Shana Smith

There are some areas/careers that an individual with learning disabilities will not be successful due to the nature of the content. I have an adult child with learning disabilities and I do want him to be successful and have a fulfilling life. An instructor can make accommodations to help the student as long as it does not affect the integrity of the course. Students can be successful - but it is not an easy road.

As a parent of a child with learning disabilities this information has helped me to understand him more.

Comment on Jeanette Roach's post: I have a child with a leaning disability in the area of reading. It is not that he does not have the "skill," - skill indicates ability and dexterity, but his brain actually process so much slower. He is an intelligent guy, and to have a conversation with him, you would never know that his reading was so slow.

Learning difficulties and poor reading skills are not necessarily the same thing. Some individuals have difficulty reading because their brain does not process the phonems as quickly as an individual who does not have a disability. 

It is important to know who your students are in terms of the type of student attending your program. Our students are a mixture of high school dual enrollment students, some students with prior college experience, and students who are farther along in their life that have responsibilities such as children/job that they are trying to work around. Often we find that the students who are parents are the ones most likely to have retention issues. They have to take care of their family. The program comes second. We have made efforts to offer classes during times when those students… >>>

Employer surveys are vitally important in program evaluation. If we find that employers are not happy with the students knowledge or skills, then we need to step back and re-evaluate were deficits were found. We evaluate the responses and then adjust our program instruction as needed to make sure our students are prepared.

Student job placement is an important part of the overall success of the accredited medical assisting program. We work closely with our advisory board to understand the needs of the community. Faculty reviews curriculum to make sure we are offering up-to-date training that will align with what is needed in the community. Employee surveys are an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of our training and help us to understand how we can better prepare our students for the job market.

Hi. I am going through the PEP training. The Medical Assisting program A.A.S. program has been accredited through through ABHES. We have done well in the past with few findings. My goal taking this course is to have a better understanding of the process so I can assist our program director in maintaining our status as an accredited program by making sure we are following the guidelines all the time.