disability and other smaller professional development events, there really needs to be more to ensure that people are on the same foot within the same field. And both large scale and institutional assessments need to be done and at the same time, we need to keep in mind how we are categorizing our students to make sure that what we are doing in the Midwest is generalizable to other parts of the nation. In terms of faculty, really increasing awareness on disability issues, incorporating these into the curriculum, extremely important. It has been done with other underrepresented groups in the United States throughout our history. And students with disabilities are growing so quickly on our campuses we really need to take that approach. Also utilizing universal design and taking a larger responsibility in providing student accommodations such as more responsibility in terms of testing. If a student only needs extended time or a reader, a scribe, maybe just a distraction reduced environment, we are looking to faculty now to play a larger role in providing some of these accommodations. Alright, next slide is number 26 and I am sorry, number 27. And now I would like to open it up for questions and discussion. I would like you to jump in and share your thoughts. If you are a disability service provider, please share with the group any of the really effective best practices that are working to serve the students at your institution and how others across the nation can utilize those.
So, Operator, are we ready to take questions or give directions for everyone?
Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press the star key and then the 1 key on your touchtone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue please press the pound key. Again if you have a question, please press the star 1 now.
While we are waiting for those folks to cue in, Scott, I have a question that was submitted electronically. This is someone who is asking about one of your slides. Their question is related to your slide number 16. And you made a comment or a discussion point around the fact that LD or learning disabilities that may be as a result of cognitive impairment, for this person they either commented that goes against their understanding of what LD is and was asking if you could please explain the comment further. And I think it may be a confusion that LD and DD can get mixed together or are one in the same. I am not quite sure but if you want to elaborate on that.
Sure and I will try to do my best and of course we are not really focusing on learning disabilities here. Students with learning disabilities are a group that has been long established on our colleges and universities. Perhaps it is better to say with and when we are talking co-morbidity, we are talking about more than one type of disability together. So for a lot of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities who have impaired cognitive functioning, you will also find attached with that impaired intellectual or developmental disability a learning disability. Take, for instance, some of the students that are in my classes in the ELSA program, also have impaired cognitive functioning. Socially they are fine, you know, just like any other college student, but at the same time, they also have a reading disability. So I know for them the most effective way to learn is to make sure that my materials are available electronically so they could use assistive technology, whether it be a screen reader or highlighting to follow along with the text. So there is definitely some confusion there, and I hope that helps elaborate a little bit on that slide.
Yeah, I think that the issue there is that there are two separate things. I mean a cognitive disability, someone who has a learning disability does not necessarily have a cognitive disability.
Exactly.
And I think that is where the confusion sometimes is, it is the issue of being able to learn, not the incapacity to learn, it is the issue of difficulty and how I learn or a different way that I learn, versus a cognitive disability is a diminished cognitive status.
Right.
I think that is where there is a lot of confusion sometimes between LD and DD and people not understanding that they are different and one could have an overlay of one in the other.
Absolutely. A lot of times and this is more the classic definition used in P-21 education, when it comes to learning disabilities, you are talking about a gap in achievement versus cognitive capacity. So a lot of times you are taking into account the student''s IQ, all right, well, they are pretty much at grade level with their peers. However, their ability to read is two grade levels lower or three grade levels lower or what not. That is where you are looking at that gap and that is where learning disability has traditionally been defined. Of course that is changing a lot with new legislation at that level. But that is a significant difference when compared to cognitive aspects which we are talking about that limited intellectual capacity.
Great. Do we have any questions from the audience?
The first question comes from.
Yeah, can you expand a little bit more on the comment you made around slide number 8, where you said that reasonable accommodations need to fundamentally alter the program or may need to fundamentally alter the program. It seems like that is kind of close to the definition of undue hardship and I think I understand a little bit more as your presentation went along but I think there are a lot of folks that are going to be concerned about how providing a reasonable accommodation may have some conflict with what we are trying to present in the class.
Absolutely. Thanks to bringing that up. When we talk about undue hardship, there are two areas. The first is what I had mentioned in terms of when we provide an accommodation to a student, that significantly alters or fundamentally changes the nature of the program. So, for instance we have a student who is a chemistry major and we give them the accommodation, they don''t have to do any work in the lab. Obviously that would fundamentally alter the nature of the program and provide somewhat of an unfair advantage against other students who are required to take those lab portions. The other area of undue hardship is financial. Of course, if an accommodation is prohibitive in cost in terms of nature, rarely can we use that because a lot of public institutions, we are talking about huge financial resources, even though individual disability services offices are generally extremely limited in terms of budget, if you look at the university as a whole there is generally a lot of money there. So does that help explain the fundamentally alter portion?
Um, not really. What I am looking at here is how do you balance, I guess, the fundamental alteration and providing the accommodation itself?
Right, right, and I just wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page with that first portion before continuing on.
Okay.
So, now we are talking about the actual classroom accommodation and we will just focus on academics here. The example I gave about the chemistry student, if we gave them the accommodation of no labs, not having to do lab work, obviously that creates an unfair advantage and a fully alters the chemistry program. So in that instance, we are saying this is not a reasonable accommodation, we have an issue here. This is not reasonable. When we are talking about our emerging student groups, in particular students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. That is a group where as I have mentioned we are talking about some students who are enrolling in traditional undergraduate and graduate courses, academic paths but then we are also talking about students enrolling in nontraditional programs that most of the time would not be considered degree-seeking students. So when we are looking at the degree-seeking route, we have to make sure that accommodations we provide to our students with intellectual and developmental disabilities do not go so far as to give an unfair advantage or to fundamentally alter the nature of that academic program. Because in doing so, what we are doing is allowing for an unfair advantage, we are going beyond what would provide that equal access. And essentially what we are doing is fundamentally changing what the requirements are for that degree. And that is where we don''t want to overstep our bounds in providing accommodations.
That was where I was concerned and I appreciate the clarification.
Sure, no absolutely. Thank you for brining that up.
The next question comes from.
Go ahead.
Your line is open, please check your mute button.
Thank you, you are right. Regarding slide number 19, I am just really, really interested and encouraged to hear about Elmhurst''s Life Skills Academy''s ability to integrate students into college life. And I caught that you had at least five different programs there, some are vocational, some are you know different kind of tracks but I am curious, what type of college programs have your students found successful, if any, who have average of a third grade reading level? And I am really seriously curious.
Sure. And let me make clear that it is not an average third grade level for our students. Those are the admissions requirements out of high school, that our students must have completed high school and be able to read and write at a third grade reading level. So we have a range we definitely have students that read and write at a third grade reading level, we also have students who read and write at collegiate level, some using assistive technology, some not. In terms of success, I will tell you all of our students do have intellectual or developmental disabilities. Some of them also have on top of that learning disabilities or physical disabilities, but they are just like any other type of college students. I definitely have students who do not like more of the hard sciences classes. They are not good at math, they hate budgeting but they can get into a social issue and film class and they will talk your ear off all day about racism in the 1960s and 1970s and how it relates to the movie that they watched over the weekend. So I think it is important for all of us to keep in mind because of the short time frame and the constraints I have to lump students together. But I want us to think a little bit larger. Even students who are cognitively impaired and may not be functioning at a college level are very much like any traditional college student. They have needs, they have wants, they have academic likes and dislikes of course. So yeah I think you bring up a very interesting point. Again, our students have been successful and/or unsuccessful in a range of different courses. Like I mentioned, we have a mass science technology core, an independent living core, social issues. We have a literature and more writing core, and on top of that, we require that our students get involved in collegiate life and students activities. So there is a huge difference, lot of, more of the liberal arts course of classes that our students take and as I have mentioned some of them do great in some classes and just like college, any other college student, they hate other classes.
Have you had any of your students, this is Robin, who have gone on to a more traditional academic track?
Sure. Thanks, Robin, you bring up a great point and let me just say the ELSA program, we graduated our first class in May but there are definitely other programs both throughout the Chicagoland area and nationally that are a little bit older than we are. In terms of answering that question, in our first graduating class we do have a student, she is an out-of-state student, so during the school year would live with relatives and over the past two summers had gone home to live with her parents and taken course work in early childhood education at the community college. Wants to become an early childhood educator and is already as of last year her senior year was learning about what are the requirements in my home state? What classes do I need to take? One of the areas where we were very successful with her is working one-on-one in the independent living course, their kind of capstone independent living is preparing a person-centered plan and sharing that with family and friends, psychologists, doctors, instructors, and figuring out the plan for the next couple years. And she knew that she wanted to become an early childhood educator. When she graduated from our program she returned home and has enrolled full-time I believe full-time but I know she is still pursuing this early childhood education degree at the community college.
Operator, any additional other questions, please?
Next question comes from.
Hello, thank you. You talked about a recent article in relation to the veterans and future best practice, 53% of returning vets aren''t using psychological services through the VA. Did that article go into any speculation as to why in terms of stigma or fear of future discrimination for the vets?
Well that is a good question. The article itself, it was looking at a large-scale study that was just completed for Veterans Affairs, looking at the last couple years for veterans returning and the services that they are obtaining through the VA. I think you brought up some of the great points. One is that the authors hit is there definitely is an issue of stigma that is associated with going to counseling or getting psychological services. I think one of the other ones that is mentioned because healthcare is a concern, some of the veterans are wondering, if I go for these services, how will my healthcare down the road be affected? That was another area that they brought up. As for other reasons that they are not, there is a lot of speculation in terms of post traumatic stress disorders is can they receive effective counseling from the VA? And still integrate back into in our instance the collegiate setting. So I think all of those issues really play into effect. Vance and Miller, you know, they do in their article looking at the students and disabilities that they bring back into our campuses really say, make sure disability service providers and instructors are connected with your counseling center or your psychological services center because there may be opportunities and times when you do need to take advantage of those services for students. So the more prepared you are in advance, you can meet the financial needs of our veterans in terms of paying for their tuition, whether it is through the GI bill or other programs. The personal needs, whether it is reintegration with families, or daily life and they may need counseling there, psychological aspects and then the academic which are the straightforward accommodations. So, yeah, thanks to bringing that up. That is a very good point.
Thank you.
Other question Operator?
The next question comes from.
Hi, my question is specific to the student''s transitioning from high school into your program.
Sure.
And I am curious if you could speak a little bit about how you have addressed this process? How much involvement is there from a student''s local school district? And in terms of other agency involvement, what other agencies will typically assist in that process? And what is their role regarding either provision of services to the student or funding?
Okay. Yeah, that is a great question, very complex. I will start off and let everyone know the ELSA program is not a transition-based program. There are plenty of postsecondary programs that are transition-based meaning we are taking our high school graduates or high school completers and preparing them for life after high school. Our program is very different in that respect. However, we do work closely with a lot of resource fairs in the Chicagoland area. We work closely with a lot of our high school programs that are specifically for serving students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. So a lot of students come from high school programs where they are already a little bit knowledgeable about vocations, about independent living. In terms of agencies we don''t really take agencies referral because it is a separate postsecondary program but for some of our students they do qualify for state services. So we can provide letters of support, references, we can talk with case managers, for example, we had a student last year which we needed to get assistive technology evaluations and training through a nonprofit group and we knew that it would cost a lot of money and the family didn''t have that money available. So our program worked with the student''s case manager, at the Department of Health and Human Services, and in doing so, with that conversation it took a while but after a couple months, they said, all right, we realize the need, we have reviewed the student''s case file. That is fine, we will pay for X number of trainings. So we do work especially with the Department of Human Services with the Office of Rehab Services. Some of our students qualify for services and others don''t. So it is an individual basis. Again, reaching out, like I said we do go to a lot of resource fairs. We go to, we have admission staff at employment events that geared toward individuals with disabilities. There is marketing and direct mail to a lot of high school programs as well in terms of outreach.
Scott, I have a question that was submitted by someone. They said that they were curious about your statement regarding social and behavioral contracts for students at the postsecondary level. And they said that there, that is a strategy or tool that they are used to extensively in the P-21 level but they finds it interesting that you suggested for college age students as well. They were wondering if you could future explain your thoughts behind that.
Absolutely. In particular in the ELSA program we have a student who is listed as very high-functioning in terms of autism spectrum disorder and he is incredibly bright cognitively. There is no cognitive impairment or language impairment but his social functioning level is much lower than that of the traditional college student. So, one of the problems that he had when he started his freshman year is he did not understand what was appropriate behavior and how to integrate behavior appropriately into co-curricular activities. So aside from providing a peer support system where he would be linked up with other college students who are going to the same event so that they could provide additional support for him, he was also involved in a contract-writing with our coordinator. And the contract outlined what his responsibilities are as a student. That takes into account a lot of your student code of conduct and how your program views treating people. So it can vary, of course, with a lot of our traditional students, this can be a touchy issue because there may not be as much of the issue with social behaviors. When we are talking about some of the more nontraditional programs like what Elmhurst has to offer, we definitely realized the need for this individual and have worked directly with him to give him the opportunities that he likes and needs for social outings.
Great, thank you. Unfortunately we are at the bottom of the hour. We can take one more question. Operator, if there is one and then we will have to wrap it up.
The next question comes from.
Go ahead.
Hi, this is. We have a question here, earlier you had made the comment students with disabilities in college have a lack of understanding about their rights. This should be addressed before the end of high school we presume but how?
Yeah, you know, that is a huge, huge issue. And I realize there is a need there and started taking special education courses to better understand the IEP process, and that transition plan, and every state does this a little bit differently. In Illinois, the transition plan almost never connects the student''s IEP team with the college or university that the student thinks about attending in the future. I think that is one area where higher education and the K-12 system are way off. In terms of doing it, I think there are opportunities there. We are talking about a lot of students who are going to go to community college. Perhaps one of the things we can do in the transition plan is with this student and the family but also with the IEP and transition team is say, you know, we would like you to go and make an appointment and find out what accommodations are going to be available to you. Regardless of if graduation is six years down the road, if the student is more aware of what those accommodations may be, they can better prepare for what their postsecondary experience is. Other areas, I think that we really need to push our high school counselors and as well as college admissions and disability services staff to find areas where we can collaborate between the two levels and offer information to students that they otherwise might never come across until they get to college. It is definitely a huge issue and thank you very much to bringing that up. I hope that in the next couple of years and in the future there will be more of that collaborative atmosphere between the two levels and offer more support and advances.
Scott, I think also the professionals that are working with that student, whether be the OTs, the PTs, or whoever also might be, and the teachers start to integrate and talk more about rights issues for students earlier in the process. Not just talking about the ADA but is talking about ADA, 504 and how they apply to you and how you would use those and what you would need to do and what your responsibilities are because I don''t think a lot of students get introduced to the rights issues and things of that nature until very late in the game if at all.
Absolutely. Early and often is the best thing that we can do for our students who are from these emerging groups. And it does take professionals at all levels who are involved with the student to say, you know, you need to learn about your rights, here is some information and whether you provide it directly or you send the student to resources that is extremely important.
Well, great. Well thank you, Scott. And I am sure we are leaving some people hanging here and I know Scott you provided contact information.
That is correct.
On your, I think your last slide. So if individuals are interested in contacting Scott directly, you have that information. Also, if you have questions specific to accommodations or issues in postsecondary education I strongly encourage you to contact your regional ADA Center and they can be reached at 800-949-4232. That is both voice and TTY. If you are not familiar with where your center might be located nationally, you can go to the website at www.adata.org and there is a clickable map and information there that will direct you to the center in your specific region but we all have the same 800 number nationally. I want to thank Scott as our speaker, and I want to thank all of you for participating in the program today. As I said earlier in my comments, this is the last of our 12-part series or 12-part sessions for this fiscal year for us. Our new fiscal year starts with October of 2009 and we will have a new series of programs. We are in the process of getting that information up on our website but I do want to alert you to our next couple sessions in case you are interested. We have received information that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is going to be releasing any day now the ADA Amendments Act Proposed Regulations. And so we have scheduled Sharon Rennart who is an attorney with the ADA Division, for our October session and she will be reviewing the proposed regulations. This will be giving you sufficient time to be able to comment during the public comment period and such of those particular regulations. And then our November session is going to feature Barry Taylor who has been with us before, both Sharon and Barry are familiar speakers on this audio conference series. Barry will be addressing case law updates and the trend, a trend analysis related to case law on the ADA. So keep tuned to the www.ada-audio.org website for more registration information and descriptors of those 2 programs as well as the entire 12-month offerings. And again, I want to thank all of you for participation. I strongly encourage you to fill out your evaluation forms and provide us feedback. That is how we can know what works and doesn''t work or what more information you might want or need so really we do value your participation in that process. So I wish everyone a good day or end of your morning or wherever you are in the country from a time zone period. And we hope to see you back again in October. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the conference for today. Again, thank you for your participation, you may all disconnect. Have a good day.