Charles Schwab, the person, is dyslexic and founder of the world's largest
online brokerage firm named after him. He still runs the company. This
raises an important access question: how accessible is his brokerage for
those with print impairments, including blindness and those with learning
disabilities or learning differences? Are mutual fund perspectuses
available in alternative formats? What about account information and
material about services offered? Please share your experiences.
kelly
The New York times
A Big Push for Learning `Differences,' Not Disabilities
August 8, 2000
By KRUTI TRIVEDI
Charles Schwab, the billionaire businessman who runs one of the
world's most successful brokerage firms, is dyslexic. But, he
insists, that does not mean he is disabled. "I look at it as a
difference," he said.
At a time when school districts are moving to standardize
curriculum and districts are placing a heavier emphasis on state
tests, Mr. Schwab is spending the equivalent of hundreds of
millions of dollars leading a campaign of Americans who refer to
themselves as having "learning differences" rather than learning
disabilities.
To some, Mr. Schwab is on a quixotic semantic quest, something
like making sure the bald are called "follically challenged." But
to others, he is using his name and fortune to undermine a
delicate and vital financing structure it has taken years to
erect.
Mr. Schwab said his main purpose was to encourage schools to see
all children as distinct learners who need individualized
attention.
"What you're trying to do with all this definitional stuff is to
make sure you don't beat the kids down and make them think
they're fully defective," he said. "My fundamental belief is
that you want to emphasize the kids' strengths."
Mr. Schwab's initiative makes the Learning Disabilities
Association of America, the most powerful advocacy group for the
learning disabled, nervous. It is concerned that children with
learning disabilities will not get the services they need if they
are redefined under the broader term learning differences. What's
more, the group is worried that the federal financing for which
it has fought for years will decline or even disappear if
"learning differences" comes into favor with legislators.
"The danger, and where the controversy comes from, is that there
are some parents who would not like to have their child called
disabled," said Ann Kornblet, executive director of the Learning
Disabilities Association of America.
"The reality is that a true learning disability is a handicapping
condition.
Without understanding that, you're not prepared to help them
prepare for a life of advocating for themselves."
The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act of 1975 uses
the term "learning disability" to classify children with "a
disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes
involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or
written."
A learning disability may show up as an imperfect ability to
listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical
calculations, according to the federal definition. Education
officials say that 12 percent of all school-aged children are now
classified as learning disabled.
Mr. Schwab is not alone in his opposition to the term. An
increasing number of parents seem to be referring to their
learning disabled children as learning different and teachers are
starting to use the term in the classroom.
He and his wife founded the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation,
now called the Schwab Foundation for Learning, in 1988 to address
the needs of such families.
Along with his own foundation, he is the co-chairman of All Kinds
of Minds, an iconoclastic organization that looks at every child
-- disabled or not -- in terms of strengths and weaknesses.
"Our model is one where we refuse to label anybody, so we have no
'learning disabilities,' " said Mel Levine, co-chairman of the
organization with Mr. Schwab.
The group has already trained 5,000 teachers around the country
to speak the language of learning differences at several regional
training centers, including one program run by The Bank Street
College of Education in Manhattan.
Plans are in the works to open a chain of consultation centers
where parents can take their children to be evaluated.
Eventually, Dr. Levine hopes that every school in the country
will follow his model.
"We are determined to start a national movement," he said.
"As
of now, we're swimming upstream in many respects because people
love to label kids, people love to medicate kids and people love
to test kids."
Some of the strongest voices in the learning-disabled community
-- which includes researchers, lawyers, and the advocacy group --
say the term disabled may have a negative connotation to some but
is still the most accurate. They worry that Mr. Schwab's
opposition to the term could unravel an identity it has taken
years to weave.
"We're stuck with the term partly because we need to because of
advocacy and partly because it's true," said Larry Silver,
president of the disabilities association.
"You empower your kids by helping them understand themselves:
'learning differences' suggest that you're just like everyone
else, except if they add with their fingers, you add with your
toes."
Mr. Schwab's pronouncements bear a special weight in the
learning-disabled community, because he is its largest benefactor.
To date, he has endowed what amounts to $280 million in Schwab
stock to the groups that use the term learning difference.
Mr. Schwab said that he first discovered his dyslexia as an adult,
when listening to a psychologist explain why his eight-year-old son
was having problems reading.
As he sat in the office, Mr. Schwab said, he realized that many
of his own problems with language had the same cause.
"You need a few people to step out and say there is an issue,
there's a stigma," Mr. Schwab said.
"I need to say, 'I've dealt with it and it's not going to be the
worst thing in the world.' "
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