Special Education in Rural Communities At Christmas in January, I quickly ran to the party, stereo in hand. Checking the time, I ran across Pollock Road to attend my first function as a member of Best Buddies, a community program sponsored by universities around the world to enrich the lives of college students and adults with intellectual disabilities. I entered the room; a low hum tormented the edges of my hearing. As I placed the stereo on the piano and connected the chord to the outlet, I kept my gaze away from the room. I struggled, as flashes of memory coalesced into glowing beads, markers, and hours of speech therapy. If you are among the 2.9 million Americans with learning disabilities (LD), you realize that LD has no cure; instead, you manage it in a series of patterns and behaviors (LDA 1). I was lucky; my last moments in a special needs classroom were when I was a fifth grader leaving State College. However, I clearly remember Mrs. Weiss and Mrs. White and their impact on me. Years later, when I returned from the army, I found among my old things the posters, the alphabet book, and the little stories that had made me so proud and that had received so much encouragement from my teachers and parents. Returning to the present, I faced the room and walked to the table, pinning the name tag to my Santa hat as I went. There was a crowd of adults, friends and students around me. I approached the air hockey table and saw an unaccompanied friend. After I hit the puck to him, he casually returned the shot and a conversation ensued that ranged from his prowess as a bowler, to difficulties with his father, to little escapades at work, a local Sheetz. Speaking in often excited tones, the intensity of the air...... in the center of the card ......d, expressed in alphabets, stories and posters. Works CitedBureau, US Census. Meeting the Challenge: Americans with Disabilities, 1997. Washington DC: US Census Bureau, 1997. Jimerson, Lorna. Special challenges of the No Child Left Behind Act for rural schools and districts. Washington, DC: Rural School and Community Fund, 2003.LDA. Position paper from the Learning Disabilities Association of America. 2000. web page. LDA. February 12, 2004.McIntyre, Alexander Ph.D. Special Education and Rural America. Washington DC: Department of Education, 2002.MST. Multisystem therapy: treatment model. 2000. Web page. STD. Available: http://wwww.mstservices.com/text/treatment.html. March 25, 2004. Sitlington, Patricia L., Gary M. Clark, and Oliver P. Kolstoe. Education and transition services for adolescents. 3rd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000.
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