Monday, December 31, 2012

My Anne Ford Scholarship Essay

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you all are having a somewhat relaxing and very safe break. Something I have been working on and submitted yesterday was my Anne Ford Scholarship essay with a chance to win a $10,000 scholarship for college! It's a contest for anyone who is a senior in high school with a learning disability and plans to go to a four year college. Here is more information on the scholarship at this website: http://www.ncld.org/about-us/learning-disability-scholarships-awards/anne-ford-allegra-ford-scholarships#anne

  I just wanted to share the essay I wrote with you!
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"What does Mrs. Jones mean we will be bent tomorrow?" I thought to myself.
"I don't get it?" I asked my friend.
"We are presenting tomorrow?" she responded, laughing as she walked away after the bell.
"Oh, wow" I thought, shaking my head. 

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) can be confusing to understand. The best way to explain it is this. Our five senses are touching, smelling, hearing, seeing, and tasting. All of my five senses work just fine. APD does have the “auditory” in it, which has to do with hearing. The processing part is my brain. My brain and ears don’t work well together, and my brain doesn’t process all the gazillion things I hear correctly. It’s like if someone is half sleeping. They can hear fine, but their brain isn’t fully on. That’s what I deal with on a daily basis, but use strategies to be successful and get around this day to day battle.

It was several years before I was accurately diagnosed with APD. I was adopted so my biological history isn’t available. In fourth grade I took ADD medication and attended speech therapy classes. In sixth grade I had an Individual Education Program, but I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t until seventh grade that I was accurately diagnosed with APD.

It took me practice asking for assistance, and now I can proudly announce that self-advocating is a huge achievement and tool. I now understand why advocating leads to success in life. All it took was a little push from a middle school teacher. At conferences my sophomore math teacher said to my mom, “Your daughter’s questions are helpful because I know she is asking questions the class isn’t.” We never thought this would come from a teacher's mouth. I confidently can raise my hand and ask for help. I utilize the opportunity to go in for extra help or clarification. Teachers love talking about their subjects so much that they tend to speak too fast, so I try to repeat what they say to let them know what I processed. Other times, I flat out tell them that “I am still confused”.

I must consistently remind my teachers of the accommodations they have to provide for me under my 504 plan. “Please use your microphone," "May I have a copy of the notes, please?” “I really need to sit in the front row," “Remember, I take my tests in an isolated setting?” At first, I was timid about reminding teachers. I felt like I was nagging my teachers, but eventually, I realized how relieved and excited they were when I approached them. Teachers have numerous things to do for their 100 plus students, and frankly, I will never be their number one priority. Once I do give them a friendly nudge, however, I am able to achieve greater academic success.

Another way that I have helped myself and others is by writing and sharing. One of my best friends who blogs, encouraged me to blog about my learning disability. I always knew I was an above average writer, and loved the idea of blogging about APD so I gave in and started blogging. I did not expect to get so many hits. Not only do I get people throughout America who stumble upon my blog, but I have people from all over the world who follow it. The link to my blog is apdwarrior17.blogspot.com, and many parents believe I am an APD warrior because I inspire and help them. I get responses saying, “You are such an inspiration!”. These comments give me a warm feeling because I am doing what I love -- helping people. I should thank my readers because they are truly my inspiration. My readers made me realize by helping people understand the way I am wired helps me understand how wonderful I am despite my learning difficulty.

Kids worldwide are intrigued by my blog when their parents tell them about it. They often say that they want to be like me. One parent told me that his daughter printed out a blog of mine and would hold onto it and read it before bed. I am a role model for the kids, and parents as well. Parents who don’t know about disabilities usually have many worries of how awful and difficult it will be for their child. I am able show them the ropes and it is not so bad. There are tools to use to navigate around the difficult things.

My knowledge of the feelings a learning disability can give will go to Susquehanna University with me where I plan to major in Child Life. When I am older, I dream of helping children and their families cope with challenges of being hospitalized because of illness or a disability. My love and compassion for children who have challenges makes my heart beat loud as I want to do all I can to help. While my family is better off than many others, my father retired and my brother is in college. I feel that it is my duty to carry my share of the costs of college and become more self reliant -- just as I learned how to advocate for myself. Applying and receiving scholarships for college is my way of chipping in so I can continue my education successfully with flying colors.

These are all ways I help myself and others worldwide get to what we want to do with our countless skills. I hope my writings and actions help people understand APD and what other learning difficulties are like. There is good behind everyone despite a little day to day battle they may face. With methods for getting around my battle of APD I am able to accomplish things in life I strive to get to at the end of each day. My life experiences in managing my LD taught me many lessons that I will continue to share with others on their individual journeys.

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I'd love to hear what you think of it! Wish me luck in winning! :-)  

Monday, December 17, 2012

A Fun Way to Learn Vocabulary -- Imagine That!

If you’ve ever had an iPhone or iPad, I’m going to guess that the game “Words With Friends” is familiar to you! I think you can play it through Facebook now too. It’s a pretty popular game, and now there is “Hanging With Friends”, and “Scramble With Friends.” It’s not supposed to be an educational game. It’s just supposed to be another app that steals your money and time, and sucks you into the fun. These games do steal your money, and suck you into the fun, but I’ve kind of found also that they are educational. I highly encourage kids that struggle with vocabulary to play them!
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Let me explain these three games to you. “Hanging With Friends” is essentially Hangman, and you are given 5 balloons that you are hanging from. Each time you don’t guess a word correctly (you’re given only 5 letters that you can get wrong), one of your balloons will pop. The first one to fall loses. “Scramble With Friends” is basically a 4 by 4 grid with random letters, and you have to find words within the grid, and you receive points for different combinations. “Words With Friends” is exactly like scrabble. You get 7 letters, and have to make words off of other words played by your friend playing, and you receive a certain amount of points per turn. Each letter has a different amount of points, and sometimes you can land on a “bonus” part of the playing board and get more points that way.

ANYWAYS. These game have helped my vocabulary. I wasn’t at all expecting to learn new words because my memory tends to quickly forget stuff that I’m not interested in. BUT, since the games “suck me into the fun” I pay attention more because they interest me. I am very competitive, and like winning. I want to know how whomever I am playing against came up with such a funky looking word. So, I study the word and sometimes they are words I have never heard of. I’ll message them and ask “What kind of word is that??” and they tell me, or I’ll just look it up myself. But truthfully I am lazy sometimes and don’t do either of those, but I do ponder upon the word and wonder what it means. What normally happens then is I start to recognize the new funky looking word, and see or hear it in different places. Even though I may not know the meaning of it, seeing and hearing it in different scenarios helps me puzzle together what it may mean by seeing it in different contexts. It helps me recognize new words which is helpful for me! Just recognizing them is a start, and many times I am able to figure out what it means. Cool, huh?
Honestly, learning vocabulary in school is way harder to remember than the word games I play. In school, I am given a lesson of ten words each week, and have to complete a worksheet of the ten words to practice using them. After we are given three lessons, we have a test on it. I know, ew! Not offense English teachers, but I really don’t learn the vocabulary because it’s not fun or interesting to me. Sorry. It’s not you, it’s me :-D. I’ll memorize them for the test, but wouldn’t be able to pass that same test three days after. I’m not saying if you were to quiz me on the words in the word games I play that I would remember all of those, but I am learning and recognizing new words from the game which is pretty cool!
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These games are fun, but they also have helped me recognize new words and sometimes I am able to puzzle what they mean out after seeing and hearing the same weird words in different scenarios. It’s FUN! Get playing :-D