Students, faculty and staff need to be more understanding about accommodations
Lauren Ibanez
Jeff Rose
May 3, 2018
Recently, the New York Times published a response on their Social Q’s column to a question asking if testing accommodations were harmful to an autistic student and unfair to the rest of the class.
A portion of the question reads: “She recently told me that when she takes these tests, she uses her notes to do better. This hardly seems fair to everyone who actually studied. I also don’t understand how this situation is supposed to help her issues. Should I tell the professor?”
While able-bodied people should ask questions to better understand the disabled experience, questions phrased in a such skeptic manner makes it difficult for us to ask for our accommodations or tell people about it because we’ll be doubted. Faculty and staff who are tasked with administering accommodations are more likely to do so correctly and diligently if they understand how necessary they are for disabled people to bypass barriers.
Disabled people at all levels of education often face difficulties in trying to get instructors to follow through completely with necessary accommodations. For example, instructors may refuse to provide hard copies [...]