The experiences people are reporting of supporting students in a university setting sound very familiar :-) I'm the
disability support coordinator for my school, an role that I get 1 hour per week for off from teaching duties. We are
lucky in that the people in our main disability support department, the folks who aactually do assessments and set
up accomodation plans, are really excellent--they do not see themselves as gatekeepers but as facilitators. One of
them told me it's because she grew up working class (like most of our students) and so has always been aware of
class privilege, figures anything that evens the playing field for "our kids" is fair :-) It may help that our area
(northeast England) has a very high proportion of people with disabilities compared to other regions, a legacy of
industries like coal mining and shipbuilding, as well as of poverty and deprivation--you can still see older people
with the effects of rickets here, for example, and poorer people here are markedly shorter than people elsewhere in
the UK. With so many neighbors and parents on disability benefit, there may be less stigma attached in some ways.
Despite it all, it's getting students to out themselves that's hard, and not just those with invisible disabilities. We
had one lad who uses a prosthetic leg and has a withered arm who was struggling just to get up the stairs between
classes in our old building, but never asked for extra time to get to class or for his classes to be on one level. One
incident that surprised me just a couple of weeks ago was that a student who is a wheelchair user and registered
with us, who has seen me several times over his first year, has just now let me know that he's also dyslexic and
struggling to complete multiple written assignments. When I told him that completing one or two of these by viva
voce examination might take some of the pressure off, he was gobsmacked that this could be allowed. I pointed
out that thinking on your feet whilst being questioned by 2 lecturers actually shows a whole lot more about what
you have learned than cobbling together an essay with the assistance of books and the internet <grin>, and more
closely mirrors the kinds of skills he is likely to need in his career (we both hope) as a film director. Another
student who suffered a stroke during the term and obvious (to us) brain damage did not come forward until he
relapsed. He didn't want anyone to know, and my sense was that he didn't want to admit to himself that he needed
help. Sadly, he has had another major stroke -- his father called and said the first thing he said when he started to
regain his speech was "will I still have a place at uni"? Of course he will, but he didn;t expect that we would just
naturally hold his place for him.
Students with psychiatric disabilities are the least likely to come forward, in my experience. This is really a serious
issue, as mental health care in our region is not very good and the university offers a counseling service only. I've
had to do a good bit of convincing students that they need accomodations--often they will accept accomodations
if I point out that the medications they are taking make them tired, but not for the effects on memory and stamina
that can be part of the conditions themselves.
Interestingly, I have yet to encounter a single student who appeared to be "scamming" in any way using a disability
identity.
-- Mitzi
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