Learning from Success: The Support Centers for Students with Learning Disabilities in Academic Institutions

Israel has developed a network of support centers for students with learning disabilities in academic institutions.  These centers adopt a holistic approach to the individual while using a variety of methods to enhance academic success. A group of directors and staff of the support centers met over a period of four years to learn together from the success stories that had transpired at the centers. The group used the Learning from Success method developed at the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute (MJB) and widely implemented in numerous settings. Each participant chose a success story in which they had participated and summarized the lessons from it in action-oriented language. These summaries served as the foundation for identifying the actions and the principles that contributed to success.

This book is a joint endeavor of the MOFET Institute and MJB. It consists of five chapters: The first, the conceptual framework, connects three main themes: (1) learning disabilities and attention disorders in adults; (2) support centers for students with learning disabilities; and (3) the retrospective method of learning from success. The second, third, and fourth chapters describe 17 success stories. The stories reflect various methods practiced at the centers – individual, group, and systemic. The fifth chapter presents a summary of the success stories and the shared principles that emerged. The identification of the principles contributing to success will serve as a guide to the work of all the centers in the future as well as contribute to others working in the field of learning disabilities and attention disorders. The book concludes with a discussion of the broader meaning of the journey of learning from success itself.

Citing suggestion: Shemer, O., Rosenfeld, J., Dahan, O., & Hellwing Daniel, A. (2016). Learning from Success: The Support Centers for Students with Learning Disabilities in Academic Institutions. Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute. (Hebrew)