To: All Glendale College Students
Are you having difficulties like any of the following?
- You put in a lot of time and effort, but you don’t get the grades you think you deserve.
- It takes you forever to read an assignment. You’ll read for a while, and then realize
you haven’t been absorbing any of it. You have to start over and over again.
- Your spelling is not good. Perhaps you get the beginning and ending of the word spelled
correctly, but you just guess at the middle. You can’t remember whether to use their,
they’re or there. Sometimes it’s the little words that you confuse, like was and saw
or then and than.
- You have great thoughts, but you don’t know how to put them on paper in an organized
form so they make sense to your instructor.
- You find it very difficult to take notes. You can’t write and listen at the same time.
The instructor goes too fast. It takes too long to copy things from the board.
- You can’t trust your memory. You know something one day, and then it’s gone the next.
You study hard, and then forget everything when you go to take the test.
- You’re often the last one in the room taking a test. You don’t think well under pressure,
get distracted by the other people in the room, and run out of time before
you can get your thoughts down.
- You just don’t get math. You make careless errors, like adding instead of subtracting.
You forget your times tables. You can’t remember all the steps.
Would Any Of These Services Be Helpful To You?
Note taking assistance, which could be recording lectures, shared notes, or a note
taker.
- Test-taking accommodations, such as extra time, readers, tests taken in a distraction-reduced
setting
- Assistance with reading and writing such as audiobooks or text-to-speech software
- Priority registration
- Lots of time with a math or English tutor
What You Can Do To Help Yourself Be More Successful
Stop by the Center for Students with Disabilities (CSD). Get an appointment with a
counselor to talk about learning disabilities. Discuss the problems you’ve been having
with the counselor, and together you will decide if
completing a Learning Assessment will be beneficial to you. Be aware that everything
you say is confidential. We say nothing to anybody about you without your written
permission.
Once you complete the Learning Assessment, we meet to discuss your learning strengths
and areas of difficulty, and provide you with some learning strategies that fit your
learning style. If you meet the eligibility criteria as having a learning disability,
we can provide you with services and accommodations that are meant to reduce the negative
effects being caused by the learning disability.
What Is a Learning Disability?
In order for learning to take place, the following must occur:
- Data must enter the brain correctly through the senses.
- The data must be processed correctly and stored correctly in the long-term memory,
and it must be done with speed and efficiency.
- You must be able to correctly retrieve and express this information.
- When there is a glitch in the brain’s ability to perform any one of a myriad of cognitive
tasks, so that the student has difficulty processing information in a typical fashion,
this is considered a processing deficit.
- And if this processing glitch hinders a student’s ability to get as high a grade as
he or she deserves, it is called a learning disability.
One more thing: a student must display at least average intelligence in order to
qualify as having a learning disability. Many very gifted individuals actually have
learning disabilities.
ou can come in any time. But it’s better not to wait until you’re in real academic
trouble. Stop in and see us soon.
