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The Section 504 Plan of the Rehabilitation Act: How It Could Affect You

The range of transitional services that benefit people with any sort of learning disorder in the United States is rapidly growing. This is through rehabilitation agencies according to the state that you live in. Where vocational rehabilitation and academic focus merge, is the main point of interest with the whole issue on learning disorders, this has be noted to have many roadblocks between the two agencies of education and rehabilitation and vocational studies.

The process of transition within learning disabilities, and the purpose of vocational rehabilitation are to act as a delivery system to the work environment from the school systems. Special education teachers and specialized VR counselors round out a team of partners that prepare families or individual students to deal with the transition phase. It is only a recent development, that transition plans for the learning impaired have taken shape. This is because school services really do have a close-minded ideal on the notion of learning disabilities being a direct result of scholastic deficiencies. The general focus in high schools is individualized education programs, or IEP this is where the school concentrates on the academic curriculum. Social skills, learning strategies, and study skills are the main address of the IEP programs at the high schools.

The inclusion of employment seeking, career exploration, job maintenance, and independent living is rare in this day and age. Hidden learning disabilities often catch VR councilors, and special education teachers off guard with their complicated limitations. Noticing the continual failures in life are not as prevalent in the individual with a learning disorder apposed to someone with, say mental retardation or a serious physical handicap. Many times the VR councilors and the special education teachers will not work together when it comes to learning disabilities, apposed to someone that has physical disabilities. This is the sad case where individuals that have a learning disability have pretty much had to depend on themselves, or their families when it comes to dealing with the challenges. They have not had the luxury of intervention or support from the special educational teachers or the VR councilors themselves.

Beginning in the 1920s, federal and state agencies have been helping people with disabilities obtain employment. It was around 1980-1981 that the programs that offered so many people with disabilities on a whole, then solely went in the direction of dealing with nothing but learning disabilities. The RSA or rehabilitation services administration has been at a headlock with several of the same service delivery issues that in turn have hampered the special education field in its objective of serving the population. The RSA has since then made significant strides in the direction of forging a policy that defines the exact criteria for a disability in general in 1994 the American Psychiatric Association, laid a ground work for the VR councilors and the special ed teachers combined to rate eligibility, and the main determining case of severe disabilities.

The RSA in 1990 had developed a plan to make the rehabilitation services larger, for people with learning disabilities. The problem with this plan was the training needed by the RSA workers, in order for them to work comfortably with people that are afflicted with any sort of learning disorder, their families, and the public school system, There was a need for individual transition plans that were effective.

The collaboration between the public school systems and the VR is a must. The differences in practices and written policy have been to date the biggest stumbling blocks to overcome. The employment outcome versus the special education’s academic emphasis has in turn been the largest area to merge in terms of vocational rehabilitation. Certain amendments have recently been brought to legislation regarding the bettering of the cooperative work between the two agencies that govern the transitional stages, and their subsequent outcomes. When it comes to two different agencies that are dealing with the same issue, it is easy for there to be a great amount of confusion and more times than not a ruffling of feathers. The entire premise of the two agencies to begin with is to form a union between, the special education sectors and the rehabilitation and employment bound work force advocates. This entire process is meant to enhance the opportunities for the persons with learning disabilities, not hinder them.