In 1973, Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act (P.L. 93-112),
which states:
No individual in the United States . . . shall, solely
by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation
in, be denied the benefits of, be subjected to discrimination
under any program or activity receiving federal financial
assistance.
This statute guarantees students with disabilities the
right of consideration for entrance and ensures access into
our nation's vocational education programs. "Reasonable
accommodation" must also be made in entrance procedures
and individual classrooms to ensure nondiscrimination.
The primary special needs students encountered in the Cisco
Networking Academy Program have learning disabilities, visual
or hearing impairments.
Considered invisible and individual, dyslexia, dysgraphia
and dyscalculia are broad terms that describe significant
difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking,
reading, writing, reasoning or mathematical abilities. The
results of these Learning Disabilities are a significant
discrepancy between academic achievement and potential.
Accommodations for students with learning disabilities
range from additional time for study and testing to software
that will read text for dyslexics and convert speech/voice
to text for dysgraphics.
Visual impairments range from failing eyesight to
legally blind. Accommodations range from software that enlarges
print to text readers that can take a word document and
read it to the student.
Hearing impairments range from hard of hearing to
legally deaf. Accommodations range from hearing aids to
sign language interpreters to software that provides text
for audio portions of multimedia presentations.
Funding for these accommodations is provided by the educational
organization, government sources or the individual's medical
insurance. Web sites for organizations that provide resources
for assistive technologies, teacher training and more information
on disabilities are provided in the Digital
Divide Academy Guide section of this site.
