I have to schedule a follow up meeting with my disability resources manager. He wants to know which issues I need help with. Some things which come to mind are:
Alternatives to oral presentations and other forms of speaking (I have poverty of speech)
Rescheduling big exams on bad days
That’s all I can think of
I’m taking two courses at my university this fall, Arabic and an anthropology course. My university has a rule that you have to take 13 credits but I filled out a form with the disability office so I can take just 9 to begin with. I’m so nervous about this whole thing, I feel like the other students not having issues with cognition and learning and so on will be much better than me at everything. I’m also not accustomed to a huge lecture hall filled with 150+ people, I have tremendous social anxiety.
Could you help me by suggesting things you have done in the past if you have accessed disability resources yourself? Is there anything I’m missing.
Ok things are different for me because I’m a distance learner.
I got some support through dsa in my country.
They gave me a discounted laptop and accessibility software. Soncat audio note taker a decent microphone and inspiration to help with mindmapping. They also gave me text to speech software called textile that could read text to me… I used that the most.
In the past I’ve seen people get note takers that meet you at lectures and take notes.
I also get a mentor that I see 1-2x pw to keep me on track in addition to my module tutors.
For my exams I had a invigilator come to my flat so I could take the exam at home.
I also got 30 min extra time, so I had a coffee break and could go to the toilet mid way through the exam.
They also as I was at home let me have the radio on, so the voices didn’t distract me.
While I never partook disability resources, I do know that every professor I had asks for people with a disability to meet with them and inform them of their disability. Also I’ve probably said this before but good luck.
If your disability case worker is good, they will explain all of the services available to you. I was like you in that I didn’t really know anything, I just wanted my rats to be able to live with me, and the guy in charge of my case told me all my different options and then we picked the ones that were most helpful to me and it was sent to a board for review.
I wanted mainly note taking services because my attention span is so bad from my issues, but he talked me into getting extended test time as well. I never ended up using it. I would highly recommend you get note taking services. It literally turned my grades around from having failed all my first exams to getting all A’s and high B’s.
Good luck, I hope you do great.