Perry Laroque on What Neurodivergent Students Need to Successfully Navigate College

Debbie:

Hey, Perry, welcome to the podcast.

Perry LaRoque:

Thank you so much for having me.

Debbie:

Yeah, I’m excited to get into what is once again, after 380 episodes, this is a new topic for the show, which always makes me excited. So we have a lot to talk about today. And before we get into that, of course, I read your formal bio, but I was like, for my guests to talk about themselves in their own words, like how would you kind of describe what you do in the world and kind of connected to that your personal why for doing it?

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah, sure. So I came from a long line of educators. My dad was a school psychologist. My mom’s a preschool teacher. My brother was a school psychologist, and now he’s a partner in the work I’m doing now. And just sort of always went down the path or considered the path of education. And early on, I made the decision that I was more interested in working with students with disabilities and went to the University of Wisconsin to get my teaching degree.

And there was just such more of a social justice bend on that education that I think I kind of came to education from, you know, looking at access and making sure that all kids were able to get the education that was appropriate for them and what they needed. And it was really just sort of inspired more on the mission of making sure that we’re serving all of our students regardless of disability. So I taught for a few years and then went back for my doctorate in education with a focus on students with disabilities, primarily because as a teacher, I think I was a good teacher. It probably was fun, but like my mind was really focused more on what was holding our students back. And I started to feel like I was perpetuating the problems by, you know, participating in the system and just really wanted to get involved in doing something to shake up the system and, you know, pave the way for these students with disabilities. And so as a college professor, I was a professor for about seven years, I just started to recognize this huge need for more services to support students with disabilities on the campus scale. And had started a couple other programs to sort of try to start to plug some of those holes. The college steps program was a program that we had started and kind of focused more on students with intellectual disabilities at the time. And then another program called Think College, which was a grant with the University of Vermont where we serve students also with intellectual disabilities. But I was really still seeing this big gap of this student who presented themselves as someone who is bright, eager, excited about education, had the skills to do well in education, but what it boiled down to are all the things that were supporting them was where they were really tripping up in being able to pursue that education. And so we started Mansfield Hall in 2013 as a way for students who were neurodiverse to be able to attend college in a more typical way, but also receive all the services and supports that they would need sort of all under one roof to help them on their journey.

Debbie:

And so Mansfield Hall, that actually came up in a conversation I did with Dr. Eric Englich. We had a conversation about, yeah, I think just kind of gap year programs and PG programs and Mansfield Hall came up. So just for listeners who might not be familiar with it, could you explain the model of that and how it works?

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah, yeah, sure. And Eric is a great educational consultant. So I’ll give him another pitch. And he’s been really helpful to us in a lot of different ways. So Mansfield Hall is a residential college support program for students, you know, who you could say are on the spectrum or neurodiverse students, so students who have difficulties with social skills, but have the college capabilities to pass traditional courses. We kind of think of ourselves as like a super dorm. We’ve got locations in Burlington, Vermont, Madison, Wisconsin, and Eugene, Oregon. And so they’re intentionally on big university campuses because we want the students to be able to benefit from that campus participation. But then all of those towns also have a variety of different colleges and so like a University of Vermont at the in Burlington Vermont We have University of Vermont, Champlain College, and the Community College of Vermont so our students sort of come to us first and then we kind of help them figure out what college path makes the most sense and Sometimes just going to the community college first and then transitioning to a different college. And sometimes it’s going to the big college first and then realizing it’s not necessarily suiting their needs and then moving them onto the community college. And so students stay with us for like one to two years, residentially, and then they move into our connections program, which is a non -residential program where they still get the services and supports, but it’s done in their dorms or their apartments. And then we just kind of are along on their journey and hopefully passing off our support to them so that they can kind of continue to self -advocate and kind of move forward in life, being able to have the skills they need to be successful.

Debbie:

Hmm. So cool. Such a cool model. Listeners, I’ll have links to that in the show notes page as well, to Mansfield Hall and to my conversation with Eric. So definitely go check that out. But what I want to talk about today is your book. It’s called Taking Flight, The Guide to College for Diverse Learners and Non -Traditional Students. And, you know, we were talking before I hit record and I think of it as kind of like, you know, the handbook for students to navigate all the complexities of university. So, and you know, you describe it as a book about how to have a successful college experience, but that’s not good grades. And so I would love to know how you would define a successful college experience. Like, what does that mean to you?

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah, so I mean I think that the focus oftentimes on college is about just class. And still to this day, when I meet with families, they’re very heavily focused on doing well in classes and how are their students going to study? It’s very study focused, right? What are they going to do to learn? Which obviously is incredibly important, but I think that what people don’t realize is that there are so many soft skills that are there to help learning or to militate against learning that we sometimes forget to see what are those pieces that in someone’s life that can be holding them back or propelling them forward. And so at Mansfield Hall, and the book is sort of, you know, set up in a similar way to the way I created Mansfield Hall, and that is that to have this successful college experience, you’ve got to look at like what does a successful college student look like? And so we sort of put those into four different areas, and that’s learning, living, giving, and engaging. And so the learning is the stuff that the parents are worried about and students are worried about, and that is like doing well in classes. And that’s just one part of the wheel. The engaging part is how do you get actively involved on campus? How do you make new friends? How do you get involved in clubs and activities and intramural sports, whatever it might be? How do you find your tribe on campus? You know, the independent living, the living section, thinking about, you know, how does somebody grow in their independent living skills, whether that’s sleep hygiene or managing their schedule or a work -life balance. You know, how do they get in, you know, deal with conflict. I mean all those pieces that we sort of take for granted that we learn throughout college. It’s also we have to recognize that we do learn those things and sometimes they just need to be more explicitly taught And then finally this giving back. So how are we giving back to our communities through volunteering and internships and job related skills? So really that’s the vocational piece, but it’s also the perspective taking piece. And so if you look at like these people who are graduating college at the top of their class, they have all four of those areas. Those are well-tuned and have a good balance. They’re volunteering, they’re doing some level of employment potentially, they’re active on campus, they’re learning to live as young adults independently, they’re passing their courses. And really all of those different pieces really do prop one another up. I mean, you can imagine someone being the smartest person in the world. And if they’re not managing their sleep hygiene very well, or they’re having roommate conflicts or boyfriend, girlfriend conflicts that are detracting from their learning, it’s not about what they know. It’s about how they can use that or how they can learn it. And so coming in from a perspective of just studying and study skills, I think it misses a much bigger picture of what it takes to be successful in college.

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was really interesting reading your book, first of all, reflecting on my own college experience, which I was completely, you know, I didn’t have most of these skills. I got by in high school because I was I don’t know how I got by in high school. But when I got to college, I was young. I had none of this experience and it was messy. I got through it. But there are so many pieces and now, you know, about to send my kid off to university. These are all, I was like, my gosh, there’s a lot to be thinking about. There’s a quote that jumped out at me. It says, you’re talking about the colleges aren’t a place of teaching, but an institution of learning. And that learning is dictated by willingness, interest and desire, not by intelligence, test scores or traditional learning characteristics. It should be a place where students have fertile opportunities to learn. And you say that this will require your commitment to not only prove that college is for you, but also require you to work from within, assertively pushing that system to remain nimble and responsive. So I just thought that was so interesting that really you’re kind of taking to task or encouraging students to be the change that the universities need. Could you talk about that a little bit?

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah. I mean, and I think that first-off, the ideas that we’re oftentimes focused on, especially we’re coming from like high schools or secondary schools where the focus is on teaching because as a parent, you’re sending your kid to school. You want the teachers to teach them if your kid’s acting like a jerk, you want their teachers to fix it and you’re going to fix it and you’re going to teach them to learn. You know, college is just a 180 degree switch. I mean, we still see some improvements, but for the most part, professors aren’t trained how to teach at bigger universities, they’re very interested in their research. Some of them might take it as an interest in brushing up on their teaching skills, but it’s really not the requirement. It’s only maybe one third to a quarter of their evaluations if they’re not already tenured. And so, you know the classroom is a place where a lot of information is offered, whether that’s lecture or whether that’s books or readings or class discussions. But nobody is telling anyone how to get that information or how to use that information. And so to be empowered or to understand that you as the learner need to be empowered in order to get in there and access that information is so fundamentally important that the responsibility for learning is on the learner, not on the teacher anymore. And so how do we start to get kids to think that way? If this material is being presented to me, I want it, how do I remove the barriers to go and get it without expecting people to do it for me? And, you know, I just did a talk with a bunch of parents just recently and I said, you know, the problem with parents only advocating for their children up and through high school is that the kids are kind of left without those really important skills. And at some point, the job of a parent is over and we can scream and yell and do everything we want to try to change some of these systems. But really what we have to do is be focused on this generation of students with disabilities and diverse learning needs coming up to sort of be the change they want to see in the world that they’ve got to go in there and advocate for the things that they need to advocate for changes in the university. And that doesn’t make it easier. It just means making it more accessible for diverse thinking. And so I think that that’s sort of the central theme of the book overall is not like here are some skills that you need to go out and do. It’s more like you need to start to understand yourself in order for you to be able to go out and advocate for yourself.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, it was so interesting. I just have one other kind of adjacent question. And that is, there’s so many Facebook groups, I just read an article, I don’t remember if it was in the Atlantic or New York or something like this about these robust Facebook groups that are bringing together parents, you know, from different colleges, and they are talking about everything from how to access services to my kid, my kid has a test, I can’t reach them, they asked me to wake them up, can someone go knock on their dorm door? So there’s a lot, there’s this kind of like helicopter parenting, for lack of a better word. I’m just wondering, I’d love to know your thoughts on that kind of level of parental involvement, because I think parents of neurodivergent students are used to playing a bigger role with the scaffolding of executive function. And so I’d just love to know your thoughts on that separation.

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah, I had a parent in that talk I did recently, one of the parents said, well, my daughter, you know, she’s in middle school and she’s just not ready for any of this. And I said, no, no, no, of course she’s not. But the idea is that everything that you’re doing as a parent right now should get her to the place when she’s 18 to be able to do it by herself. Like that’s your job is to make sure she’s ready for that. You know, I think parents, especially, you know, in the United States special education system, and I think I talked about this in the book as well, but if you look at just how much support a student is receiving if they have special education services and that’s mandated support. And so you might have six people or more on your IEP team just alone. And those are people who the kid has been told, these are your team. They’re going to work with you, the speech and language and OT and special ed and you know, you name it, they’re on this, on this IEP. And then you go to college and college is governed by 504 and ADA, and so there are no mandated services and supports that a student’s gonna receive in their college education. And so that team, suddenly the student has to put together themselves, and most colleges won’t speak with parents on the phone. And most colleges, most professors aren’t gonna talk to a mom on the phone, they’re gonna wanna talk to that student.

And so the power suddenly shifts entirely to that child. And, you know, we can continue to be the advocates for our children and we continue to get involved when it makes sense. But we also need to be the coaches for them to make sure that they’re out there doing it for themselves first, because one, it’s more effective. You’re teaching them more important skills than they’re learning in class by teaching them how to advocate for themselves. And, you know, it lands better when a student can come and say, this is how this is impacting me and I want to advocate for something different. Then we can get involved when the university starts to say no, or we start to feel like there’s some injustice happening, and then we can start to be more active. But on that initial level, it’s like, what does the student do, if a student can’t wake themselves up in the morning, what kind of skill are they gonna have for a job later? And I get that moms and dads wanna wake their kids up for school on time, but those are skills they should have been working on when they were freshmen in high school, not when they were freshmen in college.

Debbie:

And I want to talk about the fact that you have a chapter in your book that made me laugh called Nobody is Going to Wake You Up. That was the name of the chapter. And that really resonated for me. Okay, so I do want to talk about the sleep situation, but before I do that, earlier on in the book, you shared four values that students can adopt and apply that you say will help them be successful in college and in life. Those were awareness, regulation, expression, and dynamic determination. Could you give us kind of an overview? Is that possible to do in a short amount of time? I don’t want to.

Perry LaRoque:

I can try, okay? But I’ll go quickly. I think that identity and expression, I think those are, that is kind of what’s happening in college, especially for students with disabilities, they come to the world with such a different lens. And you just went through high school and elementary school where like, the skills that you have are not the skills that are promoted in school necessarily. And so you’re, you know, it’s like you’re, you’re immediately going through a system where every day you’re, there’s some level of frustration where some kids really enjoy school and really do well at it. It’s a struggle for kids with disabilities or even just diverse learners. And so, I mean, I think that when they’re coming into college, that sense of how do I express myself or who am I as a person is something that we can all relate to. When we went to college, I think I talked about it in the book, but what t -shirt are you going to wear on the first day in college? And you see the kids all pick what t -shirt, and they all thought about it. They might be like, I don’t care what t -shirt I wear. It’s like, of course you did. Even if it was a dirty one, you did it on purpose. And so how do you start to understand who you are as an individual with all of your great characteristics and all of your challenges combined, because that’s what everybody else is dealing with. And so I think that that’s obviously really important. The dynamic determination piece, and this is probably not what I can explain in a short period of time, but the idea is that self -determination, people often misunderstand it for being, this is what I want to do in life, and so now I’m just going to go do that. And so it’s like, I want to be a dentist. I’m going to be a dentist. And like, that’s not how it works for anybody, disability or not. And so it’s about understanding yourself and understanding the things that you want to do, your interest areas, your self -efficacy. Am I able to do those things? And then listening to the people around you, not necessarily because they are always right, but because they give you a perspective that you then need to incorporate within yourself. So I think training students to kind of think about that process, learning those self -determination skills that are there is more important than like someone choosing a career path necessarily. You know, we all choose career paths and then we change them anyway. So why do we emphasize that so much for kids? It’s like, let’s emphasize the ability to adjust to what you want to do in life and be, you know, be flexible around that. All right. So I got two of them. So, you know, regulation, I think that this is the other area, like that college is hard. And I don’t think that people realize how much that like your ability to withstand frustration, that frustration tolerance is so fundamentally important. You know, stress and you know, and I feel like those are those pieces that we don’t give enough students enough skills. Right now we are seeing a huge increase in mental health, whether it’s the pandemic or not, we’re also seeing a lot of students who don’t know what to do about it. And so it’s like being able to understand that I have a lot of anxiety is great. Like that’s the first step. Like that’s the awareness piece that I’ll talk about next, but like what to do about it, I think is the more important piece of like, how do I actually get that support that I need? And so really pushing those skills. And then finally, that awareness piece is just, we can’t make decisions unless we can fully understand, you know, not only a lot about ourselves, but also understanding our strengths and weaknesses, but also understanding the environment around us. And so, you know, one of the things that one of my colleagues always says is there’s only three questions that should be asked on a college exam or on a college entrance exam. And that is, do you know when you’re struggling? Do you know where to get help? And then do you know how to use the help on an ongoing basis. And that’s that awareness piece. It’s like you’re going into college, you need to understand what your weaknesses are, you need to understand what your strengths are, you need to know where to go and get help, you need to know how to use that help. Those are the skills that are way more important than just being a good writer. Like you can be a terrible writer and do well in college if you know where to go get writing support.

Debbie:

Yeah, that’s so great. Yeah, there was a quote about awareness that jumped out at me. You said, here’s the tricky thing with awareness. If you lack awareness, it’s going to be difficult to be aware enough to know that you lack awareness. Yes. Yeah.

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah, yeah, it’s the catch 22 there, right? Yeah, and you know, I mean, I think that we’re all self aware to some extent, but I, you know, I recently talked about like, looking in a mirror for somebody, it’s like, you see who you are, but you don’t know how you’re perceived by other people. And so even as adults, we’re constantly trying to figure out exactly who we are. And I think that that is just something that we should encourage people to think about. Especially when people are trying to figure out some of these weaknesses that have been promoted in their lives so much. You know, how do those fit into my life? Like how does, you know, do I identify as someone with a disability? Do I not identify as someone with a disability? And I just identify as an artist that has some unique challenges. Like, you know, having kids explore that early on is better because otherwise they come up with this deficit perspective. You know, I am my disability, which I think is really damaging.

Debbie: 

Yeah, yeah. So let’s pivot back to the sleep situation. So again, you have that chapter called nobody is going to wake you up. And that is true. In a traditional college, no one’s going to be like knocking on her door. You’ve got a nine o ‘clock class. Make sure that you get there. And so that to me is just one of the things even thinking about living in a dorm. Right. There are so many you talk about the roommate situation, the you know, I’m wondering in your experience, what are some of the things that neurodivergent students going to university are kind of surprised is an issue, something that they hadn’t thought about before when it comes to kind of their living environment or dorm life.

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah, well, you know, I mean, there’s a bunch. I mean, I think that one of the biggest areas is probably just the amount of relationships that they have to navigate right off the bat. You know, I mean, I think that that’s a huge challenge, especially with you know, people all living in this potentially in the same dorm. And, and so I think that that’s oftentimes when I’m talking to families who are thinking about sending their neurodiverse student to college is that’s the question of like, what about the roommate situation? and you know, and I think we’re getting to a better place where, you know, a student who has autism can land in the college dorm room with someone without autism and we can all be accepting of that. But I also think there’s some reality that we’re not entirely there. And so think pre -thinking about some of those things, whether you get a single or whether you’re able to be at a college or the living and learning dorm, like at the University of Vermont where more neurodivergent students are living. That is, I think, really challenging for students. I mean, the other one is just managing the schedule. And you said you had Eric on and to talk about you know, some of these skills of like, how are we going to start managing our own calendars? Like, how are we going to start to do some of these pieces? And these gap year programs, I really do think the rush to college in the US, I think is not wise, disability or no disability, because there are some skills like waking up in the morning that are very important. And if a student doesn’t have them down yet, and they’re not willing to address them on their own and manage it on their own. It really can be a tough year. And so the title of that chapter is kind of tongue in cheek, but it is reality. Oftentimes people say, what’s the most difficult thing you do at Mansfield Hall? And we said, well, waking people up is really challenging. We’re teaching our students those skills and mom and dad will go, why can’t you wake them up? You’re like, why couldn’t you wake them up? It is one of those pieces where we have to start getting students the habits and the routines to be able to do it on their own. Because if they can’t, they can’t do the right thing the rest of the day. And you know, in that analogy, you can go through the whole day. I mean, if they can’t, you know, manage their calendar to time management skills to manage their classes, and they’re studying and they’re all those different pieces to do college in that first year and take all these high level courses, but then also to manage college in that first year, for most people is overwhelming. You add a disability to that and in some ways it becomes almost impossible for some students. And so if they don’t have those skills to support learning before they get to college, it’s kind of putting them in unfair situations.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, agreed. Yeah, one of the things that Eric said that really has stuck with me is the difference between being college capable and college ready. I was like, yeah, that is a very big distinction. Okay, so you have a chapter on all the resources students should know about when they go to university. I’ll just say I went to Penn State. That’s a huge school. And I was like a runner. I was very much a social person. AndI don’t remember the academics I really don’t remember, to be honest. And I and I’m certain I didn’t take advantage of any of these kinds of services. But now having toured a bunch of schools with my kiddo. I’m like, my gosh, there’s a writing center. Like they’ll help you with writing, that’s amazing. So I’m wondering, you know, if you could share what you think are some of the more important resources that most universities have that neurodivergent students should not only know about, but take advantage of.

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah, well, and so, you know, I think there’s some standard ones and I’ll come back, but I think there’s the writing centers, people have math labs, people have, you know, study groups, there are counseling centers, there’s disability services. You know, some coaches will have like coaches or coach mentors, universities will have that. I mean, there’s a wide range of them. And I think, first of all, knowing what’s available at the college that you pick is incredibly important, Right, because on day one, we need to know what’s there. The problem is that, so at Mansfield Hall, I’ll give you an example that one of the jobs that we do to make a student independent in college or to help them become independent in college is to make sure that they know how to utilize all those resources. Generally, most of our students end up finishing college without our support. I mean, most of our students finish college without our support. And that’s because they were able to actually figure out how to use the campus support. And so that should tell you something. It’s like, if people knew how to use all of those services on day one, then I think they would do really well. But oftentimes they’re on different parts of the campus. There’s a huge amount of anxiety and nervousness to go in through those doors. You know, we’re not necessarily sure how to do it. No one introduced us the first time. Keep in mind in high school, if you needed more writing support, the teacher told you to stay in a recess for more writing support. Like you don’t, you actually have to like get out of your bed and go and find that support and like use that support and come back to use that support. And so I think one is knowing what’s there. The other is that I’ve just felt like if students could just use all of it right off the bat then their life would be easier. And I don’t know how we’ve gotten to this place in the world where it’s like that kind of support for people who are struggling. It’s like that support, if you’re not struggling, should make your life easier. And so if people can go in and start writing their papers with the writing center and learn different techniques of doing it and being able to have someone help them review their papers and revise them together. it’s going to be easier to write the next paper and eventually you might not need that writing center, but at least you know, it’s always going to be a resource. It’s like, I feel like people go to those things when it’s too late, like, I started going to the writing center because I failed like five papers. It’s like, well, you probably should have gone to the writing center when you were struggling with your first paper, not failed it. And so, really encouraging people to really understand what those services and supports are and then use them. The other piece I’ll just say is that I think the most unfortunate thing about colleges is that they’re not required to provide support. 

They’re required to provide accommodations in class and that’s it. There’s nothing more they have to do. That’s only if you identify yourself as having a disability. And so parents and students also need to think about what else they might need beyond the campus level of support. And I often tell people the first place to start is a really good coach. Like I think a really good, you know, sometimes they’re called ADHD coaches or executive functioning coaches or academic coaches, whatever it is, or programs that have coaching involved with them. I think that that’s really important because that person is sort of like your tour guide to help you understand these things and help you build those self -awareness skills. And it’s probably like step one is to get that coach if you think that student needs a little bit more. And then there’s a whole plethora of options all the way up to Mansfield Hall after that, if a student really needs a lot more wraparound services. But, you know, no matter what the college is saying, there are a lot of good programs around the country right now that are serving students with disabilities, but most of them won’t follow you out the door and most of them won’t wake you up. And so, again, those are those big challenges that students can have. They still have to go and access that support. And so just being really smart about, okay, we can always remove the support, right? That’s best practice. Let’s start with the support and let’s titrate it over time. It’s a lot harder to get a student out of a mess. And I’ll tell you, students who fail out that first semester or that first year, it is just, it is not the way you want someone to start their college career, right? You want them to start with some success and excitement. Most of our students start with two to three classes max their first year, because we want them to ease into it and add more classes that they’re learning how to do it. But students who come to us after failing out after a year, their level of confidence and, you know, just they’re looking down on the whole system. It’s kind of hard, it’s hard to pull them out of that. And so it’s like, how do we set them up for success in that first year?

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense. And just to circle back to the Writing Center, there was a quote that I loved about that you said you must use the Writing Center. Writing Centers are not there for bad writers. Writing Centers are there for people who want to be excellent writers. And that was just such a nice reframe. Because, yeah, a lot of people wait until it’s too late. And why not take advantage of all of those services and supports from the very beginning?

Perry LaRoque:

What I think I mentioned in there too, I’m like, don’t think that your professors aren’t getting their papers edited. You know what I mean? Like there’s not a professor on campus that doesn’t finish a paper and then either pays for someone to professionally edit or ask another colleague to do it. Like there’s just, everyone has that support in writing. And I’ve known a lot of professors who are terrible at writing and they know it. They’re in a job where writing is the most important, one of the most important things that they do. They’ve just gotten all the supports and all the systems and all the things in place in order to help them overcome that obstacle. And so again, I think because writing is such a crucial piece that the writing center right off the bat, I mean, I just don’t know why those things, you know, there should be lines at the door at those writing centers and there typically aren’t.

Debbie:

Yeah, interesting. So you mentioned professors and you do talk a lot about the importance of students meeting with their professors. So again, something I didn’t really even think of doing. You know, a lot of my classes were quite big, especially in the early years. But could you talk about why it’s so important for students to meet with their professors and what are some of the things they can communicate about?

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah, I mean, there’s like this, the original title of the book at one point, I think was going to be like the insider’s guide to college. You know, I mean, it was supposed to be like my life as a professor. And there’s just like this, there are just these things that good students do. And I would tell you that a lot of times a non -traditional just to make more sense for people on that. Non-traditional students are also students who are their first generation college students who are at a significant disadvantage in college because they don’t have a mom or dad who can say, just go talk to your professor or do some of these skills. So keep in mind that a lot of this book is also trying to level the playing field for students who are coming into college without the sort of resources that someone else might have. And I think that that piece around making sure that your professor knows that you care, making sure that they’re aware that you’re there, that you’re understanding that you want to sell in the class actually makes a big difference. And we like to think grades are scientific, but they really aren’t that scientific. I mean, there are certainly professors who are between the C minus and the D plus, you know, who can, they were in my office hours. They tried really hard, you know, I’m going to bump them up. Like, right. We, I think I even call it bump up. And so, I mean, that is something that I think other students know that they can advocate for, like the hidden rules of college, right. Like, every professor who tells you that there are no makeup assignments, extra credit, or you can’t turn in late assignments, there’s an asterisk after that. And it’s an invisible asterisk. That means unless you ask really nicely and have a really good reason. And so at the very least advocating for yourself, going into your professor and saying, I really blew up that exam. Can we talk? Is there anything I can be doing? Can I do a makeup exam? But you know, all those asking all those questions not only shows interest, but there are other students in that class, I guarantee you who have gone in and negotiated some way to get some points back on that exam or have the professor be a little bit more lenient. And it’s not gonna work in every case, but being involved in your education and understanding these professors are there to provide what they know and professors to know that you’re there because you care and you wanna learn goes a very long way with faculty.

Debbie:

That’s such great insight. There’s so much of that in this book. I just want to say we can’t obviously get into it all, but you really do cover all the bases in terms of the things that students should know about how to get comfortable advocating for themselves when they need to escalate something up the food chain, if they are not getting the supports that they have arranged with the school. So much in there, how to navigate social lives. As a way to wrap up, I’d love to know how you hope students use your book. Like, do you see it as something you hope they read ahead of time that they bring with them to school and use as a reference both?

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I hope that they read it, or at least I hope their moms or dads read it and understand what their journey is going to become and then nag them to read it throughout the next couple of years. Right. You know, and the book was written to students because they have to do it, you know, and that’s, that’s just when I was first talking to the publisher, they really would have preferred it if I would have been addressing the parents and it’s just against my grain to do something like that because it’s not the parents that are gonna be doing this, it’s the students. And if a parent needs to read this over their kids’ shoulders and understand what they can do to help promote them as these lifelong learners, I think it’s great. But at the end of the day, a lot of these, you know, it’s a lot more than just checking boxes and, and knowing that if I study this way, then I’m going to be just fine. It’s also knowing who you are as a person and knowing that your disability doesn’t define you, that you’ve got a whole bunch of amazing strengths and that anything is possible if you just put your mind to it. I mean, I think that students need to hear that. We live in such a world where students are being defined by their disability and being told that they can’t do things, that they’re coming into a situation where they might not have that same level of tenacity that somebody else might. And really what they need throughout college is just an undying desire to get it done. And I try to use some stories in there just to talk about things like, Hey, college doesn’t necessarily look like four years and then graduation for most people. College sometimes is six, seven, eight years. And it’s just about like finding the right path for you and not getting frustrated and understanding that every new failure is just new information about yourself and working harder and going in the direction that you want to go in. And so, I think if anything from the book, I want people to be inspired that they are capable and are able to do great things if they put their minds to it more than anything else. And even if that doesn’t mean going to college, it just means that like, I’m going to go out and attack the world with this sense of empowerment. I think that that’s what I would want them to take away from it.

Debbie:

That’s great. Thank you. What a great note to end this on. So listeners, the book is called Taking Flight, the Guide to College for Diverse Learners and Non -Traditional Students. And Perry, is there a place that you want listeners to go to online, social media to check you out?

Perry LaRoque:

Anywhere you buy books, Amazon, anywhere. Feel free to buy wherever it’s easiest for you.

Debbie:

All right. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for this conversation and yeah, providing just such a generous and helpful resource for our kiddos. Thank you so much.

Perry LaRoque:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.