Professors - Students With Special Needs

One of the most drastic changes on college and university campuses in recent years has been the influx of those with physical, mental or psychological limitations who are looking to equip themselves for a more significant role in our society. In the last several years, a steadily increasing number of students with a wide array of challenges are pursuing a college education. As have other "minority groups," students with disabilities (and their families) have become quite politically active and assertive in recent years, expecting the educational community to more fully address their specific needs. Faculty members know that they would do well to accommodate such reasonable requests. (Note: Generally, there is an office of support for students with disabilities on campus. It is wise to see counsel and suggestions from the staff of these offices).

While it is important that we identify and impose high standards for all students in our classes, it is also critical that we seek to understand the backgrounds of each of our students and adopt a degree of flexibility in our interactions with them. The willingness to first understand the special conditions that influence students enables us to treat each as an individual.

Recent state and federal legislation require post secondary institutions to adapt policies that will guarantee full access to educational resources by persons with disabilities. Since these provisions have the backing of the courts, it is imperative that you know if any students in your classes have special needs and what accommodations must be made for them.

There are several ways to determine what special needs students might have. At one of our institutions, all course syllabi must contain some version of the following statement:

Each student who qualifies with a disability is to provide the instructor with a letter from the Disability Resource Center on campus stating the appropriate accommodations for this course. If you have a documented disability and wish to discuss how these academic accommodations will be implemented for this course, please contact the instructor as soon as possible.

If you have not already been notified of the requirement to use such a statement in your course syllabi, it would be prudent to check to find out if there is a required wording for such a statement. Even if there is not a requirement, however, you will want to include such a statement and then to make reasonable accommodations for the students who need them.

Asking the students to talk to you about their challenges during their initial office visit will help you organize learning materials to accommodate their needs. For example, in one of my classes, there were two students with special needs. Lydia was legally blind, with only one eye that allowed her to read magnified text. Although she was quite adept at using the computer, she frequently needed more time to complete assignments (particularly in class examinations) than her classmates because it took her longer to proofread her responses. Lydia used "readers" to help her get through the massive amounts of required reading for the class. Several accommodations were made for Lydia, including:

• Reproducing print materials in 16-point font, which were sent to her as e-mail attachments. Thus, she could enlarge them further if necessary, and was not subject to scrutiny from her peers.
• An extra copy (full size) of all PowerPoint slides used in class was provided to her so that she could review them at home.
• All examinations were produced in 16-point font, and Lydia was allowed to use her laptop with accompanied magnifier to answer the questions. Following consultation with the professor, she was given additional time to complete examinations.
• When Lydia lost one of her readers and could not locate another, Lydia gave me permission to announce her situation to the class. There were several students who volunteered to help.

Natasha was another special needs student. Natasha had a neurological problem that affected her muscles. She could not sit in one position for longer than 15-20 minutes. Her hands would get sore if she tried to take notes for too long. At times, she had massive muscular spasms and she needed to lie down to relieve the pain. Accommodations for Natasha were relatively simple.

• She brought a lounge chair to class that was set up in the back of the room, away from the main traffic flow. She took a seat on an aisle in the class, but after 15-20 minutes, would move to the lounge chair and stretch out. During the 3 hour class sessions, she would rotate between a regular seat, the lounge chair, and standing.
• She brought a tape recorder to class to record the lecture, and other classroom activities, and supplemented these recordings with notes she could take. Other students shared their notes with her.
• Because of her inability to sit for extended periods, Natasha was given additional time to complete in-class examinations. Although she never asked for more time for out of class assignments, it was rather common knowledge that she required longer to complete assignments than did other students, except perhaps for Lydia.

Accommodating these students was not difficult. Fellow students understood the accommodations and volunteered to help any way they could. They were particularly helpful when group presentations were done, and ensured that these two young women had roles that they could accomplish without undue hardship. Both of these students were excellent with verbal communications, and often were central to the presentations with other students providing visual aids and other resources that fostered the learning of all. While some might see the accommodation of these students' needs a hardship for the professor, the paradoxical truth was that it was a rich learning opportunity for the "majority" students.

You are a facilitator of learning--no matter what your discipline is and no matter whether you 'teach' in a lecture hall, lab, seminar room, or classroom. In the vast majority of cases, students with disabilities will work with you to help themselves learn.

You can learn much more about teaching all the different kinds of students who are in today's college classroom by reading the book *Teaching College in an Age of Accountability* (Allyn & Bacon). The book was written by Richard Lyons & Meggin McIntosh (the author of this article).

To learn more ideas that you can use as a faculty member, be sure to check out http://TopTenProductivityTips and access the free resources at http://meggin.com

(c) 2008 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., "The Ph.D. of Productivity"(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh changes what people know, feel, dream, and do. Sound interesting? It is!