At the Frist Center for Autism & Innovation and Mentra webinar.
Below are my responses to two questions
What are the most important accommodations to ask for during your time as a student?Is there a best practice for navigating disability services within institutions, that can often make it hard for neurodivergent people?
Recording at https://youtu.be/Atq3jYLokDw
I can only speak from the viewpoint of a student though I have wondered how the employment space would look for someone like me.
Coming back to education. Access to education is usually interpreted as testing accommodations and maybe a few classroom-based ones. And they tend to be the tangible variety, like extra testing time, or some software or note taking. The advice I would give is that for tangible accommodations, look at the support needs, subject by subject, semester by semester, environment by environment, and how to make that useful. For instance, note taking has to add value beyond simply copying down what was on the slides as everyone usually gets access to the slides. And what happens if the assigned student note-taker is ill, is there a backup, could you ask the class be held in a room that has course capture feature. That way everyone benefits and it will not seem like a handout that was given just to you.
It is also important to remember context. For instance, noise-canceling headphones are not a solution across the board. Let me expand. I went to my first undergrad football game armed with noise canceling headphones only to find that noise cancelling amplifies sounds like the cannon shots that were fired each time my school scored a goal. I got the fright of my life that day and almost went into meltdown mode. Noise cancelling basically works on dampening low frequency ambient noise and is not good for sudden loud noises. Honestly, I have been vary of noise cancelling headphones since that incident.
On the subject of academic accommodations, they are a necessary first step, but far from sufficient, as college life exists outside the lecture hall, or the exam room. The tangible academic accommodations is actually easier to negotiate than figuring out and navigating your, in tangible, needs. And I have found this part often boils down to the support and empathy from the people around you, your peers and faculty. This is human accommodations. This is all the more important if you have more higher support needs.
So, work on building up relationships with faculty and peers. It may not solve everything, but it can make a huge difference in your quality of life.
And did you know that the disability office is legally not allowed to disclose your disability, so all the faculty know about you is that you are getting x and y accommodations. So, for faculty and potential employers too, the autistic may look like a black box that is asking for too much privilege. Their perception of autism is probably influenced by the autistic they knew already from somewhere or seen in the media. That autistic may have been someone who did not need many of those accommodations, so they wonder why you do, or at the other end, when you have higher supports, the perception is to think you are too disabled to do be productive, not understanding that autism is heterogenous.
I’m not that familiar with the workplace. But in the case of faculty, I would advice students to reach out to them, go to as many office hours as you can, email them, let them see the human, individual side of you. Most educators do want to support you, if they even get a glimpse of how to help you.
And this human face of accommodations can be pretty amazing to witness in action. For example, I had grand mal seizures the summer before I was going to take my second college english course with the same faculty and was going to drop the fall semester completely. On her own initiative, this faculty arranged for the tech department to set up Cisco Web Ex on her laptop, so that I could attend her otherwise in-person class, remotely. This was before the pandemic made remote learning an easy thing to implement. I am very grateful though, as a break in education may have discouraged me from continuing college at all. I did turn up, in person, to her class three months later. Another example is a biology faculty who, again on her own initiative, organized the lab exam, such that I did not have to walk from experiment station to station, rather she wheeled each station on a cart, to where I was sitting. These minor tweaks in your environment don’t make the paper list of academic accommodations, but what a difference it makes to your college success and experience.
Essentially, I want to stress building those human accommodations as well, rather than just relying on a list of legally allowed testing accommodations.
Is there a best practice for navigating disability services within institutions, that can often make it hard for neurodivergent people?
I’d like to speak to the larger issue here, so we understand the root of the problem in both education and employment.
In my undergrad disability studies classes, we had discussed accommodations for physical disabilities. Putting aside the funding and money issues, my impression was there was a uniformity of application of what needed to be done. Needs were tangible, like ramps and other architectural changes were needed for wheelchair users.
On the other hand, autism is this huge heterogenous group with wide ranging needs. A large group has advantages, in its power to bring about societal level changes. But it’s a huge disadvantage when it comes to individual level as there is no uniformity of application to draw upon. So, colleges, faculty and even employers are, I think, struggling to understand what can be considered reasonable accommodation, versus too much, or too little for each new autistic that comes along. Also needs may clash. One autistic may like dim lighting and another bright lighting. Many autistics are terrified of dogs while others need an emotional support animal or a service animal. Which autistic's needs will get priority and who gets to decide this.
At the college level, the way forward comes down to education, education, education of the disability access office, the college faculty and of peers. It's like a gentle bump reminding them that autism is this heterogeneous group and the last autistic they met does not represent the spectrum. Everyone thinks they want to be fair with fairness thought of as treating everyone the same. Accommodations on the other hand, boil down to the idea of equity of access. The late Judy Heumann explains this idea eloquently in her 2020 memoir. She says, equity of access looks different for everyone; when this is not understood, we are thought of as complaining, when all we are asking for is the same rights as everyone else.
So who can do this education, it’s the current students in the university, the autism student orgs etc. that can bring such visibility to needs at the college level and beyond in the employment space. This is where we make use of that large group advantage.
Coming back to education. Access to education is usually interpreted as testing accommodations and maybe a few classroom-based ones. And they tend to be the tangible variety, like extra testing time, or some software or note taking. The advice I would give is that for tangible accommodations, look at the support needs, subject by subject, semester by semester, environment by environment, and how to make that useful. For instance, note taking has to add value beyond simply copying down what was on the slides as everyone usually gets access to the slides. And what happens if the assigned student note-taker is ill, is there a backup, could you ask the class be held in a room that has course capture feature. That way everyone benefits and it will not seem like a handout that was given just to you.
It is also important to remember context. For instance, noise-canceling headphones are not a solution across the board. Let me expand. I went to my first undergrad football game armed with noise canceling headphones only to find that noise cancelling amplifies sounds like the cannon shots that were fired each time my school scored a goal. I got the fright of my life that day and almost went into meltdown mode. Noise cancelling basically works on dampening low frequency ambient noise and is not good for sudden loud noises. Honestly, I have been vary of noise cancelling headphones since that incident.
On the subject of academic accommodations, they are a necessary first step, but far from sufficient, as college life exists outside the lecture hall, or the exam room. The tangible academic accommodations is actually easier to negotiate than figuring out and navigating your, in tangible, needs. And I have found this part often boils down to the support and empathy from the people around you, your peers and faculty. This is human accommodations. This is all the more important if you have more higher support needs.
So, work on building up relationships with faculty and peers. It may not solve everything, but it can make a huge difference in your quality of life.
And did you know that the disability office is legally not allowed to disclose your disability, so all the faculty know about you is that you are getting x and y accommodations. So, for faculty and potential employers too, the autistic may look like a black box that is asking for too much privilege. Their perception of autism is probably influenced by the autistic they knew already from somewhere or seen in the media. That autistic may have been someone who did not need many of those accommodations, so they wonder why you do, or at the other end, when you have higher supports, the perception is to think you are too disabled to do be productive, not understanding that autism is heterogenous.
I’m not that familiar with the workplace. But in the case of faculty, I would advice students to reach out to them, go to as many office hours as you can, email them, let them see the human, individual side of you. Most educators do want to support you, if they even get a glimpse of how to help you.
And this human face of accommodations can be pretty amazing to witness in action. For example, I had grand mal seizures the summer before I was going to take my second college english course with the same faculty and was going to drop the fall semester completely. On her own initiative, this faculty arranged for the tech department to set up Cisco Web Ex on her laptop, so that I could attend her otherwise in-person class, remotely. This was before the pandemic made remote learning an easy thing to implement. I am very grateful though, as a break in education may have discouraged me from continuing college at all. I did turn up, in person, to her class three months later. Another example is a biology faculty who, again on her own initiative, organized the lab exam, such that I did not have to walk from experiment station to station, rather she wheeled each station on a cart, to where I was sitting. These minor tweaks in your environment don’t make the paper list of academic accommodations, but what a difference it makes to your college success and experience.
Essentially, I want to stress building those human accommodations as well, rather than just relying on a list of legally allowed testing accommodations.
Is there a best practice for navigating disability services within institutions, that can often make it hard for neurodivergent people?
I’d like to speak to the larger issue here, so we understand the root of the problem in both education and employment.
In my undergrad disability studies classes, we had discussed accommodations for physical disabilities. Putting aside the funding and money issues, my impression was there was a uniformity of application of what needed to be done. Needs were tangible, like ramps and other architectural changes were needed for wheelchair users.
On the other hand, autism is this huge heterogenous group with wide ranging needs. A large group has advantages, in its power to bring about societal level changes. But it’s a huge disadvantage when it comes to individual level as there is no uniformity of application to draw upon. So, colleges, faculty and even employers are, I think, struggling to understand what can be considered reasonable accommodation, versus too much, or too little for each new autistic that comes along. Also needs may clash. One autistic may like dim lighting and another bright lighting. Many autistics are terrified of dogs while others need an emotional support animal or a service animal. Which autistic's needs will get priority and who gets to decide this.
At the college level, the way forward comes down to education, education, education of the disability access office, the college faculty and of peers. It's like a gentle bump reminding them that autism is this heterogeneous group and the last autistic they met does not represent the spectrum. Everyone thinks they want to be fair with fairness thought of as treating everyone the same. Accommodations on the other hand, boil down to the idea of equity of access. The late Judy Heumann explains this idea eloquently in her 2020 memoir. She says, equity of access looks different for everyone; when this is not understood, we are thought of as complaining, when all we are asking for is the same rights as everyone else.
So who can do this education, it’s the current students in the university, the autism student orgs etc. that can bring such visibility to needs at the college level and beyond in the employment space. This is where we make use of that large group advantage.
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