II. Interacting With Students

Teaching Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities at the University constitute a population as diverse as the total student body. As intelligent and academically prepared as other students at U.Va., they clearly have special needs that may require your knowledge and understanding as well as the support of the Learning Needs and Evaluation Center (LNEC) (243-5180). Disabilities include those related to chronic health conditions (for example, diabetes, HIV positive, sickle cell anemia), neurological conditions (such as seizure disorders and head injuries), and specific learning disabilities (for instance, dysgraphia, dyslexia, dyslogia). Some students have psychiatric disorders or emotional problems resulting from childhood sexual abuse, arrested addictions, and biochemical imbalances. A few students have vision or hearing deficits or mobility impairments, including temporary ones due to sports injuries.

Constraints

As an instructor, you need to understand that simply managing any disability drains students of time and energy, and their health routines are critically important. Disabilities also interfere with daily living skills. Some students with disabilities cannot take notes while trying to listen; others cannot read at a rate commensurate with their general intelligence. Still others have great difficulty simply getting work on paper (trouble with eye-hand coordination, apraxia, arthritis, or prostheses). The same problems you see in class sometimes mean that they repeatedly get lost or cannot drive because they cannot coordinate information from several senses quickly enough. Students with disabilities may have low self-concepts or be socially isolated. And, of course, students with disabilities also encounter generic student predicaments: perfectionism, pressures associated with family expectations, family responsibilities, and so on.
Reading what sounds like a litany of problems may provoke in you one of the common reactions to disabilities, reactions you need to recognize if only to spot them among your non-disabled students. Some people feel awkward or flustered when near a person with a physical disability: "Should I open the door, or would that be condescending?" Others feel an overwhelming sense of pity and a need to take care of 21 the person. Fear is another common reaction, including the irrational fear of the same disability attacking you. Still others suspect that people with disabilities are receiving "special breaks" and aren't pulling their own weight. Such negative feelings constitute one of the greatest constraints on people struggling to overcome disabilities.
Feelings of discomfort and prejudice toward people with disabilities disappear, however, when people get to know others as individuals. The section below explains how you can offer students with disabilities reasonable accommodations designed not to give them an unfair advantage, but rather to level the playing field. For more details, see the TRC handbook, Teaching a Diverse Student Body.

Accommodations

The term reasonable accommodation is frequently used to indicate that people with disabilities require that others be creative and flexible in adjusting to their special needs. Given a documented diagnosed disability (with information from the student's academic dean or from the LNEC), you may need to accommodate certain students by individualizing your instruction or by changing requirements. Normally, the LNEC will suggest relevant accommodations. Although not all accommodations or techniques will work for every individual, here are some time-tested recommendations:

• Encourage your students to let you know of any disability. You are not responsible for accommodating a disability that the student does not declare or that you cannot verify.
  
  
• If a student with a physical disability takes your course, be sure that your classroom is accessible and comfortable for a person in a wheelchair. If a classroom change is necessary, you should hear from the student's dean.
  
  
• Hearing-impaired people who read lips lose out if you turn away from them. Make an effort to speak distinctly; men with beards are especially difficult to
  understand. If an interpreter accompanies the student, speak directly to the student, not to the interpreter.
  
  
• Make written information available in another format for a blind student, such as reading what you're writing on the board or narrating demonstrations.
  
  
• Some disabilities cause erratic class attendance, which may be offset if the student has class notes or tape recordings. If irregular participation precludes such a student's completion of the course, consult with the student's dean.
  
  
• Sometimes students cannot meet due dates because of a disability. Negotiate reasonable schedules for completing work and record them for all parties involved. When timed quizzes and exams present problems, consider sensible alternatives. In courses like accounting, however, where time is a defensible standard because of professional or licensure expectations, any student must meet the time standard in order to succeed in the course. Extending a course into a second semester has been allowed and may be an option.
  
  
• Interpersonal problems can result from neurological impairments. A student with short-term memory deficits may report never having received a particular instruction. When you know of short-term auditory deficits, make sure the student receives all
  expectations in writing.
  
  
• A student with perceptual deficits may not process an event as others do, may miss the main point in reading, may write an excellent response to a question quite unlike the one asked, or may make a discussion contribution from left field. The LNEC can
  help you discover whether such behavior is due to a disability and can provide reader services and/or social training for such students.
  
  
• A learning disability often means that a student learns better some ways than others. Some students think very well but have trouble with rote tasks. Others do poorly in lecture classes until they complete enough hands-on labs to understand concepts thoroughly. Some cannot visualize well and need someone else to draw for them until they learn compensatory skills. Others cannot easily interpret visual material and must go through a lengthy language translation to interpret graphs and charts or depend on someone else. Consider it a challenge to find new ways for such students to master your course material, and refer to LNEC staff for assistance (see also "Learning Styles").
  
  
• Students with disabilities sometimes need individualized test formats. Some students cannot perceive the author's intent in multiple-choice items but may be able to argue pro and con for each possible yet incorrect answer. Others have difficulty finding words to fill in blanks but can give the necessary answers in an open-ended format. Others have extensive problems organizing written language.

Experience has shown that students with disabilities are among the most industrious and motivated U.Va. students and that they complete degrees more dependably than do students in general, although some must take longer than average to finish. With reasonable understanding and accommodation on your part, these students meet degree standards, enter professions, and succeed in graduate and professional programs. By taking a role in their accomplishment, you can emphasize the able in "disabled."

Education has for its object the formation of character.

—Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, 1851