College Accomodations?

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Does anyone else have any accomodations like being able to move around, shorter lectures, using diagrams or recording the professor speak? Online, arranged college, what are your experiences?

What about gas, do you think that college should offer ways for students to get to college(besides bus and driving) and should not make people pay parking fees?

Also IF AS isnt going to exist in the future with the new DSM, would colleges still find other ways to accomodate us on the spectrum?

If AS is still considered an ASD in the DSM, you should still be able to receive accommodations under ADA and 504, though not under IDEA. (IDEA ends after high school.)

I imagine the transportation issue would have more to do with location than anything else. If you live on campus, transportation may not be needed.

I wish I had a single room. The only thing they let me do is take my calculus exams in their special testing rooms.

The director of disability services does absolutely nothing.

We offer accommodations for taking breaks during class (obviously you have to go outside), recording professors, note takers, alternative format testing, etc. We don't do shorter lectures since that's not really practical. You'd be robbing the other kids of an education.

As for ways to get to class, what more should they do? Send someone to pick you up personally? Most colleges operate shuttles, some even off campus.

Remember, accommodations are designed to place you on a level playing field, not give you an advantage.

As for private rooms, colleges usually have a very limited supply of private rooms. I think we have like 20 on campus.

I have accommodations. Right now I am only taking the private exam room because I need to push myself out of my comfort zone now that I am a Masters student (in my undergrad I didn't have to participate or do presentations--now I do because I am going to be a professor, so I can't avoid that kind of thing forever).

IMO, I don't think you can expect your school to provide you with transportation or free parking. Everyone is responsible for getting to school, not just those with a disability.

They are not going to shorten the lectures. If you need to leave, most professors don't mind (since you are paying to be there after all--but you should tell your prof ahead of time that you might have to get up to leave on occasion). You CAN get a notetaker to provide notes for the lecture portion you miss, but you can't expect them to shorten the lecture for the entire class (if that is what you meant).... If you need to get up, you should sit in the back so you can stand if you need to (and maybe even pace in the very back). If you get up and wander around it is going to be distracting to everyone else, though, so you are going to have to be "out of sight" if you do that. Some accommodations they can't and won't make (ie. shortening the lecture). The DOCTOR (or psych) makes the suggestions (not you), and then the school will tell you what it will and will not do for you. You aren't necessarily going to get everything you want.

I agree! My director told me all my accommodation I had to provide myself! Really what is the point of your department! The only accommodation I used was more time on test. And one very understanding art history teacher who understood that I couldn't spell worth a lick but as long as she understood she gave me credit.

As hard as I tried, I did end up dropping out.

My college does offer a vanpool service that students can use but have to pay for but is less tahn parking.

Your doctor should have been the one requesting accommodations for you. The school then reviews and decides which requests to grant.

Sometimes I think people with AS ask for too many accommodations, extra time on test, special rooms for exam, I didn't get any accommodations at all and I was able to graduate just fine. I still think people who get accommodation should have them listed on the transcript, so future employers or schools will be warned.

I am in the middle of reaching this topic right now. From what I have learned, many people with AS do not request accommodations or, if they do, they request the least amount needed to perform well. Some even drop services after getting accustomed to college. Please try to remember that each person with Asperger's is different. He or she may have more sensory interference than you do or a higher level of anxiety than you do. I think it is wonderful that you were able to graduate without acommodations. Statistically speaking, though, you are in the very small minority. Far too many people with Asperger's never graduate, or if they do, they have trouble maintaining employment. They have the academic ability, but the challenges of AS make some working environments difficult.

I will say this: I see your point about letting employers know about accommodations. The fear is that some employers would prefer to find another applicant instead of learning about AS, which is what keeps many people from telling their employers about their AS. However, when an employer has the information he or she needs to make some accommodations, and when coworkers are brought into the information sharing, most coworkers will help make the work environment better for the person with AS. (Not to mention there are tax credits for the employer for highering someone with a disability and protections for the person with AS for maintaining the job....if the boss doesn't know the employee has AS and the employee has a meltdown or some kind of outburst because he or she is overwheled by sensory input, for example, the boss can fire the employee on the spot. If the boss has written documentation about the employee's AS, firing the person is not so easy to do (at least in the US) because of ADA protections.

I didn't get any accommodations either, and I graduated from High School, however I would not say I did it "just fine."

I barely scraped through by the skin of my teeth, and although I did not get any OFFICIAL accommodations, the fact is, I would never have graduated had my teachers not been able to bend the rules of grading beyond recognition.

I graduated in 1978, when there were no IEP's or accommodations for high functioning autistics. I graduated because my teachers gave me the grades I needed to barely scrape by, though I NEVER actually earned those grades.

In those days, and I suspect the same is still true, though perhaps not as easy to get away with, not so much checking up was going on as far as whether kids really had done all the work and learned what they should have, before being presented with a diploma.

So you graduated eh? So what? That doesn't necessarily mean you learned what you need to learn to survive well in this world.

It is a FACT that I had a diploma, that was worthless for anything other than being put ahead of those that didn't when being considered for jobs. But before you say, "see? it was good for something, wasn't it?" hear this:

Yeah, it got me some jobs. But it didn't help me KEEP them for any notable length of time. Career? Forget that. A career was an impossibility.

Many of us NEED accommodations, because we learn differently. The point of accommodations is not better grades. Changing a letter in a grade book is all that's required for that. Accommodations are about changing the environments and kinds of assistance we get so that we can actually LEARN what we are not otherwise learning.

Just because you did fine in school, doesn't mean we all do. I would kill to go back and have the help my kids now have. I might have actually learned a lot more than I did.

Employers should have no need to be told about accommodations, unless and only if, accommodations may be needed on the job.

BTW: I object vehemently to the use of the term "warned." Warned about what? Warnings are for potential problems or dangers. I really don't like the connotations implied by that word. It cause me to wonder why you would use the term warned, rather than "informed."

When I say warned, I mean they should know in advance. Lets say you have a candidate who is unable to work in a cubicle environment and requires a quite office. I think that should be a ding against them in the hiring process and potential employers should be informed of this before they are hired. It would be really annoying to hire them only to find out they need these special accommodations. I do NOT think they need to be informed of why the accommodations are needed, only that they are needed.

Also I didn't just graduate H.S without accommodation, I graduated with a Bachelors degree as well from a top university without accommodations.

Wait, what?

I totally and fundamentally disagree with you in principle. You're actually saying that needing an accommodation ought to be a "ding against them?" Are you serious?



In other words, Autism is not the fault of the person who has it, yet you promote the idea that due to this "disease" as you call it possibly requiring the need for accommodations at work, should intentionally decrease the autistic's chances to get the job?

What you are promoting here is discrimination based on a disability, which is illegal.

Not to mention that on the one hand you're telling us we ask for too many accommodations at school, implying that we don't need them (based, I might add only on your own personal experience of not having needed them yourself), then extending that to the workplace bluntly stating that those of us who need accommodations should not have an equal chance at obtaining the job.

This is the same (now illegal) reasoning employers held to many years ago hiring women, using the possibility of them getting pregnant in the future to affect what positions they were and were not allowed to hold.



Good for you, and more power to you. What makes you think just because you could do so, all of us can?

You may want to join the rest of us in the twenty first century. Things have changed quite a bit you know.

MrXxx,

Don't you think those decided to do without accommodations should be reward for their hard work. Giving someone extra time on a test doesn't seem fair to me no mater what condition they have. Employers should know that this person takes longer to do task, requires special working conditions, and is therefore less productive.

Yes. Everyone should be rewarded for their hard work, with or without accommodations.



If one has autism to the point of being disabled, offering accommodations is no different than putting ramps in for wheelchairs. Having a disability is a handicap. Handicaps make life for those with them unfair. Offering them the help they need to get the job done is not unfair to those who don't need the help.



If one is declared disabled, there are already measures in place to inform employers how the disability affects them, and what they may need to do to accomodate the disabled employee before they are hired. They have no obligation to provide accommodations to those who have not been declared disabled.

Turning down employees based on disabilities, is against the law. Are you not aware of the Americans with Disabilities Act? There is a reason it was passed and signed into law.

The reality is though, that employers already routinely do not hire many disabled people based on their disabilities. They just don't say it out loud, or put it on record. The fact is, disabilities already make the hiring process unfair to the disabled. Overall, the hiring process is not unfair to those without them.

This isn't true. The ADA requires that any disclosure be entirely voluntary, and employees are permitted to inform their employers AFTER they are hired. If you inform your employer AFTER you are hired, they are not permitted to fire you for it. So no employers are NOT told before hand if their is a need for accommodations or a disability. We had an incident of this were I worked a few years ago, the ADA prevented us form doing anything.