Parent Comments:
He was the #1 player on [his high school’s] tennis team all 4 years and plays club tennis at college. He also ran on the track team and played soccer in elementary and middle school. He is a very gifted athlete. He picks up sports very fast (not sports with complicated directions like baseball). Sports like downhill skiing, cross country skiing, golf, sailing, water skiing, boxing, boarding, etc.
She is very concerned about extracurricular activities interfering with her school work. She does do school clubs though and school requires service hours. She babysits and tutors other kids and is a great help at home.
He is one of the top bowlers in the state of Illinois.
Table 42. Extracurricular Activities
The parents reported many different types of activities, with sports and athletics (28/30.4%) as the top activity. Team sports (e.g., football, soccer, cheerleading) and individual activities (e.g., swimming, bowling, figure skating) were almost equally divided in this category (46.4% and 43% respectively). Service and leadership (e.g., Boy Scouts, Leaders/Mentors Program, volunteer at animal adoption shelter) were the second most popular activities 21 (22.8%). A third category was fine and performing arts (e.g., drums, photography, stage crew, dance) with 19 (20.7%) coded comments. Also reported was participation in multiple activities (24/26.1%).
Extracurricular Activities Frequency Percent
Sports & athletics
Team sports (13/46.4%) Individual activities (12/43%) Could not determine (3/11%)
28 30.4
Service & leadership 21 22.8
Fine & performing arts 19 20.7
Multiple Activities 24 26.1
Total 92 100.0
Table 43. Categories of Award Recognition
These diverse students earned many different awards. Sports & athletics (e.g., coach’s award, sportsmanship award, MVP on girls’ tennis), service & leadership (volunteer award for caring for dogs, Eagle Scout, Kiwanis Citizenship Award), and unspecified awards (4th in state, team placed 3rd in state, multiple awards) were the categories of award recognition reported most frequently.
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Award Frequency Percent
Sports & athletics 13 38.2
Service & leadership 12 35.3
Unspecified 6 17.6
Fine & performing arts 3 8.8
Total 34 99.9*
* Percent does not equal 100 due to rounding. Table 44. Types of Awards Received
Awards are almost evenly divided between competitive (30/50.0%) and non-competitive (29/48.3%). The former includes group awards (e.g., captain, college varsity wrestling team, varsity lacrosse) and individual awards (e.g., poetry, juried art show winner, fencing). Non- competitive awards include honors and recognition (e.g., helped faculty & staff during an event, academic honor, for all his accomplishments at school) and two parents mentioned awards earned in the Boy Scouts. There was one unspecified comment: “winner.”
Award Type Frequency Percent
Competitive
Group (18/60%) Individual (12/40%)
30 50.0
Non-competitive
Honors & recognition (27/93.1%) Earned (2/6.7%)
29 48.3
Unspecified 1 1.7
Total 60 100.0
X. Success Attributes
An integral component of the social work curriculum at HPDS has been the “Success Attributes.” Raskind, Goldberg, and colleagues identified the six “Success Attributes” as common to individuals with learning impairments who went on to lead successful adult lives relative to those who did not (Raskind, Goldberg, Higgins, & Herman, 1999). The six attributes are:
Self-awareness—the awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses and understanding one’s learning disability is only part of one’s whole self
Proactivity—being proactive in decision making and feeling as though one has control over decisions that affect one’s life
Goal Setting—being able to set appropriate, attainable goals and identifying the steps needed to reach those goals
Perseverance—not giving up easily, but also understanding when to quit
Emotional Coping Skills—identifying triggers for stress and using appropriate coping strategies
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Using Support Systems—knowledge and use of support systems available, but also growing towards independence
Social workers at HPDS lead weekly class sections on the “Success Attributes,” integrated with other curricula on issues like bullying and friendship skills.
To assess “Self-Awareness” skills, parents were asked whether or not their child exhibited “Self- Awareness” (yes or no). For the other “Success Attributes,” parents were asked to rate their children on how often they exhibit features of each “Attribute” on a scale of “Never-Sometimes- Always.”
Eighty parents (92%) reported that their child exhibited “Self-Awareness.” Overall, parents felt that their students exhibited the “Success Attributes” quite well, with many parents reporting their child “Always” demonstrated each feature of an “Attribute.” Twenty-one parents (24%) reported their child always exhibited good “Proactivity,” 25 (29%) reported their child always used good “Goal Setting” strategies, 54 (61%) reported their child always had good “Perseverance,” 34 (41%) reported their child always had good “Emotional Coping Skills,” and 36 (41%) reported their child always exhibited good “Use of Support Systems.”
In order to describe how well students exhibited the “Success Attributes” overall, the ratings for the features of each “Success Attribute” were averaged. Students with stronger “Use of Support Systems” had more in-school assistance in elementary, middle/junior high, and high school, more accommodations post-HPDS overall and more accommodations on the ACT exam for students of college age (55 students). Students who were described as “Good students” (mostly As/Bs, 46 students) were rated as having better “Perseverance” skills by their parents than students who were “Satisfactory” students (As/Bs/Cs, 37 students, t57 = -2.627, p = 0.015). Although only 5 students were classified as “Poor” students (mostly Cs/Ds), they differed from the “Satisfactory” students on parent ratings of “Proactivity” (U = 41, p = 0.058), “Goal Setting” (U = 20, p = 0.003), and “Use of Support Systems” (U = 40, p = 0.041). Additionally, students who received academic honors (46 students) had higher ratings of “Goal Setting” (average 2.50, standard deviation 0.49) and “Perseverance” (average 2.79, standard deviation 0.37) than those who did not (39 students; “Goal Setting” average 2.29, standard deviation 0.55, t83 = -1.811, p = 0.074; “Perseverance” average 2.51, standard deviation 0.58, t63 = -2.602, p = 0.012). These results suggest the “Success Attributes” curriculum has a positive impact on the outcomes of HPDS students as they learn to use these skills, although we cannot rule out the possibility that students had these skills before entering HPDS. If nothing else, these results reinforce the theory, and utilizing the skills outlined in the “Success Attributes” can contribute to better outcomes for students with learning disabilities.