College Accomodations

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I'm currently on a waiting list at my university psych department to be assessed for AS, and it's got me wondering whether I'm doing okay as things are, or if it would be beneficial for me to look into academic accomodations for things like my sensory issues, social skills, and language processing difficulties. I have a decent GPA at 3.35 currently, but this past semester I struggled with, even failed a couple of my assignments because of my inability to process and understand the instructions properly (granted, it was all for the same class, so it may have been more the professor's problem than mine). I didn't realise while I was doing the assignment that I wasn't grasping the whole concept, or was misunderstanding what the project wanted, so I didn't go in for help, and was extremely disappointed later on when I found out I'd failed. My sensory issues have been problematic on occasion too. I almost had a meltdown during an exam because the flip-top desks in the lecture hall kept squeaking every time someone got up to leave, leaving me high-strung and irritable the rest of the day. Another time I was having a particular issue with fluorescent lights one afternoon (the problem comes and goes depending on my state of sensory arousal) and I was feeling nauseated and exhausted, trying to block the light out, which meant I was paying no attention to the lecture and missed a whole period's worth of notes. I'm here to ask you all what sorts of accomodation you get for college, and how effective it's been, so I can judge whether or not it's worth the effort to jump through the bureaucratic hoops to get my own needs addressed once the diagnosis comes through.

I work in a Testing Center at a large University; we work with accomodative services on a daily basis. While I do not personally have any accommodations, I can give you an idea of what a school can offer:

As far as quiet goes, I highly recommend just flat-out asking to test at a separate location; people with ADHD whose accommodations include extra testing time go to another location to test; that may be an option for you. If your University does not have that option (I would be very surprised if it did not), ask about bringing in noise-reducing headphones - I'm talking about headphones people wear at shooting ranges. Here, we do provide a quiet testing room for people whose accommodations require that environment. If lighting is an issue, you may be allowed to wear sunglasses in the classroom.

I have accommodations for private testing area. I also have extra time on tests, a fm radio transmitter (goes from mic on prof to headset I have) because of auditory processing problems. I also have a note taker (volunteer in the class) to make sure I do not miss something the prof says.