Consulting with Pupils

Students have been advised to make an appointment to see faculty during faculty office hours to present them with the accommodation letter prepared by Disability Resources. While it is not appropriate to ask a student directly if they are disabled, you are encouraged to speak with the student about their course performance and express your concern for them. Allow the student to decide how much information they would like to give you about their disability.

The student and faculty should then discuss the requested academic accommodations and exam accommodations outlined in the accommodation letter, to ensure a mutual understanding. If a faculty member does not agree with the accommodation requested by the student, faculty may consult with Disability Resources and ask for advice.

Common Learning Differences

People have different intellectual and physical aptitudes. Some disabilities might be temporary or fluctuate. Below is an abridged list of the most common disabilities experienced by students at WashU.

Learning Differences

A learning disability is a disorder that inhibits the ability to process and retain information. Because there are a wide variety of mental processes that affect learning, the presentation of the disability in each individual can take many forms.

    • Dyslexia: Impedes the student’s ability read and comprehend text.
    • Dyspraxia: Dyspraxia is a neurological disorder throughout the brain that results in life-long impaired motor, memory, judgment, processing, and other cognitive skills.
    • Dyscalculia: Affects the student’s math capabilities. Students might not be able to order numbers correctly and might have trouble with concepts like time, measurement, and estimation.
    • Dysgraphia: This disability relates to the physical act of writing. Students might have difficulty holding the pencil correctly and tire easily. A student with dysgraphia might have trouble organizing their thoughts and struggle with basic sentence structure and grammar.
    • Asperger syndrome: a developmental disorder characterised by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.
    • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – ADHD: Students with ADHD have difficulty paying attention and staying on task
    • Autism: a neuro-developmental disorder that affects how people process certain types of information. The main symptoms are difficulty with social interactions, engaging in repetitive or ritualistic behaviors, obsessions with certain topics of interest

Mental Health Conditions

    • Generalized Anxiety Disorder: a common anxiety disorder that involves constant and chronic worrying, nervousness, and tension.
    • Major Depression Disorder:  a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home.
    • Bi-Polar Disorder: a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks.

Physical Conditions

    • Neurological Disorders: concussions, migraines, and epilepsy all result in the temporary loss of normal brain function
    • Mobility impairment: Such impairments range in severity from limitations of stamina to paralysis. Some mobility impairments are caused by conditions present at birth while others are the result of illness or physical injury.
    • Visual: a decreased ability to see to a degree that causes problems not fixable by usual means, such as glasses. Some also include those who have a decreased ability to see because they do not have access to glasses or contact lenses.
    • Auditory: an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance but is not included under the definition of ‘deafness.
Self-Auditing Your Classroom

When self-auditing, it is important to remember that accommodation and accessibility are different terms. Whereas accessible systems are designed to be usable by as many people as possible, regardless of disability or assistive technology, accommodations are reactive and respond to barriers within inaccessible environments. Accommodations are patches or fixes that overcome these barriers but are also indicators that the learning environment does not effectively address everyone’s access requirements.

 

The following is a list of questions that the instructor can ask themselves during their self-audit:

 

  1. Do I acknowledge learning differences in my course? Am I knowledgeable about learning differences?
  2. Do I design my course with all learners in mind? Or does my course design account primarily for only neuro-typical learners?
  3. Do I use a wide variety of communication platforms such as videos and images? Or do I rely primarily on text and lecture to confer information?
  4. Do I make my lectures and PowerPoints web-accessible through a public or private site?
  5. Do I provide meaningful hyperlinks to supplement course material?
  6. Am I providing accessible text to supplement image and video?
  7. Are my tests/assessments/assignments amenable to accommodations? Are the instructions concise and clear?
  8. Does my class climate welcome everybody? Do I avoid stereotyping? Am I approachable and available? Do I motivate students of all backgrounds? Do I address individual needs in an inclusive manner? Do I promote open communication? Do I encourage cooperative learning?
  9. Does the physical space ensure access to everybody? Do I arrange my spaces to maximize inclusion and comfort? Do I use equipment and materials that everyone can use? Are my students always safe?
  10. Is my curriculum flexible?
  11. Do I provide cognitive supports? Do I summarize major points? Do I scaffold my course with outlines, class notes, study guides, vocabulary lists, and access to various levels of practice?
  12. Do I provide instruction in multiple ways so that students have a variety of ways to gain knowledge?
Self-Auditing Your Course Website

The following is a list of questions that the instructor can ask themselves during their self-audit:

1. Is my page title distinctive and descriptive?

2. Are site menus clear and easy to navigate?

3. Is my organization clearly marked and easy to read?

4. Are headings and titles clearly distinguished from text?

5. Is my content easily legible? Is contrast high enough?

6. Is my site clear of clutter?

7. Is the text on my site easily comprehensible?

8. Are the links easy to find, and are they descriptive?

9. Have I used alternative text to describe all images so that students using screen-readers can navigate the site with ease?

10. If I am using videos or other media, do I provide captions for audio and descriptions for information provided visually?

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