Transitioning Mary McClain from high school to college needs to include discussions with the staff at the college so that the staff is familiar with Mary and her assistive technology (AT) needs to be successful at college. The second strategy to help Mary be successful at college is to assign her a mentor at the college. The mentor could be another special needs student who has been at the college longer than Mary has and can help Mary learn where she needs to go to have her needs met.
Let us assume the technical college Mary wants to attend has someone on staff that specializes in working with special education students. This staff member can work with Mary regarding her speech articulation problems and fine motor skills problems on her right side. Mary needs to meet with this staff member several times before she actually begins classes at the college. One goal of these meetings will be finding the appropriate software to assist Mary in being successful in her classes. Perhaps Mary will be able to use speech recognition software to dictate her papers to her computer to compensate for Mary’s fine motor skills issue that may affect her typing. The speech recognition software would need to learn Mary’s voice and speech patterns due to her articulation problem.
Finding a mentor student with disabilities will give Mary a friend on campus right away that will help give Mary courage to face new classes and to meet new people. The mentor student can share with Mary what AT resources have helped her. This student may also be able to advise Mary which companies provide the resources that Mary needs.
With both a staff member and a mentor student assisting Mary with the transition from high school to college, Mary will have a good chance of being successful academically and socially in her new life as a college student. These AT resources are available for a purpose and it is to Mary’s advantage to take advantage of all AT that is available to her.
References
Wikipedia. (5 October, 2011). Assistive technology. Retrieved from Wikipedia website
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistive_technology
Bezbatchenko, A. (n.d.). Student mentors. Collegeview. Retrieved from Collegeview website
http://www.collegeview.com/articles/article/student-mentors
