Disabilities Don’t Stop College Dreams (MI)
June 16, 2011
When Amanda Sattmann was in third grade, she was diagnosed with ADD.
“At third grade, I didn’t really understand the concept of it,” said Sattmann, 18. “It was very overwhelming, especially for a kid who’s in third grade.”
Sattmann also suffered from depression, anxiety attacks and nonverbal learning disorder.
Yet on Friday, the once-troubled girl stood in her green cap and gown, smiling on stage at Eton Academy as she received her high school diploma. “I’m just glad that I can function like a normal person,” she said.
This fall, she and eight classmates — Eton’s entire class of 2011 — will begin college. It’s a coup for the graduates and for Eton, a private school dedicated to helping students with learning disabilities.
“The first difficulty to address and to overcome is simply for a student to achieve a high school diploma, whether it’s in a public or a private school,” said James Wendorf, executive director of the National Center for Learning Disabilities in New York. “That is not an easy thing with students with a learning disability.”
“Learning disability” is used for a wide range of neurological disorders that affect a person’s ability to process, store, retrieve or express information.
Natio nally, only 11 percent of graduates with learning disabilities go on to college, Wendorf said. “What Eton is doing is extraordinary,” he said.
Students at Eton receive more private attention, with no more than 10 students per class.
That made a big difference for graduate Drew LaNeve, 19, said his father, Mark. LaNeve has Asperger’s syndrome, cognitive problems and used to have such severe anxiety attacks that he would run out of class, said his father.
“With his disability, he needed the additional attention, he needed the smaller class sizes, he needed the TLC that the staff provided to him,” LaNeve said.
As Drew made his way down the aisle, Mark LaNeve’s eyes brimmed with tears as he snapped a photo of his son in his cap and gown.
“It’s hard to explain unless you know him,” the father said. “But it’s just amazing that he was able to accomplish this.”