Accessibility, Part II – Barb Mussman & Amanda Thompson

Accessibility, Part II – Barb Mussman & Amanda Thompson [read the transcript]

Barb Mussman and Amanda Thompson are case managers for students needing accommodations. I didn’t know much about what this involved until our conversation. Sure, I’ve received accommodation forms before, but I hadn’t considered how these accommodations came to be, or what the process is for students who need accommodations. And what about the students who could benefit from these supports but decide to go it without accommodations? I had many unknowns and questions.

If you’d like to learn more about where Accommodation Services fits into the college organization, jump back an episode and listen to Accessibility, Part I with Arron Wings.

Here are links to a few resources mentioned during our conversation:

TRANSCRIPT: Accessibility, Part II – Barb Mussman & Amanda Thompson

BARB MUSSMAN
…just because they all have the same diagnosis doesn’t mean they need the same kinds of support services

ALAN PETERKA
Hi, I’m Alan Peterka, and you are listening to Education Is, a show about people engaged in teaching and learning. Today in the studio I have Amanda Thompson, Accommodation Services and Assistive Technology coordinator. Welcome, Amanda.

AMANDA THOMPSON
Hi. Thanks for having me.

ALAN PETERKA
That’s a mouthful of a title.

AMANDA THOMPSON
It is. I try to shorten it sometimes, but it’s what I do.

ALAN PETERKA
Great. We’ll learn more about that. Also in the studio today is Barb Mussman, Accomodation Services manager. Welcome, Barb.

BARB MUSSMAN
Thank you, Alan.

ALAN PETERKA
Great to have you both here. Really, I’m hoping to learn what it is that you do here at Kirkwood a little bit more. I’m relatively familiar, but I know a lot of people probably aren’t, know your names certainly, but don’t get a chance to interface with you on a regular basis. I guess I’ll just start off, what brought you to Accomodation Services? What led you to this career or this calling?

BARB MUSSMAN
Yeah. I’ve had a number of different careers at Kirkwood. I worked in Student Activities and an admissions advisor and in the Counseling Department with the Skills Center and with Project Start. Then I left for a time and worked at Mount Mercy as the director of Career Services. Then when I came back I came into the Learning Services Department. That’s when I got started working with the students who were requesting accommodations because of having disabilities. I’ve been doing this particular position since 2011.

ALAN PETERKA
How many students do you have requesting disabilities on average in any given year or any given term?

BARB MUSSMAN
I would say over a year’s time we have probably 800 to 900 students who request accommodations. The next step then is that they would need to write an accommodation plan. Sometimes not all of those 800 to 1,000 ever come in and write an accommodation plan, but over a year’s time we do write almost 800 accommodation plans.

ALAN PETERKA
That’s interesting. You along with the student are writing these plans, or the student is really the one who’s writing their own plan?

BARB MUSSMAN
We ask the student to come and meet with us. Amanda and I are both considered case managers for students who need accommodations. The students are told that they need to meet with their case manager each semester to write an accommodation plan, which is going to outline the types of academic accommodations that that individual may need to hopefully increase their chances of success in the classroom.

ALAN PETERKA
Amanda, what brought you to this line of work?

AMANDA THOMPSON
I started here at Kirkwood actually as a practicum student within our autism support program, which is the Focus Skill Training Program. At that time I was in my master’s program for clinical psychology. I had made the decision that I did not want to sit in a therapy room, but I wanted to do something more hands on.

The opportunity came to shadow and work with a school psychologist. Part of her duties were here at Kirkwood, and so that’s how I fell into learning services area. I have been here since then. That was in the spring of 2012, so this would be my fifth year, I guess, coming on.

ALAN PETERKA
What is case managing? Is it just the two of you managing all 800 to 1,000?

BARB MUSSMAN
On this campus it’s Amanda and I. Amanda goes to the Iowa City campus as well and talks with those students, but out at the regional centers there is another staff person at each of the regional centers who writes accommodation plans. A lot of those are going to be for those high school students who are taking either PSEO classes or high school academy classes.

ALAN PETERKA
Amanda, you said you wanted something a little more hands on. Has this proven to be more hands on?

AMANDA THOMPSON
Definitely more hands on. I really actually enjoy working with the students a lot. I mean, it just changes. Each student has a different question or concern or problem or skill that they need to work on, and so something’s different every day. Then I might see a student once a semester or there might be students that I’m seeing every week in my office just because we’re working on different types of supports to help them get through their classes and help them be successful. Yeah, it’s definitely more hands on.

ALAN PETERKA
Can you walk me through a little planning session? What would a planning session be like if I came to you with a need for accommodation? Would I be the one to initiate and say, “You know, I’m having some anxiety in my testing situations,” and then would you suggest things to me as the student at that point?

BARB MUSSMAN
As part of the process that we ask students to do as they begin their steps is to provide documentation. The student who is coming to us probably has already possibly been on an IEP or a 504 plan from high school or has been working with some sort of a medical professional who would be able to give a diagnosis. That’s something that Amanda and I as the case managers would’ve already seen before we meet with the student.

It’s interesting because the law that we work under, which is the ADA law, states that our purpose is really to talk with the student and find out directly from the student what they feel are the accommodations they need. It’s maybe not as important as what’s on the paper as to what the student can verbalize to us as to what they need for accommodations.

ALAN PETERKA
What’s it like then to work with a student? Once you’ve got this plan in place, then what kind of interaction do you have after that with the students?

AMANDA THOMPSON
It really varies on the students. Like I mentioned earlier that sometimes I might see a student once in the beginning of the semester, we’re writing their accommodation plan, and that’s all the support they need. Other times, like I said, I might be meeting with a student more often. When we first meet with them and they’re talking about the different types of supports that they feel that they need or accommodations that they need, we might find that a student really needs some help with some time management or maybe assignment management.

I had a student that I met with actually today that said, “I’m okay with my time, but I just can’t figure out how to know what assignment I need to work on first so I can get it done, and then I won’t miss turning it in because I get sidetracked by these other assignments.” To me that said, I need to work on my prioritization; I need to figure out what’s the priority here. Do I work on this long paper assignment first, or do I do all these other little ones?

With that student we actually set up a plan where we’re going to meet after the first couple weeks of the semester. We’re going to look at their class syllabus and see what kind of assignments they have and work through that process of figuring out how do I figure out what I need to work on first and then what can come later. I think it just varies from student to student.

BARB MUSSMAN
Each student is looked at individually, as Amanda said. Because we have students that come in, so for instance, we’ll have 100 students that come in with a diagnosis of ADHD. That plays out differently for different students and the kinds of things they need, so just because they all have the same diagnosis doesn’t mean they need the same kinds of support services. We’re also working within the rest of the Learning Services Department as well because we have a real active tutoring center. At the tutoring center, students with accommodations could arrange to have audio versions of textbooks. That’s one accommodation that helps people with reading or print disabilities or vision disabilities.

Other things, for instance, students who are deaf or hard of hearing and use interpreters, that’s arranged through our department as well. The Testing Center is part of the Learning Services Department, so students using testing accommodations most often include that they get extra time to take their test. They also sometimes will be requesting to use a private room to take their test in. Sometimes they’ll be requesting to have the test read to them. All those kinds of services are available through all the different aspects of the Learning Services Department.

AMANDA THOMPSON
We also try to instill in the students that they need to be able to advocate for themselves as well, so that’s also a skill that we try to work on with them. Because we might have students who can do that very well, they’ll come in and ask questions. Then again, there might be a student who doesn’t reach out when they need that help and so just encouraging them all the time that if you have a question, ask. If you have someone on campus you can ask, whether it’s us or their instructor or something, ask them so that they can get pointed in the right direction.

BARB MUSSMAN
We also obviously work with the faculty that are in the classroom with these students. Sometimes there’ll need to be a short meeting between the case manager and the student and the faculty if there’s some issues that are arising and that kind of thing. We always welcome questions from faculty, and we do get that a lot with emails and phone calls from faculty when they’re inquiring about a student in their class.

ALAN PETERKA
Yeah. Maybe talk about that a little bit more. How does that partnership work with faculty? Are there any constraints there in terms of you reaching out to the faculty, faculty just reaching out to you without the consent of the student, or is that just an open line of communication that’s always available?

AMANDA THOMPSON
Because we are all Kirkwood employees, we’re covered under FERPA, and we’re able to disclose enough under the scope of what’s going on. What we do keep confidential though is the student’s disability, so we might not give specific diagnosis information without talking with the student first. I feel like the communication lines are pretty open, so like Barb said, emails, phone calls. Sometimes we have faculty stop by as well.

We have faculty referring students too or just asking about a particular student. I feel like that’s been going really well and been helpful because now we might have a faculty who might ask a question about okay, this student’s behaving in this kind of way in class; is there something that I can do to support them or is there something else we can do so that this student can then continue and do well.

ALAN PETERKA
Would it be right for a faculty to refer a student who they see as needing accommodations to meet with one of you, or would it be more appropriate for them to first meet with a counselor?

BARB MUSSMAN
No. We have faculty that will directly talk to a student about learning services and that accommodations may be available. Obviously a faculty can’t guarantee accommodations are going to be available. We can’t guarantee accommodations are going to be available until we’ve talked with the student or the student’s been able to provide some documentation. Sometimes a faculty person will refer a student to see a counselor, and then the counselor will be the ones that will suggest that they suggest accommodations. We try to get the word out there for students to know that we are here and what we do.

Actually, the name Accommodation Services is a change that we made about two years ago. We used to be called Disability Services, and we felt like we wanted to make that wording change so that we would maybe come across as being a more welcoming and less a place where students would maybe feel stigma about coming and getting disability services, I should say. We tried to rework everything to take the word disability out of our language and out of the things that we print and the things on our website. I think that has helped some students feel more comfortable to come in and request accommodations.

Also, since we’ve started having the required summer orientations, we always have a table at the Resource Fair part of that, so we’re seeing a lot of the students as they’re just beginning to come here and will give them the information they need to know about how to request accommodations and that kind of thing. We’ve been seeing pretty steady increases in the numbers of students that we’ve seen over the last few years. I think it’s a combination of all those things, for the faculty to be familiar with our services and know when students can be referred as well as us getting information out to new students.

AMANDA THOMPSON
Another thing that we have for faculty is on our website we have a faculty resource guide that just talks about the Accommodation Services process, what it looks like and gives some frequently asked questions and some answers to those questions, so some things that we get a lot of times. It also has resources too. If a faculty is interested in learning more about how to work with a student with ADHD or maybe a student who has dyslexia, there are some resources on that faculty guide that would help them get to that area, maybe show them some different techniques or tools that they can use within their classrooms.

We also link back a lot to Universal Design of Learning because a lot of those principles are very helpful for all students, and not just students with disabilities but just for all students and just creating a better learning environment. I would just say that that also has been helpful for faculty to know that we have this there. We created it with the intent of it being for them, so if they have other questions or something, they can always talk with Barb or I as well.

BARB MUSSMAN
Also in the fall of 2015 we started what’s called an Accommodation Services Advisory Board. That is made up of one faculty person from each of the 10 academic departments on campus, and that’s been real informational. We meet a couple times a semester. It’s a way for us to be able to share with them things that are going on within Accommodation Services, but it also gives them an avenue to bring questions from their departments to us. We try to talk things through and work things out that way, so that’s been a good way for us to feel a little more connected with the faculty here.

ALAN PETERKA
Barb, you talked a little bit about renaming Disability Services over to Accommodation Services and the need for that and the benefits, I think, that you’re getting from that. What other ways or suggestions would you have for instructors or even other students here, maybe just ways that you’ve seen interactions play out among able-bodied people and those with disabilities or even just the language we use? Are there certain words and certain ways of talking about disabilities that are somehow more appropriate than others?

BARB MUSSMAN
Yeah. Part of that process when we did the renaming to Accommodation Services, we also rewrote the statement that appears in all of the syllabus of all classes here at Kirkwood where it says how students can request accommodations. That’s another piece that probably most faculty are going to be going over with the students the first couple day of classes when they go through their syllabus, so they’ll be able to see that statement there as well. All of that really came about because we use an organization called AHEAD, which is Association of Higher Education and Disabilities, as our go-to place when we have questions about things. It’s just a great resource for us.

They’ve had some conferences and conventions that Amanda and I have gone to. Part of one that I went to a couple years ago that was really focusing on the social model of disability as opposed to the medical model, and their comparison was, okay, so a medical model like when you go to the doctor’s office and you’re going to state all these things that are wrong with you, and the doctor’s going to try to fix those things. Whereas with the social model of disability, we don’t look at things that are wrong with the individual; we look at things that can be changed within that individual’s environment to make it a better place for them to learn.

That’s what we try to keep in mind when we’re focusing on what it is that’s going to help that student. A student who’s had this diagnosis, whatever it is, for their lifetime or maybe even another student who is coming in with a new diagnosis, it’s not that we’re trying to change that diagnosis. We’re not trying to fix the person. We’re just trying to fix the environment, I guess is the best word to use, so that they can be successful in school.

AMANDA THOMPSON
We’re trying to give them equal access. We’re not trying to give them an advantage or anything like that. I feel like sometimes that might get brought up as to well, why does this person get it but I don’t? When we look at it, we’re really just trying to figure out what can we do to provide equal access to the learning environment for that student. Sometimes that is needing a little bit extra time on their test, or sometimes it’s I need my document in a digital format so that I can read it with different software.

ALAN PETERKA
That’s where we get the term accessibility is that equal access, that level playing field. What kinds of things do we as instructors need to be thinking about doing to make our courses, our environment or our materials more accessible?

AMANDA THOMPSON
That’s a great question, and that’s one of my passions, which Alan, I know you know because I talk to you a lot about accessibility. You can draw a little bit from the UDL principles where they talk about having multiple avenues of how to access that information, so is it available in an audio format; is it something that is in a tangible document that can maybe be changed or converted so it can be read using a screen reading software, for instance.

A screen reading software for those that don’t know what it is, it’s a way that those with visual impairments or who are blind can access the computer. It reads everything off to them. If we give them an image, it’s just going to tell them that it’s an image. Maybe that image includes actual words and important information to your class, and that’s what we want to make sure is accessible to them. The students that I’ve worked with in the past have had a huge preference for Word documents even over PDFs. The reason being is just how it works with their software. There are differences though because I know I have some more students who are utilizing Apple products now, and they work very well with both Word and PDF documents.

Another one that comes up ensuring access is having closed captioning on your videos that you’re showing in class. Whether it’s a video you produced on your own or it’s a video clip from YouTube, making sure that those captions are also correct as well. If you ever want to do a fun experience, turn on the closed captioning on some videos and see how well some of those match to what the words are actually being said, because it can be somewhat different.

Those are just a couple different things, but I think in general if you are providing instructions or information about something that’s important, making sure that you give that both verbally and then also written down, whether it’s on Talon or you hand out a handout, but making sure you have that available for a student so that they can then follow along too. That’s been something to be proven to work well for all types of learners is having both the verbal and the written instruction.

BARB MUSSMAN
Yeah. There’s been a lot of information about the value of closed captioning not just for students with hearing impairments but for students particularly like ESL students, that they really value that. That helps them to learn English better if they’re able to read the captions at the same time they’re hearing the words, and so that’s where it all kind of fits in to universal design.

I think another thing that I’ve seen a lot of faculty embracing over the last few years, and partly because of having Angel and Talon available for this, but a lot of students who have problems with note taking in class, sometimes that’s related to a disability, not always, but a lot of the faculty are now providing copies of their notes or at least copies of their PowerPoint slides out there on Talon that’s available to all the students in the classrooms, not just the students with disabilities.

ALAN PETERKA
Are there steps to be taken in the classroom itself, in the physical space?

AMANDA THOMPSON
I think physical space, at least here at Kirkwood, I think we do a pretty good job, although if we have a certain request that we need, that’s something that our facilities can help work with our Learning Services Department. We get that done rather quickly. I know for some students we might try to go into the classroom a little bit early to see where they might want to sit or position themselves. Another student, it might be like a particular computer that they need to sit at, and so we might then work with IT to make sure that everything’s there that that student needs.

I think we have pretty good partnerships with those departments to be able to facilitate that pretty quickly. It doesn’t then fall on the faculty to worry about oh, so and so is going to be in my class, I need to make sure this is ready to go. Whereas if we just make the environment ready to go from the start, then it’s there and we don’t have to make any changes.

BARB MUSSMAN
I think something some faculty might want to be aware of is that there are some students with some disabilities, and I’m going to just point out like a PTSD, post-traumatic stress syndrome, or some anxiety disabilities or autism sometimes, where a student really has to be located in a particular portion of the classroom. The ones I’m thinking of say that they need to be located closest to a door so that they could leave the classroom if something is happening to them within that classroom during that particular time period so they can get out easily, that kind of thing.

Some of those kinds of things would be ones we would discuss hopefully ahead of time. Either the student can discuss that directly with the faculty, or if they want their case manager to be involved, we can have that conversation also.

ALAN PETERKA
Those kinds of things would certainly show up on the accommodations?

BARB MUSSMAN
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

AMANDA THOMPSON
If the student chooses, yeah. We usually write a note on there with any kind of specific things like that. I have one student who needs to pace a little bit, so we asked just that the student be able to go out into the hall to pace and come back into the classroom without penalty, so just certain things like that, just being able. I really think, going back to what your question about what can faculty do, I mean, the biggest thing I think is just understanding.

I know that there are stories of different times of where that kind of backfires a little bit, but I think overall those students are really just asking for some understanding of what’s going on with them. They’ll tell you what you need to know to help you in the classroom as faculty.

ALAN PETERKA
Could you share one of the backfire stories?

AMANDA THOMPSON
I guess I don’t know. I just hear from faculty that sometimes if they give too much leniency or something that that ends up backfiring. I would rather be clear that when we’re asking for these accommodations, we’re not asking for something that’s above and beyond. Like I said, it goes back to just providing that equal access and that for asking for something, we have that documentation or we’ve talked with the student and we really feel that this would be equal access.

I had a situation, I think attendance probably comes up the most. That’s the hardest one in terms of Barb and I trying to figure out what’s inappropriate attendance accommodation, or because you as faculty, and I say you, Alan, but everyone as faculty, they have their own course policies. If that policy in that classroom is you get so many days missed and then it starts taking away from your grade or whatnot, if that student for maybe something related to their disability is needing something beyond that, usually that’s something where we engage a conversation with the faculty and we ask.

It’s that back and forth of what would be reasonable. Your syllabus says any student can miss three days. Well, given this student’s disability, five days, is that okay? Is that something that’s reasonable? When is it they’re missing too much of the lecture or the lab to where then they’re not meeting the course objectives and stuff. That’s not what we’re looking at. We’re trying to make sure that it’s just equal access. I don’t know if I explained that clearly enough.

ALAN PETERKA
Yeah. I guess a followup question might be, if as an instructor, and this would apply to any student really but I guess in this case a student who has accommodations, if I feel like that student is somehow taking advantage of their accommodation, is that a point where we would reach out to a case manager and say, “This is what’s happening. What do you guys think?”

AMANDA THOMPSON
Yeah.

BARB MUSSMAN
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

AMANDA THOMPSON
I think that would be the best time. If you’re feeling like something’s being taken advantage of, definitely contact us so that we can look into it with you. We’re there to work with the faculty and with the students, so we’re that mediator role almost. We want to hear about that if you have questions or concerns about any of the accommodations.

BARB MUSSMAN
As I said earlier, we’re not making these requests for accommodations just willy-nilly. We have some experience. We have some background, but again, it’s got to be a working partnership with the requirements of the class. Like Amanda said, we’re not expecting the faculty to change any of the learning outcomes. If they have a lab class and there’s just no other way the student is going to be able to pick up those concepts without being in lab and they have a lab requirement that you can’t miss more than two or three labs or something, we totally understand that.

We’re not trying to get a faculty person to change the way they teach the class. That’s not what the law wants us to do either, but we are making the best judgments that we can. If it’s not working out, then that’s when the faculty should be in contact with us, and that’s when we would work together with the student to see what’s going to be the best outcome.

ALAN PETERKA
Do you think everybody’s getting the accommodations they need here?

BARB MUSSMAN
The interesting thing about higher education is that it’s up to the student to self-identify, and the K-12 system, it’s up to the school system and the staff there to identify the student with the disability and provide whatever they need for success. As Amanda said, our role is to provide equal access to students, but again, they have to identify themselves as someone who needs this because of a disability.

ALAN PETERKA
Tell me more about that. Why is it that way?

BARB MUSSMAN
The K-12 systems are under a different law. They’re under the IDEA law, so their law states that that’s up to the school to provide those services for that student to be successful, whatever that means for that student. Whereas our law, as I said, requires that we provide equal access for students.

ALAN PETERKA
That’s the ADA law?

BARB MUSSMAN
Correct.

AMANDA THOMPSON
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ALAN PETERKA
Great. How many do you think aren’t self-identifying?

AMANDA THOMPSON
I looked at some numbers for a presentation that we gave. It was looking like we’re a couple percent lower. One of the biggest things is that there’s no national or federal requirement for us to report our numbers in post-secondary education, so that’s difficult for us to tell you like are we getting everybody that we need, are we not. What we can look at is that there have been some studies that have been done that compare a little bit between how many students are reported on within the K-12 system versus this voluntary study who’s reporting.

Within the K-12 system a couple years ago I believe the number was about 13% of students had a disability, whereas we were sitting at about 11%. There could be a difference there in that maybe some of those students are not in post-secondary education. Maybe our numbers are lower because some of those students are not self-identifying. I’ve had conversations with students who have been here for a year taking classes and are just now coming into my office asking for accommodations.

Some of the things that they say are, “I just didn’t want to have to rely on that. I didn’t want to. Just because I have ADHD, I didn’t want to do these things because I can do it on my own.” They want some type of independence. Then they come around to realize okay, maybe that support wasn’t a bad thing, and I can use that and then help me get to be successful. I think that a couple of factors play into there.

BARB MUSSMAN
Sometimes I think when students are coming to us directly from high school or within a few years of being in high school and they were on these IEPs that they had in high school, they’re just kind of tired about being pulled out and tired of being treated a little differently. They just want to be like everybody else. They think college is their fresh start for that, and so they choose not to try to request those accommodations.

College is a totally different environment than high school. Some students do do fine without accommodations here even though they had them in high school, but as she said, we’ll work with the student at any point in their career at Kirkwood, at any point within the semester that they’re in, and help them get accommodations. It just has to be up to them to identify.

If we are working with a student who’s coming in later in the semester, we do point out to the student that whatever accommodations we’re putting in place at that point, they’re not retroactive for rest of the semester. It only starts at the time when the student writes the accommodation plan and gets the faculty signature on that accommodation plan so that the faculty’s aware of the accommodations. It’s only good for the rest of the semester.

ALAN PETERKA
They just can’t go back and retake a test that they didn’t have quite so long to take.

BARB MUSSMAN
Right.

ALAN PETERKA
That makes sense.

BARB MUSSMAN
Yup.

ALAN PETERKA
I wondered if you guys had some recommendations for me, for anybody out there, maybe ways of learning more about Accommodation Services, a great book you’ve read, a wonderful movie you’ve seen, some great conference you go to that others might be interested in, any kind of recommendation for anybody out there?

AMANDA THOMPSON
I have lots of stuff for you probably, Alan. Are you looking for just one or five?

ALAN PETERKA
Just your top recommendation, let’s say.

AMANDA THOMPSON
Oh, my top recommendation.

ALAN PETERKA
Or even just the first one that pops into your head.

AMANDA THOMPSON
I would say the first one that pops into my head, and partially because Barb and I are on the board for this organization, we are on the board for the Illinois and Iowa Regional Chapter for the Association of Higher Education and Disability. Here in the spring semester we’re actually putting on two round tables on a couple different topics. One of the topics is essential functions and technical standards within your program. Those, I think, more align with some of the career programs where it tells you what kinds of things are needed to meet the career objective, what kind of requirements; do they have to lift so many pounds; do they need to be able to communicate effectively. That round table’s coming up.

Then we also have another one as well that’s going to be talking about assistive technology apps and also going over some anxiety and how to work with students with anxiety, whether it might be anxiety from PTSD or just general anxiety. Two round tables coming up is what I would recommend.

ALAN PETERKA
These are open to the public or open to …

AMANDA THOMPSON
These are open. One of them right now is scheduled in February, and one of them is scheduled for March, I believe. Those would be the two top ones, and I can give you those links. Again, that’s for the ILLOWA AHEAD Regional Chapter, and those are the round tables we’re putting on.

ALAN PETERKA
Great. Barb, how about you, any recommendations?

BARB MUSSMAN
I think the first place I would recommend for faculty to go is to our webpage, which Amanda said is just the kirkwood.edu/accommodations, and look at the information that’s presented there, the information that’s the link to the faculty resource page where they can maybe get their questions answered. As far as books and movies, there’s a lot that’s been written about autistic students, and they can provide many types of different challenges in the classroom because they are also very individualized and of different ability levels.

There’ve been some great movies about Temple Grandin that’s been made. There’s a lot of books that Temple Grandin herself has written. She’s fairly well known as far as an adult with autism and how she has dealt with it in her life and the value of it that she sees. There’s a lot of information on those particular types of individuals that have that autism spectrum disorder diagnosis.

ALAN PETERKA
Great. Thanks for those recommendations. I’ll be sure to check those out and put links up on the site. Thank you both for joining me here and talking about what you do.

AMANDA THOMPSON
Thanks for having us, Alan.

BARB MUSSMAN
Yeah, thanks Alan.

AMANDA THOMPSON
Yeah.

ALAN PETERKA
This has been the Education Is podcast. Thanks for listening. For more episodes visit educationis.us, subscribe on iTunesU or wherever you get your podcasts.