With support and grit, RCBC grad overcomes early struggles with learning disability

It was obvious �ƹ���Ƶ student Blaise LaFleur was affected by a disability as early as two years old when he didn’t acquire speech like babies tend to do at that age. LaFleur’s mother, RCBC’s Director of Paramedic Sciences Andrea Quinn, said it took him until he was five years old to say his first words.

Reading and writing came slowly, too. While his auditory processing was high, he couldn’t read three- and four-letter sight words expected of him at his grade level. 

“When you’re sitting in a classroom and you have 20 other peers with you and you’re the only kid that can’t read out of the book while they’re doing popcorn reading… It really affected how I felt at the time,” LaFleur said.

For students in the United States enrolled in K-12th grade learning, around 7.3 million of them have a disability, according to a . Some disabilities affecting students include hearing impairment, health impairments like asthma and epilepsy, and autism. But the most prevalent type of disability involves “specific learning disabilities”, such as dyslexia, in about a third of students.

LaFleur was ultimately diagnosed with a specific learning disability specific to dyslexia, requiring some extra help, which was hard to come by in New Jersey.

“We ended up moving to Louisiana, and he got services really quickly down there,” Quinn said. “I just had to advocate for him.”

In eighth grade, a big barrier dropped; thanks to three years of , which is an approach to reading and writing for students with dyslexia, and the help of teachers, LaFleur could write complete sentences and paragraphs. High school went smoother, opening the door for him to start secondary education.

As he transitioned from high school to college at RCBC, LaFleur studied English, so by the start of his freshman year, he could articulate his opinions. His studies, however, focused on technology, and he enrolled at RCBC as a cybersecurity 3+1 student.

“He'll never toot his own horn about that, but he just eats up these computer languages,” Quinn said. “And that's just so bizarre; it's so amazing how brains work.”

He found the best way to learn at school was in person. Harking back to his proficient auditory processing skills, the place for LaFleur to be was right in the classroom, listening to the teacher talk and other students ask questions. He didn’t contact the college’s Office of Student Support for any extra help, but for a reason.

“I have the extra support. I was determined not to use it to the best of my ability, but I acknowledge that it was there and could have helped me if I really needed it,” LaFleur said.

Last year, LaFleur graduated with his associate degree at RCBC’s 2024 winter commencement. As he shook hands with President Dr. Michael A. Cioce on stage, it was clear the man standing on stage was not the same boy as almost twenty years younger.

“My mom, his grandmother, passed away last July, but she got to see him going into college,” Quinn said. “I’ll always remember her saying, after the switch happened, when you listen to him now, you would never guess he is as articulate as he is now. I just remember my mom looking at him and saying, ‘He’s going to be okay.’”