How can your child participate in the partnership between children and Marylands Human Computer Interaction Design team? My child is a high functioning LD student in Honors Algebra, Homors English, Honors Drams and Honors Science. She is a gifted writer from a creative perspective. She has a beautiful, unigue turn of phrase and can see a story from beginning to end. she is a passionate writer but has difficulties because when she hand writes her spelling and sometimes words look messed up. She also is really good with math and loves science but once again can get word problems mixed up. She was found to be gifted and talented in 1st grade but around age 9 started having trouble with hand coordination and spelling in the written form. We were told she had a latent learning disability that sometimes does not surface til ages 9-13. She has tried to learn to compensate but still we have had difficulties finding assistaive technologies. Because she is honor role she does not qualify for learning assistance that you could normally get through an IEP. Yet she really really struglles and her talent is often obscured by the lack of technology that can allow her to communicate well in a written form.

Please contact me and let me know if there is some way we can participate in your prgram. She is very goal oriented and would be a great student for you to work with in a research team setting. I can be reached at 703-302-9637 or by email at leticia3112@gmail.com. My daughter is age 14 and is in middle school.
Thank you,
Leticia Willcockson

Staff comment:

Hi Leticia,

You may reach the Kidsteam program at the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab through this Web site: http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/kiddesign/

Allison Druin is the best person to contact.

Hope that helps!

Amy