As you’re settling into the new semester, it is a good time to review some strategies for supporting students who receive academic accommodations for a learning disability, sensory, or physical disability or other impairment.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) requires universities to provide reasonable accommodations when a student’s disability has been verified. At New York Tech, our Office of Accessibility Services is responsible for working with students to ensure that they have access to appropriate accommodations.
Usually, once the office determines that academic accommodations are required, they create a document that describes a list of accommodations to which the student is legally entitled. While specific accommodations can vary, they typically fall into one of three categories:
- Learning accommodations (e.g., notetakers, reduced courseloads)
- Testing accommodations (e.g., extended time for exams, reduced distraction testing location)
- Access accommodations (e.g., physically accessible classroom, alternative formats for textbooks)
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The American Psychological Association (APA) has compiled a useful list of examples of accommodations by type of disability and a list of accommodations for specific academic activities.
Interpreting and providing approved academic accommodations within the context of a specific class can be complex. Here are some practical strategies for how to work with a variety of academic accommodations.
- Review the accommodation notification letter for the specific accommodations that have been approved for the student. Accommodations are not specific to each course. Consider the accommodations that will be most relevant to your class and assignment structure. For example, an accommodation for extended time on an exam may not be relevant to the assignments in your course. Be sure to review the accommodations carefully, for example: extended time on a timed exam is not the same as extended time to submit all graded assignments.
- Meet privately with the student to discuss how they would like to proceed with their approved accommodations. Please note: it is never appropriate to ask a student to identify their specific disability. The notification letter provides all the necessary information for faculty to proceed with adjusting course structure and materials. However, many times, students will have several approved accommodations, but they don’t intend to utilize all of these on a regular basis. It is appropriate to ask them to describe more specifically which accommodations they anticipate using the most, given the structure of your course and assignments.
- Ask them if they’ve utilized these accommodations in other educational settings in the past and if so, which ones were most beneficial for them. They may have an accommodation for a notetaker but may describe that they found that having access to the instructor’s lecture notes was more useful than a fellow student’s notes.
- Discuss how you think their approved accommodations will interface with your course content and structure. As examples: if you plan to have spontaneous quizzes and your student has an accommodation for extended time on timed exams, you will want to talk with them in advance about how they can utilize their extended time accommodation during quizzes. If they have an accommodation for a front row seat, you will want to talk with them in advance about whether this seating is necessary during small group work, if you typically move students around the room for these in-class small group activities. If they indicate that remaining in their front row seat is the most beneficial, ensure that you provide instructions for how to arrange into small groups in such a way that the student with the accommodation isn’t singled out for their inability to participate in a particular manner. (Don’t invite students to organize themselves anywhere around the room, for example).
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Next week’s Teaching Note will include some ideas for structuring your course and class sessions to be inclusive of all learners, using a model called Universal Design for Learning.
Contributor:
Lorien Carter, MSW
Washington University in St. Louis; Brown School
Professor of Practice (Social Work)
Director, Instructional Coaching and Faculty Training
Office of the Provost Faculty Fellow in Inclusive Pedagogies and Equitable Learning