University of Alberta education researcher offers advice on how post-secondary schools and students can foster a sense of belonging and improve education for students with learning disabilities.
Researcher at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Education, Lauren Goegan vividly recalls one of the first lectures she attended as a new undergraduate with dyslexia.
The class was delivered through images—no words, no notes—the instructor was talking a mile a minute, and she wrote frantically, trying to keep up. For someone with difficulties processing language, it was discouraging.
“I remember coming out of class and thinking, ‘I don’t know what I wrote,’” said Goegan, who recently published a study exploring the connection between student characteristics, academic and social integration, and various outcomes such as satisfaction levels for students with learning disabilities (LD).
Affecting everything from retaining class lessons to finding the way around campus, learning disabilities ramp up the already stressful experience of starting a post-secondary education.
“Navigating a new environment adds an extra layer of stress, anxiety, even fear because a lot of students with LD don’t want to disclose that, so it can be more difficult to make friends in post-secondary than in the school system where the kids knew you.”
Her research, published in Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, showed that while students with LD come into post-secondary education with the same hopes as any other student—making friends, learning new things, and earning their degrees—the social connection is especially critical to their success on campus.
