For college students with disabilities

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ASAN received a request for assistance with a survey of students with disabilities in postsecondary education. It is for a master's thesis project, and responses are needed within the week. Please consider responding if you are currently a student, or passing this link along to someone who is. More research and information about the supports and services that lead to successful transition outcomes are greatly needed.

The survey's author, Jeffrey Frinzi, can be reached at [email protected] for further discussion. He would like to speak in more depth to those who are interested in sharing their stories.


Hello,

I am a graduate student @ DeSales University in Center Valley, PA. I am working on my master's thesis. My adviser is not requiring me to take a specific approach toward the study. Optimally, a study that investigates the phenomena of students with disabilities transitioning to college should probably employ either qualitative methods or mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative). I am not autistic and I am not a teacher, yet; therefore, I am having no success reaching students with disabilities to take my survey.

I first became familiar with the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network and all the good you have accomplished when my family attended the annual Penn Autism Network Conference a few years ago. Our autistic son is now nineteen and will be attending community college later this year. My wife and I are always reminding him that lifelong education is the key to success and to be proud of his autism. He on the other hand blames his autism and would like to erase it permanently.

It is both his attitude and the work of ASAN that inspired me to return to school at the age of 51 to pursue a master's degree in education with initial certification in special education. I want to help autistic students succeed at postsecondary education. I am currently working on my final research project entitled, "How are students who are classified as learning disabled utilizing learning supports at the postsecondary level?"

I am having a difficult time finding students to take my survey so I can gather data either because the disability services offices will not allow me access to the students or students want to erase their learning disabilities (denial). I have included the link to my survey. If you know of any learning disabled students who would be willing to take my survey you may feel free to forward my link or provide them with my email address. The survey will take only a few minutes. My hope is that a few would be willing to agree to a one on one interview to expound their answers.

I feel that autistic persons should be proud, if not accepting of their autism. But because I am not autistic, and my son is, I have been living this feeling through my son. Once I achieve my master's degree I will be more qualified to speak out about the positive power of autism. I want to help the best way that I can.

PLEASE FORWARD MY LINK TO ANY STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES ATTENDING POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform ... YjR1eEE6MA

Thank you for your time in this matter and keep up the good work,

Jeffrey Frinzi

I looked at your link and it lists "learning disabilities". Perhaps I'm mis-reading here, but your post indicates you are looking for persons with "disabilities", not specifically "learning" disabilities.

Which is correct, please?

I looked over your survey questions and while all such services as extended testing time, tutoring, tape recorder usage, etc are
available to me, I do not need them. My learning disabilities from my diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome are
largely "social" and do not affect my intellectual abilities to do well in my academic studies.

I think you need to go back and re-create your survey if you want to determine any real conclusive data...

To clarify, the author of the survey is not a member of this forum. I reposted the survey here to help him publicize it. Those who have questions or comments about the survey should contact its author directly by e-mail, instead of posting replies to the forum.

I just took the survey. It was interesting.

The survey is miserably written. All of the questions are simply binary yes or no questions, yet the provided answer options are "Strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree." This is confusing and needlessly ambiguous. Also, the distinction in questions between "eligible to receive" and "available to me" seems strange. If something is not available at my university, then I can not possibly be eligible for it as my university determines eligibility for services, and they would never approve services that they don't offer. By "eligible to receive" did the survey writer mean "should be able to receive" or "need?"

Overall, it's just too sloppy a survey for me to be willing to bother with it.

So let us advocate for our causes!! !