Interview with Donna Curran, History 150 Spring 2020, Conducted by Darby Henn, March 10th, 2020.

 

 

Biography:

I interviewed my aunt, Donna Curran, who currently resides in Seattle. She currently serves as a speech pathologist at various schools in her area. After completing both her undergraduate and masters degrees in Communicative Disorders, Donna worked as an English as a second language preschool teacher for a few months before being employed to work abroad for the Department of Defense. Donna has worked in a more rural and small military base school in Germany to a more populated school in Okinawa. While working abroad for the Department of Defense, she met her husband, Tom Curran, who was deployed with the United States Air force. Together they moved with their family to multiple bases abroad and at home. With around 35 years of her certificate of competency in communicative disorders and around 24 years of work experience in a diverse array of locations, Donna Curran can speak to many changes she has witnessed in the accessibility of education for students with specialized needs. More specific details on Donna’s career will be touched on in the interview. 

 

Research:

Upon completion of my interview, I was interested in learning more about technology’s role in assisting students with specialized educational needs. I found in an online journal of educational technology that “technology has the potential to contribute to a better quality of life for students with intellectual disabilities” and can help “students with disabilities overcome the academic difficulties that they face” (Alnahdi). Technology is rapidly advancing and even the past five years have showed significant progress. Alnahdi went on to describe the importance of Universal Design for Learning (or UDL) that Donna Curran mentioned in the interview. The journal describes that UDL’s “provides flexibility in the ways information is presented” and “reduces barriers in instruction” (Alnahdi). Curran explained that UDL’s allow her students to have accommodations such as having a test read out loud or a dictionary present to look up unknown words. This works to ensure students at any level can have access to an education in which they can succeed, just as Alnadi alluded to. Building on this idea, Shah reports in their academic journal that new iPad applications can be used to assist students who are deaf, autistic, or have a wide range of disabilities. Just as Curran describes in the interview, Shah explains that “tablet computers are useful for students with disabilities because some of the applications available for them easily and cheaply replace bulky, expensive older forms of assistive technology” (Shah). Doing away with the expensive and impractical assistive technology of the past, these new technological advances offer a “sense of independence” and “instant gratification for students with limited patience” (Shah). 

However, as Donna Curran describes in the interview, these technological advances can actually act as a barrier to accommodate students when improperly placed. Ludlow explains in her research article that some educators “have warned against the perils of an over-reliance on technology in educational practice” (Ludlow). Additionally, Ludlow warns that technology can not be used as a “cure-all” and outside instruction and intervention is much needed (Ludlow). Another issue that can arise is the accessibility and affordability of such revolutionary technology. Alnahdi explains that sometimes technology can be “too expensive for families or schools to afford” and thus requires significant funding from the schools that is not always plausible in low income areas (Alnahdi). 

Overall, through my research I found the tug and pull of perspectives on technology in the special education field. As Donna Curran speaks to in her interview, significant changes and incredible efforts to make education more accessible have been made, but there is still much work be done and perhaps not all of it can be addressed through the realm of technology.

 

Alnahdi, Ghaleb. “Assistive Technology in Special Education and the Universal Design for Learning.” Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology-TOJET 13.2 (2014): 18-23.

Ludlow, Barbara L. “Technology and teacher education in special education: Disaster or deliverance?.” Teacher Education and Special Education 24.2 (2001): 143-163.

Shah, Nirvi. “Special education pupils find learning tool in iPad applications.” Education week 30.22 (2011): 1-16.

 

Transcript:

DH: Since you’ve already indicated your consent to have this interview recorded. Could you please start by introducing yourself? 

DC: Okay. I am, do you want all demographics?

DH: Sure, yeah!

DC: I’m a 58 year old white woman working in the field Education. I have my master’s degree in Communicative Disorders and I have my undergraduate degree as well in Communicative Disorders. I went to school and I graduated from my grad program in the fall of 1986 and I started in 1980. After my masters, I did get my clinical Certificate of competency through our American Speech Hearing Association, which I’ve continued to hold. So that’s almost 35 years that I’ve held my certification with clock hour and credit renewal. There have been several years where I took time off either due to family or due to move that we ended up not staying in an area for more than a half a six month period of time with the military. That was, you know, with Tom’s [her husband’s] profession [position in the Airforce], not specifically directed at mine but obviously following him around, interrupted some of my work years.  After graduating from grad school to get those, we call them our C’s, the clinical Certificate of competency, after graduating we took what now you take as it is considered a practice. We took kind of a board exam, licensure like a nurse, but it is a board of cumulative information that we were to have learned throughout our program. In addition, we needed a certain number of hours in each disability area that we serve, which is multiple. I think I’m currently with the years that I took off at like 23 or 24 years work experience and 35 years since I graduated.

DH: Wow, that’s amazing. It’s cool to hear like all of the different steps of it. I have a few friends who are, pursuing speech pathology right now. So it’s cool to hear all the steps involved.

DC: It’s yeah. And there’s even more. That’s one thing that has evolved over time in the field is there’s even more areas of specialization. So it’s a little overwhelming sometimes. And I admire your friends that are going into the field. It’s been a fit for us, but it’s, it’s a tough course of action. So it’s great.

DH: Right, there’s a lot involved. And I guess just like hearing you talk about it, what led you to your current profession? Was it something you knew you always wanted to do? Or was it something that more kind of just evolved with time and being in college?

DC: Combination of both. I always had a drive or desire to do something that was connected with people, that was connected with helping, and I considered education. I was very interested as soon as I graduated from high school because I was also involved in band in high school and then also in college. I was very interested in music therapy. And then I did my exchange summer down in Brazil, one of my host sisters was a communications major. And so I kind of got interested in the communications piece and thought, oh that was kind of interesting. And so as soon as I got back from the study abroad experience, I was registering for fall courses for my first semester at Madison [University of Wisconsin, Madison] and I came home on the Badger bus on Halloween night, and I was looking through the catalog and came upon a communication disorders which is what the undergrad program at Madison is under Communicative Disorders, instead of like a speech language pathology or audio. And so that to me, struck enough of a chord of interest to kind of combine the idea of kind of interested in communication, but also kind of that the therapy piece and the music. It didn’t lead anywhere with music, but it was a kind of similar vein of interest.

DH: That’s cool that you were able to combine multiple of your interests, kind of into one major that came together.

DC: One of those kind of aha moments where I stumbled upon the major, but then it was such a good fit.

DH: Right. After college, where did you begin working?

DC: As soon as I finished college, I started grad school and then as soon as I finished grad school, I basically had to redo a student teaching experience, but I was able to get it as an externship. So I finished my grad program in August of 85, and then worked for six months through the first semester to fulfill that student teaching experience under the guise of the university. And then I had my actual first job in Oshkosh [Oshkosh, Wisconsin]  in January for the rest of that year. And then that following summer worked summer schools just because all education majors ended up working their first year as waitresses and I worked at a preschool English as a second language summer school class with a partner. I did that up in Oshkosh with the Monk community because it was when they had the big influx of Vietnamese and Monk populations. So we did kind of an Americanization immersion. And every Friday we did a Disney movie. So I worked for that six month period and then got hired by the Department of Defense.

DH: You mentioned that you started working for the Department of Defense eventually, what led you to pursue this path.

DC: I was not a big traveler out of high school, but did that exchange program to Brazil immediately. And after living someplace for that three months period it was something that I knew I wanted to do more than just travel. I wanted to actually have the experience of living overseas. And the Department of Defense was one of the few that within my field of special education at the time. International schools don’t have a whole lot of special education support. They’re not guided by the same federal laws, as American schools are, so they have to have the full gamut there. They traditionally have been a little bit less intensive disability areas and/or students that were qualified like later, so maybe a learning resource, or they might have some support, but they just didn’t fall under the same guidelines, federal guidelines because they’re not run by US schools per se. The international schools aren’t. So I knew that international schools really weren’t that much of an open possibility. Somehow, my roommate in grad school and I both became aware that the Department of Defense did offer, they did follow US federal mandates for providing special education, to an extent. And so it was an opportunity to pursue. And like I said, I knew I wanted to live and work overseas, not just travel overseas, and that was one of the few kind of open doors to me in my field.

DH: That’s awesome. I’m definitely interested in looking into teaching internationally at some point. So I guess moving on, what are the different roles and positions that you have taken on in your times and the different schools you have worked in?

DC: Well, I ended up in a very small, more remote assignment, which means that they were a little bit more combination classes, we had a couple split classes, it was a K through eight school with 150 students. So that meant that at the time, I was a little bit involved with a few things beyond what my major course was. So I had pretty standard population of kids with speech impediments, articulation, and then language, so expressive and receptive language comprehension problems, similar to median ESL kind of students, but not someone who was ESL or ELL. But the disciplines within my major, there’s: the articulation, which is just the sounds; there’s the the receptive and expressive language, so being able to express your thoughts and be able to understand things like directions. So if you have a student in your class that doesn’t quite process or put it all together, that’s an area of language that we address. Areas of grammatical correctness, so kids that still sound like they’re early developing language learners with incorrect syntax, that’s an area of language that we address. Students that don’t quite get how flexible language can be. They’re not flexible thinkers or they just have a learning disability and that can also be an underlying piece of where they don’t get the semantic piece of language. For instance, putting or using a word that can have so many different levels, to categorize it or use it, the difference of just how it’s applied, is applied as a noun, is it applied as a verb, words with multiple meanings, figurative language, all of those areas are language that can be delayed because of low cognition because of a learning disability, or because there’s some other underlying disorder. And so that’s the big language piece, then we also are dealing now with a whole lot with the autism spectrum disorder and how big and wide and encompassing that can be a big piece of autism is communication, which doesn’t mean that every student with autism has a communication disability, which we also deal with, because some kids don’t need that extra support, but some do in learning the social pragmatic pieces of language use, that they appropriately use body language, they appropriately read the cues that somebody’s giving them to finish a conversation, that they understand figurative language instead of taking everything very literally, inference skills where they can know that this conversation may lead someplace because they know that there’s underlying information that’s being shared that they say, that this population doesn’t understand real well.

So, my population, my first jobs overseas, were more on the mild end of things. They were more the language piece of just the standard syntax and semantics, that the kids had delayed grammar, they weren’t very explicit in the language that they use. They weren’t very expressive in the language use. They had a hard time following directions with language, and then also the articulation. Every once in a while we also get a voice client or a stutter. But those are two more dimensions of our field that we address. And then because it was in a small school and we all helped one another out, there was a lot more use of my time where I might help out a classroom or teach a module, because since we weren’t a standard Middle School per se, we wanted to provide those six through eighth graders some electives. So on a couple of times a week we did these end of the day mini modules, we did a sign language. And we taught a song and performed it. And we also did an outdoor education which really wasn’t in my wheelhouse, but I was helping out the librarian. And we were fortunate enough to take the kids on spring break. We took them for a week field trip down to the Alps. It was a little bit different the next time, when I transferred from Germany over to Okinawa, because it was a bigger school system. I was in a bigger, higher concentration of kids. And there were just more opportunities for the kids. And it meant that my caseload had a little bit more diversity. And then I would say, some of those fields like pragmatics, the social language with the autism spectrum population, as well as the other huge piece that has been a huge learning curve, even in the last 10 years, has been the augmentative assistive communication. So the the talkers, the devices that started as dedicated devices, but when I was in grad school, they were very few and far between and we were exposed more to like single switch use where the kid could maybe participate with a single yes or no or just very limited, and now they have evolved in the technology. Keeping pace with the technology is a challenge.

DH: Mm hmm. Yeah, thank you that was really interesting to hear about all the different kinds of students you’ve worked with and in some of the different places you have worked in. I was just wondering what are the range of abilities of students that you typically work with?

DC: Some of my students are straight A students. One of my stutters is a very good student. One of my autism students is a very high functioning very high level. He gets all A’s and B’s, still just needs kind of that polishing of those skills to make sure that he can continue to maintain all that. And then I have students that don’t get graded on a typical grading standard because they don’t fit the mold.

DH: Got it, interesting! Um, I heard you mentioned it earlier a bit about the idea of inclusion. In my research, I found that the Individuals with this Disabilities Education Act or IDEA, was recently updated in the 2000s and is continuing to be updated. I was wondering what changes, if any, you have seen in your own career and what resources are available to the students that you have worked with?

DC: When I first started in my field, the Public Law 94142 is what covered the students with special education needs, and actually covered anyone with a disability and it’s what led to wheelchair ramps and the accessible curbs. That was kind of the start of what it evolved from, to my knowledge, that’s kind of where it came in. It was still relatively new, but that’s what covered that and it’s what covered more visibility in the schools of then more severely impacted population of students. There’s been and there continues to be kind of a pendulum swing of inclusion. So inclusion is a great thing. But it also can be to the students detriment. And it really has to be weighed individually, which is what an IEP [Individualized Education Plan] should dictate. I feel like the the IDEA was part of that push that it was not only removing physical barriers to our students access to education, but now it was also making sure that everyone had access at a level that was appropriate to them through a public school setting. And sometimes that’s through inclusion with their typical peers, so that they’re exposed to the same curriculum at a level that they can access it. So it wasn’t just removing physical barriers, but removing some of the barriers to the whole access to the whole gamut of curriculum at their level. I see that kind of swinging again with a push for more inclusion. I also see the definition of inclusion being trod upon. That, at times is very frustrating. I went to a conference where they really emphasize that inclusion is not just physical presence, but participation. And it’s that differentiation of instruction. So even some of our severe severe kids with great limitations can overcome some of those if the curriculum is differentiated. Where if you’re having a discussion on photosynthesis, some of our students aren’t going to cognitively really get the scientific process, but they might get the fact that the hot sun with water makes the plants grow, still being a part of the discussion. And they’re discussing it at a level that does make a little bit of sense to them or they can contribute. So you’re kind of priming the pump per se to get him ready to be able to participate, versus working on a worksheet with a peer educator in the back of the room and really having no interactive part in that classroom. They’re included in the classroom, but they’re physically not participating and that’s where that 504 plan comes in. Because they don’t need to be pulled out to be instructed. They don’t need modifications to their instruction. They just need accommodations to be able to be there whether it’s a physical accommodation, or if it’s a homework, the tasking and stamina to be able to complete the homework. They can still demonstrate that they have the knowledge, but maybe it’s a shortened assignment, or maybe still graded on the same standards. Or maybe it’s an extended period of time to take a test or to turn in the assignment and do homework, but they’re still are doing similar homework, versus it’s being adjusted and modified. So that 504 plan have really kind of come of age as well.

DH: Yeah, yeah. We talk a lot about in, right now I’m taking a special education class, so we talk a lot about the idea of inclusivity and just kind of how that’s been developing in the last few years. So it’s interesting to see just how, like how you experience and see it every day.

DC: Yeah, it’s a big piece of it. And if they don’t kind of cover some differentiation, there is a lot of great research out there on differentiation and it may even be the way even with students that aren’t special education or don’t need, again the modifications. But they might need it presented in a little bit different way to be able to then let you know the information that they’ve gained from it. And that might be the choices of making, instead of writing a paper for a book report, doing a diagram for a book report. That is differentiation. And that to me, it always goes back to the Sesame Street theory. That the letter of the day is K and if you bombard the viewer with presentation of K in 20 different ways, that kid’s going to get it some way. It speaks to beyond the average. It speaks to the other ends of average, both the higher and the lower. That an average student you could plop in the middle of your classroom and just instruct from the podium at the front of the room and they would get all the information, all the important pieces, but there are other students that have other barriers that don’t allow them to access the same way. Whether it’s they’re a stronger visual learner and everything’s being presented auditorily in a lecture and they need more of the pictures to keep their attention. Or attention deficit, that they cannot stay focus on task for an extended period of time and they need it chunked into little pieces. That’s all differentiation. And it’s best practice. Regardless of whether or not there’s any disabilities involved with it. It’s just good practice so that all kids are getting that kind of equal access because equal doesn’t mean same.

DH: So building off the idea of how students learn in different ways. I was just wondering how technology and the emergence of new technology has impacted your career?

DC: It is a huge role with some. As I said, the evolution of assessed augmentative assistive communication devices and even the access to those devices that used to be a dedicated device through insurance was like $1,000 at a whack. Yeah. Now you can buy an app for a couple hundred dollars and put it on an iPad, which is also a couple hundred dollars for under $1,000. You’ve got something that is in the student’s hands. However, that doesn’t necessarily address the underlying issue of why the student isn’t verbalizing. So that’s been a huge barrier that we’ve encountered, that there’s this expectation that if you get the student a device and hand it to them, they’re just going to take off. Well, it’s a different language. It’s no different than, you know, giving a voice to a two year old and expecting that they’re going to speak in eloquent speech right off the bat. They still have a learning process. There’s still modeling involved, that it’s a different language. They don’t know how to use it, they haven’t been exposed to it, their environment doesn’t model it for them. That’s been the hugest piece of technology. But in addition, even simple things like data collection, like progress notes. Like writing our reports and writing our array keys, they used to be on an NPR paper where you wrote and you had to press hard enough that it would go through four copies of the document and then you’d rip them off in the meeting and give the pink copy to the parent the original copy went to the central office. So, certainly technology has evolved that way.

I think now, our district assigns a Google Chrome book to all our students. And there are all kinds of universal designs of learning extensions and applications that can be put on. Some of those are students that have speech impediments, might be using a a text to speech kind of situation to support their clarity of speech. But I think universal design of learning and UDL’s [Universal Design of Learning] are becoming more and more and more prevalent as extensions on all kinds. They’re very common now you used to have bought each kind of extension separately. And now because it’s universal, they’re becoming available to everybody. The reading aloud during test assignments, my kids that have difficulty with comprehension of reading and reading the test might benefit from somebody reading. That’s on state tests, that’s on their chapter test, but they have that option to have it read that’s built right into their Chrome books. They also have some definitions that are available like a dictionary that you can look up the definition of a word that you might not understand during a test taking question. Or spellcheck that they can go back. Or Grammarly they can go back in and check and edit that way to support the finished product. So those are all UDL’s that because a lot of my caseload are, relatively typical peers, maybe a little bit delayed can help support and facilitate making sure that they have access at a level at/on a commensurate level to their peers. So technology has definitely changed just in being aware of some of those and being aware of the strengths and challenges that my students do encounter.

DH: Yeah, that’s awesome and it will be interesting to see how that continues to evolve as technology also continues to advance just when I’m teaching. 

DC: Absolutely. And they’ve already gone through different iterations of, whiteboards and interactive whiteboards. And now they’re kind of taking them away and just mirroring on your laptop or your iPad. Because I mean, my learning curve in the last 10 years since being here and started a little bit in with iPad stuff in Vegas, but even in the last, it’s probably been the last five to seven years, it’s just continued to exponentially increase what’s available and then trying to keep it trying to find time to know how to use it. So when they first came out with some of these talker apps on iPads, they looked and functioned totally differently because it used to be you had to build it yourself from the bottom up and put in what you thought the student might need to access. Well, now they’ve gone and said, well really you need to give them a gamut of full accessibility to what they might want to talk about if you want them to talk. Because if they only have four choices on a board, you don’t wait till they’re ready for a fifth choice, because they might not want one of the four choices. And there’s no motivation to use it, because they can’t achieve what they need or want to fulfill themselves. So even philosophically, in the last five to seven years, things continue to change and grow and technology’s bigger and better and more of it. So it will be very interesting to see even in in your college career and when you step out and are ready to take your first job, what it looks like and how different it is. 

DH: Yes, it will definitely be interesting. So I guess my final question is, looking at both technology but also beyond technology, where do you still see areas for improvement to fully accommodate and include all students that you work with?

DC: Anything that removes, again, the barrier of helping my students to communicate with their peers, to communicate with their community, to communicate on a job, is what my goal is since I’m primarily in the high school level right now. At a younger age level, that’s generally just getting them to talk. Technology, I think it’s a it’s a double edged sword. Because there are students that really do need to learn without technology because I see the whole give a two year old an iPad and they don’t get the opportunity to interact and they need that interaction and practice from the get go. And I think in that regard, technology is doing a disservice to all the students. It can be a benefit for people that don’t have limited access to resources and all those things. So it can provide enrichment. It can provide other avenues and opportunities. But if you start slowly, depending on it, and taking out that personal interaction by the teacher, the instructor, it can be a detriment.

DH: Yeah. Yeah, thank you for your insight on all the different areas that still need improvement. I think those are all really good points. I guess if you don’t mind, I just was going to backtrack a little bit, just as we wrap up the interview. I had a couple or  another question about your experience working for the military. And I was wondering how working for the US military and working and living abroad has shaped your experiences as a speech pathologist, and the students and resources available in all those different places that you have had opportunity to work?

DC: I would say I’ve had three different experiences. So I started with in Germany in a small school, which was really more of a world school. So the the population was just less involved and less intense. Part of that is also what we’ve used to consider under the umbrella of communication disorders, the populations that we were serving within the US education system, the public school system. So it’s parallel, pretty much what happens stateside. There is a little bit less intensity because some of our students get screened out, because our more complex kids need a lot more individualization and more access to a full array of services. And those aren’t always available at all in the military bases on the assignments depending on where that is. So, if it was like our third assignment which was a more if they’re considered remote assignments. There were only 30 American families in the community. And so they would screen out before they sent the families, anybody that had a significant disability. They kind of look at that before they would send them so they won’t even send the family overseas for some really complex students. Now some students are diagnosed overseas, and so there are things in place for them to get treatments, but they don’t have as full range of services necessarily at every every place.

DH: Awesome. Well, I think you’ve been so helpful. Thank you so much. I know you just had a whole day of work, so thank you for taking the time and just sharing all of your really amazing and interesting experiences. So I really appreciate it.

DC: Well, I am happy to do it for you.

 

Overview of Interview Process: This interview was conducted over the phone because I live in Pennsylvania and my aunt lives in Seattle, Washington. I set up a quiet space in my house and recorded the call using an app on my phone called Rev Call Recorder. I put the call on speaker and this app recorded the audio as an MP3. I then exported the video file into iMovie and I edited down some of the content. The original interview was an hour and 8 minutes, thus in order to cut down some time I removed a couple questions and consolidated my aunt’s answers that repeated any information already stated or elaborated on topics not directly related to the interview’s focus. My main obstacle in the interview process was deciding what information to cut out because I wanted to do my aunt’s experiences and thoughts justice. 

 

Conclusion: Overall, this interview was very interesting to me and gave me a lot of insight into specifics of my aunt’s career that I did not previously know. Additionally, it gave me valuable information that I can take with me into my own desired profession (elementary education). I think it was a bit easier than I anticipated to go “off script” because my aunt is very easy to talk to and brought up a bunch of information that I was interested in hearing more about. I think the overall flow of the interview was pretty good, however I do think I could cut out saying “um” and “like” in my questions and I could have added more specific questions to break up long stretches of dialogue.  

If I were to do this project again I think it would be interesting to get an additional perspective of a student who has received specialized education/accommodations to see what changes they have seen in their own academic career. One of my brother’s best friends is deaf and has used a cochlear implant since he was a toddler to communicate. I think it could be interesting to get his perspective to add to the overall understanding of what accommodations and accessibility is like in the eye’s of the student.