Nathan Porter
2008 Anne Ford Scholarship Runner-up

Anne Ford Scholarship Runner-up Nathan Porter opened his personal statement to NCLD by sharing that he will bring an "uninvited guest" with him to college, "the burden that is brought by my specific learning disabilities and attention problems."  Nathan's struggle with learning began when he was a preschooler, and despite having received services and supports throughout his school years, it wasn't until recently that he truly felt confident talking publicly about his LD.  Finding solace (and strength) from the frustrations of school in swimming, Nathan has distinguished himself as a member of the 2007 Scholastic All-American Swimming Team. With outstanding grades and an impressive resume of school and community-based extracurricular activities, he plans to earn a college degree in business, economics, and social entrepreneurship, and is confident that he can "face the challenges of college life and succeed."

I was first diagnosed before age three as having neurological and developmental problems that affected my speech, movement and coordination. I had an individualized education plan (IEP) to help me throughout my 12+ years of public school. However, it wasn’t until this year, when I turned 18, that I became self confident enough to talk about these issues publicly.

The "front line" for my battle with learning problems was not in the health clinic; it was in my schools and my home. The interventions were educational and behavioral, not pharmaceutical. When I was three years old, my pediatrician referred me to the Child Find Program. Child Find is the Early Intervention Program for Preschool Special Education. I had significant developmental delays in language and motor development that qualified me for these services. I was tested and diagnosed with severe working memory and processing problems in visual, auditory, and motor senses. This affected my ability to learn to read, spell, write, talk, and organize just about everything. By the time I was in first grade, I was removed from the normal classroom and "pulled out" for special services almost all day. I viewed the special services as punitive, boring activities to occupy time. School was miserable for me in those early years. I hated when I was removed from my class, I felt that I was being treated as stupid or lazy, and I was determined to do whatever it took to not be separated from my friends at school. In third grade, when my school adopted a pilot program for inclusion of special services in the "regular" classroom through team teaching, my experiences at school turned positive. To this day, I fondly remember my third grade teaching team, who understood that teaching in small groups, using different sensory modalities and learning experiences, could greatly improve the result in the classroom for all students, not just those who have learning disabilities.

Competitive swimming was an important activity in my life, and it has been a therapeutic addition to the help I received in school. Swimming was recommended as an  excellent and healthful therapy that would improve my spatial perception and left-right brain integration. The summer I learned to swim, I would swim laps in my neighborhood pool, a precociously unusual activity for a five year old. As a consequence, the swim coach asked me to join the developmental swim team for 4-7 year olds. This was the start of my long term commitment to competitive swimming. Ironically, my occupational therapist warned my parents to avoid encouraging my involvement in competitive sports. She feared that my motor planning problems would leave me vulnerable to teasing which could hurt my self esteem. But I loved sports, so my parents allowed me to pursue what I wanted to do. Competitive swimming helped me to develop a strong work ethnic, improve my focus, set goals, remediate my impairments and achieve in the classroom and in the sport of swimming. Swimming helped boost my confidence to take on new challenges. Before long, I caught the competitive fever, and I was swimming year round for a club team. This October, after years of hard work in training and competition, I was named by USA Swimming, the government body for competitive swimming in this country, to the 2007 Scholastic All-American Team, an honor given to me based on my grade point average of 4.5 and my placements in two individual events, the 200-yard backstroke and the 100-yard butterfly, in the 1007 Speedo Sectional Championships in Altanta, Georgia. I also earned the honor of Outstanding Men’s Varsity Athlete for 2007 for my high school swimming team.

My academics improved immensely, due to hard work and help from many supportive teachers. My high school offers students the opportunity to take courses from the local colleges in a concurrent enrollment program. I was able to benefit from this opportunity, and I will complete seven college courses, including upper level college mathematics courses, when I graduate high school. The greatest challenge for me in pursuing this opportunity was not the coursework. In college, you have to self-advocate for your disability if you seek accommodations.  I could no longer depend on my parents and teachers to get me what I needed. I would have to face up to my issues and address them constructively. I needed to develop good self-advocacy skills.

My high school requires seniors to complete a research and service oriented graduation project. My senior project addressed learning disabilities, so that I could learn more about these problems and help others who may feel isolated in facing the difficulties living with these conditions. Despite the stark statistics indicative of the social, psychological, and economic risks, there are also hopeful statistics. One in three successful US entrepreneurs reports having a learning disability- supporting the notion that tenaciousness and developing novel problem-solving skills are shared traits found in those who succeed despite having a learning disability.

I learned more about learning disabilities and about myself through my senior project. I also honed the skills of self-advocacy through hard work and practice writing and public speaking. I built my confidence to undertake the challenges of going away from home to college by exploring and doing well in college courses that I completed at a local university.

I look forward to the opportunity to develop expertise in business, mathematics, economics and social entrepreneurship in college. I am confident that I can face the challenges of college life and succeed. I am applying for the Anne Ford Scholarship to help pay for a college that is a best fit for me. Hopefully, with continued hard work and the help of others, I will be successful and some day I will be able to financially help others with learning disabilities as Anne Ford has.