What Academic Accommodations Are Useful to You?

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Hi, I'm doing a presentation at my university to help educate some of the staff about working with students on the spectrum. A big chunk of that presentation is about accommodations: which ones can be useful to us and why. I am hoping to increase understanding by staff, particularly in disability services, of what sorts of academic accommodations are truly useful to us and why.

I really want to cover real accommodations and supports that are useful to real people. I want to emphasize in my presentation that we are all individuals with sometimes very different needs from each other and there is no single "one size fits all" approach to accommodations. Although, there may be a few things that are more generally helpful like extra time on tests and accommodations for group work :-)

So, if you would like, I'd like to know what sorts of academic accommodations, assistance, or strategies help you most in school. I'm interested in ANY sort of academic accommodation, help, or strategy that has been, or could be, or is useful to you. That includes things you WISH you could get, not just things that you are getting.

I absolutely will not use anyone's name, handle, or other identifying information when I compile my presentation--I'm just looking for a list of accommodations that real people find useful.

I will post a copy of the presentation (slides and script) either to my blog or web site when I am done.

I'm new here but some people might know me from elsewhere; I always use the same user name. I'm a graduate student at Portland State University in OR USA with an autism Dx. I'm not very familiar with the interface and nettiqute here yet, so if I do anything against protocol, just tell me what it was and I won't do it again.

If any part of this post was unclear, just ask me questions :-)

Thank you for any responses!

The only accommodations I have in school are I get 1 period/day in a resource room to organize my things/work on some homework/whatever else needs done, and I also get extra time on tests if needed (Only time I ever really need it is on midterms/finals though.)

I don't get any accommodations in high school but after watching me struggle through trying to take tests in a very noisy room with people who wouldn't even quite down for test days, my chem teacher suggested that i request a separate (quiet) testing room when I get to college. I might actually decide to do so, but probably not. Another thing to consider is housing accommodations. I don't know how I'm going to tolerate sharing a tiny closet-sized dorm room with some stranger who I may or may not get along with.

Do you just want to know about university stuff or stuff from school too?

At university at the moment I have:
A disabled room (because some prat built it on the first floor, so it gets fed out to the non-physically first disabled person, so it's not really relative)
Blackout blinds fitted by the uni (I'm epileptic, but also light sensitive, so if there's any light in my room at night I can't sleep, and then have way more chance of having a seizure)
I got to bring all my stuff in on the friday, rather than the weekend, before term started so that I was already settled when everyone else arrived
Extra time (which I've always had since primary school and never used once: I normally finish at least half an hour early - I finished a two hour exam after ten minutes last term)
A mentor (who's an idiot, but that's also irrelevant. He's meant to make sure that I hand in all my work on time and aren't trying to slit my wrists in my spare time, but since I am and I'm not, he's just getting in the way at the moment)

When I came to look around my university we met the disabilities officer, and my mum and I were able to say what I needed and find out what could be sorted out. ^__^ I actually picked Brookes for the stuff they had to help me: none of the other universities I applied to were half as good.

I didn't get very many accommodations from my college, but here's what I'd think would be helpful:

1. Extra time on tests - this kind of "makes up" for anything that could be problematic during test taking. Plus, exams in college shouldn't be based on who works the fastest anyway, so it's a pretty fair accommodation.
2. Computer for exams with a lot of writing - this one can be kind of hard to provide sometimes, but can make a lot of difference
3. Early registration - depending on how hard it is to get into certain classes at your school, this may be helpful to some who have trouble with certain classes/topics
4. Flexible attendance/participation requirements - this is an issue not only for physical disability people but learning disability too. Some people will probably take advantage but others may find it much easier not having the pressure during class.
5. Flexible registration - sometimes schools have requirements, like freshman year you have to take 2 or 3 general education or distribution classes per term. I for one found this to be very stressful and would have much preferred to spread my distribution requirements over 3 years so I didn't have as much writing to do each quarter (which to me is stressful and mentally tiring)
6. Make the process for getting accommodations simple and straightforward - when I got my accommodations there was so much bureaucratic stuff that got in the way that it took months to get the proper documentation and even once I got those accommodations navigating the mess of actually getting them implemented took forever. You're dealing with people with learning disabilities, people! They have trouble with figuring out stuff like this.

Hope this was a help!

I currently receive extra time for exams (including use of a computer and separate room), a mentor and a befriender, both of whom I see for an hour once a week.

What is a befriender? And does it help?

When I was college I got double time with my tests (if I needed it) and early registration. I also was able to get occasional counseling with the counselor in the Student with Disabilities area.

I had an awesome professor who does not allow movement during or after exams or quizzes.

If you were done with a quiz early, you had to turn it over and sit absolutely quiet until time was up. If you were done with an exam early, you had to raise your hand until he came by to collect it. You had to leave the room without putting on your coat or zipping/unzipping any bags, and close the door very quietly etc... He demanded absolute silence. And yeah, he was more likely to have AS than any professor I've had yet!

His system should be mandatory in ALL classrooms at every level. It makes such a HUGE difference! In other classes, with 10 minutes left, people are parading up and down the room, and zipping and unzipping things. I might as well just hand in the quiz/exam incomplete at that point!