Dear Laura, Wendy, Marie, and Fellow Assessment Listers:

One of the NCTN members works with several prison systems around the
country.  As part of beginning an educational program, prisoners had
their vision tested.  Many, many had vision problems that had gone
undetected and untreated prior to entering prison.  It's hard to fathom
how these physical issues of vision, hearing, sleep deprivation factor
in to educational problems.

I want to say "thank you" to everyone who has contributed and followed
the discussion this week.  It is usually impossible (or is that
virtually possible?) to get such specific answers to the questions
raised.  I appreciate the time people have taken to participate.

I look forward to reading on...
Cynthia


Cynthia Zafft, Senior Advisor
National College Transition Network
www.collegetransition.org
www.collegeforadults.org





>>> Wendy Quinones <teacherwendyq at gmail.com> 02/06/09 11:31 AM >>>

Such interesting questions, Laura!  Our LD specialist, who appropriately
teaches our lowest-level reading classes, also found sleep deprivation
to be
a serious issue -- some of her students (and, I suspect mine) slept only
3-4
hours a night but had no sense that this affected them negatively.  She
put
together a whole sleep curriculum to deal with that.

One of my students this year has a pretty severe version of the vision
issues you mentioned.  We managed to find a developmental
ophthalmologist
who takes her insurance; now the problem is to get her to make an
appointment, as despite her obvious problems, she insists that she sees
"well enough."

Wendy