Accommodations transition from HS to college

Parents Forum
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“If she could register with the disability office and pick and choose which professors know about it, at what point in the term, and ask for accommodations only in those classes where she feels she needs it, I think that would work. I didn’t know that was the process in college. I hope I understand it right because that is great news!”

OP. I can’t speak to the process at various colleges and universities, but I’d like to clarify that I didn’t exactly mean what you have written, above.

Instead of picking and choosing which professors to notify, at least in my experience, the notification is automatically sent from the disability office. This is good, because the notification protects the student’s rights. There is then no question (just in case some grumpy professor doesn’t want to comply) as to whether the accommodations are legally required when requested by the student.

To clarify the process at my particular institution, I receive notices (electronically) from the disability office at the start of each term, which I acknowledge (electronically) having received. Then it is up to the student to utilize the accommodations as s/he desires. For example, a student might have the right to be given extended time on all exams, but know about him/herself that essay questions are the challenge, as opposed to multiple choice questions, so s/he might choose not to request accommodations on a particular multiple-choice exam. Or, s/he might not need a note taker for a particular course because the instructor provides copies of PowerPoints after class. Etc. It happens frequently that, in a particular class, a student might not need or desire the accommodations to which s/he is legally entitled, and the electronic notification is all that ever happens.

What I don’t know is whether a student might choose not to have the disability office notify a particular professor at all. I doubt that any college/university would confirm a student’s legal right to accommodations and then NOT inform some instructors, but, again, I can’t speak to the official practices of various colleges/universities. I don’t even know if the process I’ve described extends beyond my own institution. I can only share my personal experience. I do recommend asking the disabilities offices at her prospective institutions how the notification process is handled.

The reassurance I’d like to provide your daughter is that accommodations are common nowadays and that students who use them are bright, capable, and engaged. She has nothing to prove to her professors in terms of working twice as hard without accommodations. We just want the students to learn.

I would also encourage you (and her) to look for colleges and universities (and professors, once she’s enrolled) that support Universal Design for Learning (UDL). If you aren’t familiar with this, here is a link to a site that does a decent job of explaining it: https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/for-educators/universal-design-for-learning/understanding-universal-design-for-learning Basically, it means teaching in a way that students need fewer accommodations – such as offering untimed tests, regularly providing post-class lecture notes, allowing computer submission of all written items, etc. I don’t know how someone would search for colleges/universities that utilize UDL, but perhaps contacting the disabilities offices would be a place to start. The good news is that UDL is becoming more popular. I suspect that the younger professors will be more open to it than those of my generation.

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@CardinalBobcat I didn’t know about UDL as an official “thing,” but I bet my D has found this herself online now that I read it. She talks about this concept, that accommodations shouldn’t be necessary if a teacher teaches the “right” way.

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Just to add the process at the University where I work is very similar as to what @CardinalBobcat described. The professors are sent a notification from the office of accommodations from any student that has an accommodation with the letter stating what the accommodation is but it’s up to the student to decide if they wish to use it for any specific instance.

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OP, the other thing we did was speak with the disability office of my daughter’s first choice school. I also looked at what documentation was required and tried to get a feel for how the office was run, etc. We actually met with someone from the disability office in the spring, prior to DD formally accepting admission. We were hoping to be able to get a sense of how easy or difficult it would be to work with that office. While I can’t say DD would have outright rejected the college if she was not impressed with its disability office, it certainly would have been a significant factor for her to have considered. We asked a bunch of questions and received a great amount of information from the person with whom we met. We came away from the meeting very satisfied that the office was well run and was very willing to work with the students.

Meeting with the disability office staff was great in that it gave my daughter the larger picture of what her part in receiving the accommodations was and also served as a nice introduction to the disability staff members.

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I’m so embarrassed! I wrote a big long post yesterday and it seemed to delete and not post. I re-wrote it as best I could remember. Now there are 2 versions of the same thing. So sorry to bore you guys and I swear I do not have ADHD myself!

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When S17, who is dyslexic, dyscalculic and dysgraphic, went for college orientation, he and I made an appointment with the disabilities services office. Before graduation, we had communicated via email with the department to find out what they needed and his GC had sent all of the paperwork up. My son has had an IEP since pre-K and I fought him and the school to keep it in place till he graduated. He now thanks me. At the meeting, we spoke about how S could access services and what he needed to do. Before his first semester began, I emailed him a sample communication that he could send to the DS office and his professors. If a student is registered with the office, professors MUST grant their accommodations.
My son needed accommodations like extra time, copies of class notes and special seating (he has visual issues as well). In his art based classes, he needed to be seated in a way that accommodated his left-handedness as well.
I really hope that your D agrees to put the 504 back in place for senior year as the associated paperwork will make getting accommodations at college easier since it will set forth her LD’s.
My sons (2 of the 4 boys) are proud to be dyslexic. My H, who is as well, is a very successful attorney and real estate broker.
Good luck.

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@jennifer2, I just saw this and have skimmed but not read carefully the other folks posts. I think you have gotten some very good advice. I have been through this earlier as my kids are older, but one is severely dyslexic with a little bit of ADHD and speech delay thrown in on the side. The other was diagnosed with ADHD but I think is really anxiety. I’ll focus on the first one.

I negotiated with the school system on behalf of ShawSon and with the SATs/ACTs to get extra time. ShawSon is gifted – an early psychologist who looked at his test results said, “He is what we call severely gifted. I would hate to be in his body.” These days, they call that 2e, I think, and I can send you an article about him in a 2e publication. This may be useful as he talks about the need not be embarrassed about explaining your LDs or asking for and accepting accommodations. PM me if you would like a copy of the article to show to your D. One thing that really helped in his achievement but also his willingness to accept accommodations is his extremely high level of drive to succeed. I’d say he is even farther out on the distribution of drive/ambition than he is on Verbal IQ, which is saying a lot.

When we applied to colleges, I focused on schools with no or very limited distribution requirements. Once he was accepted, we sent all of the reams of neuropsych testing to the heads of disability services offices (DSO) and scheduled an in-person meeting with each. We asked them to discuss with us what specific accommodations they would offer. Of his two top schools (a NESCAC and an Ivy), one was really forthcoming The head of the DSO said, “If we accepted your son, we will do anything we can to help him succeed.” He received extra time on tests, they hired note-takers and offered to give him a scribe or reader if he needed it. They also offered to talk with him about the courses and get audio versions of books if available and provided access to a Kurzweil screen-reader. The other was the opposite (“Well to waive the language requirement, I would have to make a recommendation to the committee and I only do that rarely because I need to maintain my credibility with the committee. So, if you accept admissions, I will consider proposing this to the committee.” I told him that my son would only consider the school if he/the committee approved the waiver in advance. His diffidence on other areas of accommodations that were readily promised by the first school caused my son to choose the first school, a small prestigious LAC, even though the language requirement was ultimately waived at the second school. One key point. If you meet with DSOs before acceptance, they will give you all of the standard blather about wanting all types of thinking, but it is all lip service. The only thing that matters is what they will actually offer, which they will only go through the work of making a decision once the kid is admitted.

Per the comments of @cardinalbobcat and @dolomite, once at college, he had to meet with every professor from whom extra time had been granted before every test, I believe, and to file forms for each such course at the beginning of the semester. [The same was true for grad school].

When ShawSon went to grad school, we sent all of his testing to them. They offered extra time and any technology that would be helpful but nothing else. At that point, he was fine with that.

People might have thought, “Oh. We are babying him by getting these accommodations and he won’t be prepared for the job market.” And, your D may think that asking for accommodations makes her look bad. He graduated summa cum laude with several awards for academic achievement as an undergrad, co-founded a company while he was a senior, ran it for a year and then turned it over to a more senior person, was accepted at age 23 into a prestigious business school combined with a tech masters, started a second company while he was still in grad school, recruited a CEO and raised a several million dollar seed round before he finished school, won a national award (with his CEO) for this company, raised a many millions of dollars Series A round, etc. [He is not focused solely on money, but I’d venture to guess that his net worth on paper – he owns stakes in four ventures including this one – exceeds most of the parents on CC and he is not 30 yet]. Getting the accommodations did not pamper him but instead got him to the point that he could play to his strengths and be successful.

I hope this is helpful.

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My daughter was born at 24 weeks gestational age and spent the first 4 months of her life in the NICU. As a result of prematurity she has small motor skills and difficultly writing and a 504 through high school She had test accomodations at Notre Dame and did well there. Now she is going to Duke Law in the fall and may or may not seek accomodations. If your daughter qualifies for a 504 plan she should not hesitate taking advantage of whatever help is available. Having a 504 plan is nothing to be ashamed of.

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Did she do any special reading tutoring/training for her dyslexia? Is that something she would consider? While extra time and other accommodations are great in college, her life would be easier overall if she could increase her processing speed. The ADD is another story, but sounds like she can actually focus pretty well is she is taking even more time to do her work and take tests. Extra time did not help my kid with ADD Inattentive because the extra time did not help him focus on the work at hand.

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Extra time and Ritalin combined helped my ADHD kid a lot, but no doubt a different kind of ADD. She was anxious about not having enough time to finish and that made it hard for her to focus. The extra time reduced her anxiety, she was able to focus and often ended up not needed the extra time as a result. Ritalin was also key.

@mom2and, we tried various kinds of training for ShawSon. None really did that much, as far as I can tell. He basically ended up creating his own system for reading and writing (and does both well, but lots of reading or writing fatigues him).

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In every school we dealt with, and this was a few years ago, neuropsych. testing needed to be within 3 years (glad that may be changing.) One of my kids had a 504 in high school, one didn’t. Not having a 504 made no difference. It was the testing and diagnoses that counted.

We submitted testing results and also a letter from the relevant professional (MD, neuropsych, psychiatrist). I strongly suggest writing the letter yourself and listing the accommodations you might want for your daughter. The professionals won’t mind, believe me. That way you can research what accommodations would be needed.One that hasn’t been mentioned here is reduced course load. Also single room (your daughter won’t want that but…), extended time on tests, extended time on papers and projects, notetaker, testing in a quiet room, whatever else has worked.

At the schools we have experience with, Disabilities folks give the student a letter for each professor. It is up to the student to give the letter to the professor and discuss accommodations. One school listed them, one school just said “this student has registered with the O of D” and did not list them. Diagnosis is NOT mentioned but professors, we were told, can look it up if they want to.

I think it is a mistake to rely on the Office of Disabilities for help, or to evaluate schools based on that office. In many cases the Office of Disabilities is a “guard dog of the curriculum,” a filtering agency that keeps out requests that might , in the language of the Americans with Disabilities Act, “pose an undue administrative or financial burden” on the school or “substantially change the academic program.”

Each school is different but understand that often it is NOT the O of D that will be helpful. It will be deans, doctors, professors, advisors, and so on. For two of my kids, it was the deans- who would write the professors to let them know they HAD to accommodate. School that offer advisors for time management and so on can be really helpful. Shawbridge’s comment about schools without distribution requirements was wise.

There is nothing you can do about your daughter’s resistance, though it sounds like there is a certain power imbalance in the household :slight_smile: I wonder if she could benefit from a Landmark program that preps kids for college. She would be surrounded by peers with similar challenges versus the competitive high school culture, and might be able to identify. The concept of a level playing field is hard to get for many kids. I wonder if you could require a program, a therapist or some other method to get her on board, and say you cannot pay for college otherwise. That sounds harsh and it really depends on the documentation you have, the challenges and stress she suffers, and whether there IS a chance she will do okay without accommodations.

Make sure you have tuition refund insurance. I would also be prepared in advance to protect her transcript. That means, encourage her to withdraw from classes without penalty, before the deadline, or even work with college administration to erase failed classes if she withdraws. She HAS to at least have the documentation on record at schools to do the latter. F’s and W’s on a transcript should be avoided.

One of mine, with medical disabilities, finished at an Ivy, and I thought it would kill her. Reduced course load was the best approach, and really made a huge difference. Can you daughter start off with fewer classes?

Another one of mine, more like your daughter, left full time college and goes part-time while working. She takes one class at a time, two classes per semester, that kind of thing. Work keeps her organized for some reason. She has done 3 years so far and is in her late 20’s.

There are many paths. Your daughter may be in denial, or may be right and can compensate. The stress of that is what I would worry about, and clearly you are too. The other thing is that you are taking a financial risk and are entitled, as I said before, to require certain things. It sounds like she is calling all the shots.

Insistence on autonomy is great, but sometimes it leads to hard lessons for kids who need training wheels before they can ride the bike.

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OP here-- Checked back after some time away and am amazed this thread is still alive. I so appreciate each and every comment from all of you.

If anyone is still reading and interested, we had some conversations with D20. I made my points, that extra time was critical for her on the ACT, that we can line up the ducks now just in case she needs them in college and she can decide later. No go. Her denial is strong. In her view, she does not have a learning disability, the ACT was a one-off, she does not agree to a 504 renewal.

So we offered her outside neuropsych testing that she could keep private, not show to the high school, and take with her to college just in case she needs it. No one would know unless she chose to disclose it. Her prior testing is getting too old and might not be accepted. Nope.

This topic distresses her like none other. Crying, sobbing, stomping, she just loses it when we talk about this. All she can say is that it makes her feel terrible, and why don’t we have confidence in her, we are scaring her about college. I suggested that she will need extra time for AP exams this year-- she says she won’t and even if she did she’d rather not take the AP’s than put herself through testing and a 504.

Someone above mentioned a “power imbalance.” I would think that too if I heard it about another family, that they were letting the kid run the show. It’s not like that though. It makes her so miserable, feeling so bad about herself and about school, these conversations just can’t be the right way to go at this time.

So. We will leave it alone for a while and see how senior year shapes up. Maybe she’ll ask for help like she did after her first ACT exam. But I doubt it.

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Neuropsych testing also allows better understanding of one’s strengths. She may be a genius with something, visual skills, and updated testing could allow for inventory of gifts and careers that match up. See “David and Goliath” by Malcolm Gladwell - has a chapter about how the weakness is a strength.

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What about family counseling to get at the root of this problem: your daughter’s denial. Once that is dealt with everything else will fall into place.

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@Jennifer2 , I agree with @cinnamon1212 .
Have you seen this resource? International Dyslexia Association
https://dyslexiaida.org/the-dyslexia-stress-anxiety-connection/

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We told our kids that testing was to learn about learning style and strengths and would help with college fit. We did not present it solely as a way to document disability. We are pretty matter of fact about disabilities. Everyone’s brain is different but the system is kind of set up for one kind of brain.

I think with medical disabilities it is easier for the kids to grasp that they need accommodations in order to have a level playing field. This is too bad because learning disabilities provide obstacles that are similarly challenging, but kids seem to feel that diagnoses define them.

I am eternally grateful for the accommodations that allowed my kids to thrive and succeed. They also resisted but did use them when needed. I hope your daughter can see the light or you can find a way to help her see it.

Time will tell if any of this discussion is useful. She may do fine, with extra work. But protect her transcript and protect your money. You do have the right to insist on accommodations if you think either will be at risk.

ps you can forget about the 504…it really isn’t relevant and won’t continue; and ask if testing in 2014 is still sufficient

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I feel for you OP. Being a parent is not all what it’s cracked up to be… Lol…
I will again stress biofeedback. You /she will see differences in a few visits. It can be dramatic for some. It was like a light switch went off for my daughter. Organization skills and even cleaning her room was like immediate after her sessions.
She was never medicated (tried it for one day). She figured out how to keep a schedule (needs old fashion calendar vs phone calendar), coffee /tea works for her (some adhd it will relax not the same effect for others) but she has to put like twice the time in and just work harder then others. She’s a 3.8 college student. It can be done. She has not really used her IEP but has it. She really needs it like my son for standardized tests so for Gre will look into it.
My 504 son hasn’t used it in college yet for engineering but entering junior year and he like your daughter never wanted to set foot in the LD office. He is very active on campus and has a great start to his resume but finally realizes that he could be doing better (he’s doing fine academically but not up to his standards but it’s a tough program also… Lol). He is not against going to talk with the LD department to see what the possibilities are. This was like a break through for him. This is all we want for him to educate himself on what is offered. I really want him to take his test with extra time. Even just one and see how it goes. He won’t be the only one.
But there is an extra hassle /burden of having the professors signing off on each test etc. He would rather float under the radar per se.

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@knowstuff the OP’s daughter has dyslexia as well as ADHD inattentive.
Again, I wonder if Landmark could be a resource for this family.
https://www.landmarkschool.org/high-school/student-life/health-and-wellness
and particulalry the college-related programs
https://www.landmark.edu/

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In contrast to what @CardinalBobcat says, at the institution where I teach, students must bring the paperwork to instructors at the start of the term, if they want accommodations (that is their choice always). i have never had anything sent to me from the Disabilities Office. After this, students can ask for the specific accommodation as needed, if and when they want to. This actually doesn’t come up too often as I teach a writing class, and getting extra time for assignments would back up during the semester and cause chaos for the end. OTOH, the most common accommodations seems to be for anxiety, and I do try to work with a student who’s gotten behind because of this.
I have worked with the DO with students who are struggling, such as a student a few years ago with fairly severe autism, and plainly very bright. They did advise strategies to help him, though ultimately he dropped out because he couldn’t make himself d the work. I wonder sometimes how he’s doing.
I don’t know if it would matter to your D, but this past year I taught Honors level courses and saw more letters than I have in typical level courses. It’s very common among the top kids.

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Hi Cinnamon1212, I have tried! DD absolutely refuses to go. It’s part of her denial and she is unwilling to face a counselor. There’s no stigma around therapy in our family. Her brother saw a therapist for a short while for anxiety and it helped him quite a bit. Several of our relatives (ones that we like LOL) are psychologists.
So I went myself a couple of times, to the therapist who worked with our son. He at least knows our family some. He is open to meeting with her any time. He offered to review her testing results with her and explain the strengths along with the weaknesses etc. He said he has parents come all the time trying to get him to prescribe extra time accommodations and they don’t even qualify, interesting comparison to D20 who qualifies and rejects the accommodation. He gave me some ideas about ways to talk to her but she has a complete wall up on this issue.