Progress and Prospects: Kansas Reflections

Abstract

The research study described in Polson and White's article suggests that the challenging task of serving adults with disabilities is better met when adult educators have expanded knowledge, improved skills, and/or different attitudes. In Kansas, one of the nine states included in the research described in their article, a concerted professional development effort has been enhanced and guided by the research findings. Over the past four years, many Kansas adult educators have gained additional knowledge about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), improved their skills in identifying and implementing appropriate accommodations and acquired more positive attitudes about providing quality services to adult learners with disabilities. Extensive day-long workshops are provided across the state for adult educators working in Adult Education and Family Literacy (AEFLA), Title II of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, funded programs. The workshops are designed to provided adult educators with foundational information on effectively serving adults with disabilities. Participants leave the workshops with a better understanding of their rights and responsibilities and their learners' rights and responsibilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a process for evaluating their program's services, or lack of services, to learners with disabilities, and a process for determining appropriate accommodations for learners with disabilities. As a result, several significant changes are now observable in adult education programs across Kansas. Some of the most obvious changes are programmatic changes. Adult education programs in Kansas now provide extensive information about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in their orientations for new students. This includes the definition of disability, the rights and responsibilities of persons with a disability and the rights and responsibilities of the adult education program serving such persons. One-on-one conferences are held with all new students in which the adult educator further emphasizes the program's commitment to helping ALL learners achieve their educational goals. A second programmatic change is in the commitment to identify adults with disabilities as early as possible. Polson and White found that these individuals have often been identified only after they experienced difficulty in learning and became increasingly frustrated. Rather than passively waiting until the student experiences failure and is ready to leave the program, Kansas adult educators increasingly recognize the importance of preventing failures, they actively encourage adult learners to disclose information about prior learning problems or other factors that may have a negative impact on the learner's educational efforts. In addition, adult educators regularly use the Adult Learning Disabilities Screening (ALDS) instrument (Mellard, University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, 1999) which provides valuable and timely information to both adult educators and adult learners. Another notable change is the frequency and diversity of accommodations that programs provide for learners with disabilities. …