Students with attention deficit disorders, learning disabilities, are seminar topic

CHAPEL HILL -- High school and college students with learning disabilities or attention deficit disorders – and their families and teachers – are invited to a seminar on April 3 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Psychologists with expertise in these conditions will speak at the fifth annual Timothy B. Burnett Seminar for Achievement from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education off N.C. 54 East.

Transitions, accommodations, services and self-advocacy will be among topics addressed, said Jane Benson, director of Learning Disabilities Services (LDS) of UNC, the seminar sponsor.

"If you are an educator, disability service provider, college administrator, psychologist or psychiatrist, high school or college student with one of these conditions or a parent, you will want to attend this seminar," she said.

The seminar will be free to students and parents and $40 for professionals. For more information, visit http://www.unc.edu/depts/lds/seminar.html; to register, www.fridaycenter.unc.edu/cni.

Local psychologists Ken Benedict, Donna Skillman and Matthew Mendel, with LDS students and staff, will begin the seminar with a panel discussion. LDS Director Jane Benson will moderate, encouraging questions from the audience. Then two concurrent sessions will cover:

• how to support students as they transition to life after high school, led by Benedict and parents of students with disabilities; and
• the professor-student relationship, self-advocacy, learning needs and accommodations, led by UNC faculty and students.

For more information, call 1-800-845-8640 or (919) 962-2643.

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Contact: Learning Disabilities Services staff, (919) 962-2643
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, 919-962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu