About the Learning Through Assisting Model
Learning Through Assisting provides a community-learning opportunity for high school students to learn about developmental disabilities. The seed model was a vision of the Individual and Family Advocacy Committee of the Rhode Island Developmental Disabilities Council (RIDDC).
In 2002, the RIDDC established a five-year seed grant to develop a prototype service learning experience that would facilitate the interaction of high school learners with young people with developmental disabilities.
The RIDDC submitted the model to the Federal Administration for Developmental Disabilities. It was accepted as a two year project, to publish and disseminate nationally as a Project of National Significance.
Objectives of this project include:
• Children with developmental disabilities receive assistance participating in community-based activities.
• Children with developmental disabilities gain advocates in the community through self-promotion.
• High school students gain new knowledge and understanding about developmental delay and people with developmental disabilities.
• High school students will receive academic credits for experiential learning.
The Model
The Leadership Academy, JROTC at Hope High School in Providence, Rhode Island partnered with Family Service RI, Inc. to establish the initial affiliation.
JROTC Cadets participated in classroom learning about gross and fine motor, speech and psychological development. They also earned Adapted Swim Aide Certification from community partners University of Rhode Island Aquatics Program, and “Family and Friends” CPR through community partner LifeSpan.
At the end of the core learning, students experienced approximately eight weeks of two-hour service blocks at one of three sites: an Early Intervention pool program, a therapeutic playgroup and a hospital waiting room.
The Experience
• The young people benefit from the relationship by gaining not only immediate assistance to participate in an on-going activity, but are - in the process - self-advocating.
• By interacting with the high school students, they demonstrate their own strengths and abilities, and that they are not pitiable but strong and capable in many ways.
• In this coursework progression, the students learn not just about the condition and interventions for developmental delay, but also experience the abilities, needs and personalities of the young people.
• As the students become voters, workers, neighbors and employers, they will be able to be knowledgeable advocates for universal community inclusion.
