Documenting disabilities and requesting accommodations

Parents Forum
1

What types of services are required for students with disabilities in elementary and secondary schools?

School districts are required to provide a free appropriate education to students with disabilities based on their individualized educational needs. The services may include special education and related aids and services such as physical therapy, as well as modifications to the regular education program including adjustments in test taking procedures and adjustments to rules regarding absences when a student’s absences are due to a disability. (ed,gov)

Students with disabilities attending school from kindergarten through high school graduation are accommodated under the Individual with Disabilities Act of 2004 and sub-part D of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 197. The IDEA covers students who require special education. Accommodations and services are found on an IEP. Students with 504 Plan often do well academically but need accommodations to access their education. 504 Plans are often based on documentation from external evaluations. A decision is made about whether a student is a child has a disability and what accommodations are needed to provide access. Accommodations on an IEP or 504 Plan are often very similar. A primary goal of both laws is preparing a student with disabilities for college. The protections and services of both laws end with high school graduation.

What types of adjustments are required for students with disabilities in colleges and universities?

Colleges and universities are required to provide students with appropriate academic adjustments and auxiliary aids and services that are necessary to afford an individual with a disability an equal opportunity to participate in the school’s program. Examples of auxiliary aids that may be required are taped texts, notetakers, interpreters, readers, and specialized computer equipment.Colleges and universities are not required to supply students with attendants, individually prescribed devices such as hearing aids and wheelchairs, readers for personal use or study, or other devices or services of a personal nature, (gov,com)

In college, students are provided accommodations under sub-part E of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA as amended in 2008. Both are civil rights laws that protect students from discrimination of the basis of disability in colleges or universities receiving federal money. Accommodations (adjustments and auxiliary aids and services) are provided when documentation supports the presence of a disability and, but for the functional limits of that disability, the student is as qualified to attend a particular college as any other student rerolled there. Accommodations permit students to gain access to institutional programs and services, but do not promote academic success. The goal of documentation review, while often resulting in adjustments and auxiliary aids and services, is determination of eligibility for protection from discrimination on the basis of disability.

All three above laws have information about protecting students with disabilities from harassment.

Information about accommodations on the SAT is found on ets,org by tapping the picture for information for parents and students. Information about accommodations on the ACT is available on act,org and tapping on students with disabilities. Information about documentation required for accommodations in college is found on AHEAD.org. After high school graduation, documentation requirements are the same. Adverse decisions are tied to the match between students and institutional requirements and clearly meeting each guideline. The first submission of documentation may be denied for reasons listed in the denial letter.

After 25+ years of reviewing documentation and working as a disability service provider, I know how frustrating you feel with all this information. As the saying goes, more heat than light. I call assure you with complete confidence that professionals involved in documentation review are not trying to deny accommodations to your son or daughter.

2

Very good summary, however the one part that is most misunderstood by parents and agencies outside of the school is " Students with 504 Plan often do well academically but need accommodations to access their education. 504 Plans are often based on documentation from external evaluations.". Technically if a student does well academically they should not qualify for a 504 plan. The two determining factors for eligibility are 1) Presence of a disability (could be physical, neurological, emotional, etc. most prevalent is ADD) 2) The disability must result in a “substantial limitation” of a major life function. The granting institution determines “substantial limitation”, with court cases defining it as “not to the level of a typical student”. The eligibility is not based on “the student could do better” with accommodations, but rather “the student needs” accommodations to give them a chance to perform like a typical student. I often get “prescriptions” from medical doctors for a child to get a 504 plan because they have been diagnosed with ADD. I look at the students academic record & they have been a B+ to A- student. The diagnosed disability is obviously not “substantially limiting” the major life function we are in the business of, which is learning.
Seeking accommodations for students who do not need them can not only drain the system of resources for more needy students, it can also have detrimental affects on the student themselves. There is a danger of fostering dependency, which can have devastating effects when the student goes off to college. Every presentation I’ve attended by school law firms has stated that nearly every school district in America has many more 504 plans than they should. This is due to CSE committee’s awarding them as “consolation prizes” to parents whose students do not qualify for special ed services. The 504 eligibility committee is in place to ensure that the kid who is ADD and struggling to pass any of his classes can get lecture notes from his teacher, but it also there to ensure that a parent of a student with ADD can not demand such accommodations because they think their child should have an A- instead of a B+.

3

Csdad, what you write may be true for ADHD, which was transitioned from special ed to 504’s in the last decade or so. However, even colleges, even with their lower accommodation requirement, are giving kids with ADHD accommodations such as a separate exam room, or extra time, even reduced courseload. If medication s helping, then the basis for accommodations would be gone. Some kids cannot take meds.

Also, 504’s are often seen as addressing medical problems, rather than learning challenges (ADHD is viewed as a medical/psychiatric diagnosis and is not a learning disability). Examples might include type 1 diabetes and epilepsy. I have a child with both. A student be at the top of his or her class can most certainly still get accommodations at every level of education. if a student gets all A’s, are you thinking she should not be able to bring a meter to class? Or should not get extra breaks on SAT’s in order to take care of blood sugars? Or a few days extra on an assignment if epilepsy is acting up and academic reading is a trigger or interferes with recovery?

I have two kids with accommodations at college (one did not have them in high school). They resist most accommodations fiercely, as do most of the kids I know and have heard of. The drive for normalcy is strong. Only when absolutely necessary and clearly justifiable do they relent and use an accommodation. Some will choose a medical leave rather than request accommodations. But in theory, a student with a medical problem, fluctuating or not, has a right to do their usual level of work.

One wry note: college disability offices could be seen as “guard dogs of the curriculum,” meaning, they prevent intrusions and alterations of curriculum from students with disabilties. A student’s accommodation cannot pose undue financial or administrative burden on a school, nor can it alter the academic program in any substantial way. i am not saying these offices aren’t helpful, they are, though it varies from school to school. In general, case law is establishing guidelines over time as to what is allowed and not allowed.

Parents reading this: you should know that at the college level the standard for accommodation is lower than in public schools, mainly because college is not compulsory the way secondary education is. And you should know that the burden will be on the student: the disabilities office will only want to talk to your child, and most schools will give your child a letter for each professor, and from that point the child will have to advocate for hm or herself and possibly negotiate some things (absences are sometimes rigidly forbidden past two or three).

You can write your own letters for MD’s to sign. Don’t assume that doctors or nurses or therapist or whoever actually knows much about specific accommodations. The Federal Dept. of Education"s Office of Civil Rights has a lot of information on accommodations, and it is easy to research online to get lists of accommodations for specific problems. Pick out the ones that are appropriate and useful for your child and put those in the body of a letter for the MD to go over and use at his or her discretion. Most will just sign it and hand it back to you if you have done the work carefully.

4

All above is true. BUT. In college, there will be no case manager to chase your student down to make sure they are doing assignments and turning them in on time. No one will be there to mandate help at the tutoring center.

The single most important things, in my opinion, you should be doing with secondary students in HS are have THEM involved in their IEP process. They need to understand the IEP, and the reasons for especially accommodations. And most most important…they need to be able to advocate for themselves.

5

No, we too have kids with physical needs that get what they need. An example would be a child with a physical impairment that does not adversely affect their academic performance, but creates a safety issue for them in PE, while using stairs, etc. we put accommodations in place for supervision / safety. Same with diabetes, epilepsy, etc. One thing that I didn’t mention is that the accommodations must be “reasonable” given the disability. IE, a cild has a disability that impairs their ability to write, they can’t get the accommodation of “tests read”. However in my experience we’ve had many more 504 plans based on ADD, OCD, Anxiety disorder than we’ve had with physical impairments, so that is more my reference point. And again my experience is solely at the K-12 level & not college.

6

Think “what” “how” and “why”. What is the diagnosed disability, how does it impact the student’s ability to have equal access to learning (the functional limitation) and** why** the student needs the requested accommodation . Testign should be recent and support the diagnosis and requested accommodations.

7

I’d have to say that at the college level, more students are entitled to accommodations than use them. My director (the campus disabilities officer) has a file drawer full of documentation from kids who do not want to use their accommodations. As @compmom says, they resist them.

For those who do use them, the transition from the high school, where curriculum can be modified to ensure success, to the college model, where accommodations are about access only, is rough. Some things given in high school aren’t given at the college level because they are not reasonable, and that can be hard on a student who is used to having something.

I cannot recall a single incident, however, where a student with a documented disability was denied accommodations because his grades were good and the disabilities officer determined the disability must not be substantially limiting. That is not her call. To say a B student is “fine” because B’s are “fine” (and they are) might substantially limit a student who was interested in med school or the DPT program. The documentation of a disability is our assurance that the student is seeking the same opportunity to do well as other students rather than looking for an extra advantage. That being said, not every accommodation listed by the psychologist or medical professional who did the test will necessarily be awarded (that whole “reasonable” thing) and we may have to ask for more documentation than a note from family doctor and a copy of a prescription.

The office addresses all sorts of disabilities that affect a student’s access to an education. We provide accommodations for students with physical impairments (from using our office fridge for item storage while on campus to technical assistance with online classes for the blind), learning disabilities, and mental illnesses rising to the level of disability. Makes no difference what a student’s diagnosis is.

8

Actually one of my kids had trouble reading in 3rd grade. She could decode and did fine with short passages, so as a parent I found it to be a mystery and sought help at school via evaluation. She is now 23 and still challenged when it comes to reading: she has since had bipolar 1 (w/psychoses) and ADHD diagnoses. She is a bright young woman, articulate and hard-working but can only take two classes at a time because of her reading issues.

Her 3rd grade evalluation showed a very large gap between verbal and performance and a lot of “scatter” in results (this is from memory- it was a long time ago), low processing speed, and she scored in the bottom 5% for scanning. There were other issues that showed up that I cannot recall (I think something about spatial skills)

However, the scenario csdad is describing is relevant to our experience. The teacher said she was doing fine in class (she wasn’t, she was stressed because the teacher went by how she was performing in short passages and assigned her longer books, and then said she was “difficult” because she couldn’t read them). Because she was “doing well” the school refused services.

I took her home for the year and homeschooled her. I had to do that twice during her education. I disagreed with the school in writing but didn’t want to put her through more evaluations so we took care of it ourselves as best we could.

Once diagnosed, we had a full evaluation done and colleges have been wonderful. Some schools do offer extra advising or support through the disabilities office. She has even had help with time management. She also resists accommodations - she wants to be seen as functioning like everyone else and would honestly prefer failure to using accommodations. Her disabilities advisor has coached her and changed her mind a little with the “level playiing field” concept.

9

D1 has 504 accommodations for PE. She has heart disorder and not capable of performing at the level of other students. Without 504 she would get C maximum, in PE.

10

Californiaaa provided a good example of a accommodations under a 504 plan in high school. First her daughter has a heart disorder that limits her in PE. D1 apparently is an excellent student who doesn’t need a C on her transcript. So her accommodations are in PE, whatever they, let her participate In PE relative to peers. The goal of her accommodations is allowing D1 to earn a grade comparable to her peers in PE. What you don’t see described in this post are D1’s functional limitations due to a heart condition.

D1 goes to college and registers with the disability office (after submitting documentation). A current letter from her doctor with the diagnosis and a description of functional limitations should be just fine probably. Any problem with the letter would likely come from a vague description of functional limitations sch as tires easily. Specifically, how is D1 limited?, What are her functional limitations? So, name the limitation, exertion, fatigue and HOW it manifests in contrast to the average person for D1. climbing two flights of stairs, D1 For example, climbing stairs might be a direct way that one of D1’a functional limitations. Scheduling her a class on the first floor might be an accommodation. After D1 gets to class, she passes or fails on her own merit. That’s what leveling the playing field means in college.

I hope this helps and Californiaaa forgives me for using her daughter as an example.

In the original post regarding 504 plans, I erased my example of a student who is blind to cut down on length. I assumed reasonable but should have said it. Here’s an example of unreasonable becoming reasonable. A first-year student with a disability believes s/he does not need accommodations so doesn’t register with disability services (no documentation) and the fails the first test. Enlightenment! The student gets materials together, registers with the office is approved for accommodation(s).What about the F? The grade isn’t removed from the gradebook, the test isn’t retaken with the accommodation and an extra credit opportunity isn’t provided. Like any freshman, there are lots of reasons kids fail tests.The presence of a disability doesn’t prove that failure was caused by an unaccommodated disability.

11

Just to be clear for others, accommodations in 504 plans in high school and accommodations at college for medical issues/functional limitations are not limited to things like first floor dorm room / classroom or physical access in general. Medical problems can affect the academic “playng field” in a variety of ways. For instance, as I mentioned, diabetes tasks can mean extra time on exams, or a separate room for exams with an inidividual proctor. Epilepsy or severe migraines can mean extra time on projects or excused absences: there is a recovery period during which cognition is affected and also during which the brain needs rest. Obviously if this happens enough times to mean an 'adminsitrative burden" to the school or alters the program, the student should take a medical leave, but if it happens just a few times in a semester, then those academic accommodations should be given to allow the student to remain and do his or her best work. There are also accommodations for psychiatric issues such as anxiety and ADHD. And medical withdrawals can mean an opportunity to 'wipe the slate clean", meaning expunging grades from the period during which illness was suffered.

Finally, tuition refund insurance is a necessity for anyone reading this thread!

12

Yes, compmom provided other good examples of conditions that fall under 504 plans in high school and are accommodated in college. I think extra time on a project would have to correspond to time of the seizure. Some faculty may grant extra time for lots of reasons. But I think few disabilities offices would grant routine extra time for class projects because a student always needs extra time on projects,. If that is true, then they might not be considered otherwise qualified or they should register for fewer classes or a better balance course load. Practically, I think students need to get the consequences of turning something in late because the problem becomes like a snowball running fast down hill if extended time is given. If extra time is provided and the missing assignment isn’t turned in within a few days, the student becomes chronically late as s/he finishes earlier assignments before later ones or has less time to study because of the extra time for an earlier project.

Also an Incomplete is almost never complete. I didn’t believe the dept chair when he told me that, but I found incompletes were rarely completed. Now I mean rarely really completed. One student handed in a bunch of psych reports 15 minutes before grades had to be turned in. I told him I had already marked F because I required time to review the reports and assign a grade. It doesn’t say that! Take it up with the dean.

Excused absences. I had one student who lost three grandparents in a semester and LO! two grandparents had died the prior term in a colleague’s class. Many faculty require verification such as an obit, hospital bill,admission and release, the fancy hospital bracelet, whatever. Kids can be tricky. Anyway, a student with a disability might think that the demand is unreasonable or based on disability. nNot so.

I had a female student who told me she as hospitalized for several days for a serious illness. Bring me hospital record or something and I’ll waive the test. She said it was unfair to demand verification and her complaint went up the ladder through her dean and back through mine. I was called in by the assistant dean who grilled me on the situation. She then called the adviser and said get the stuff to her immediately with a deadline. Then I had to defend waiving an exam for an excellent student who needed time to get well. OK, but don’t do that again. The verification arrived the next day, I looked it over, filed a grade change report and returned the info immediately. Her A could have been turned in with the other grades of the class. I am better able to defend my decision and not show favoritism with the requested info (the only thing I get). So, please don’t assume or let SWDs assume that faculty are mean and happy to violate a student’s civil rights. And don’t make your adviser and two deans angry. And more importantly, don’t get your mother fired up

****Finally, tuition refund insurance is a necessity for anyone reading this thread!*This is so well-worth repeating! Thanks, compmom!

13

I find it hard to believe that requiring a student to provide proof of disability to whomever you seem to be in the instruction realm isn’t a violation of HIPPA. if a student has a documented 504 with the university disability dept, that really should be all the proof required, and the accomodations that are spelled out under that plan should be followed.

this is an odd thread.

14

At my kid’s school, she of course provided documentation for episodes or periods of problems. She always had to go to the doctor at the health center and also had letters from specialists if things got bad.

It is not true that accommodations were only for the actual time of the seizure. Because there is a recovery period (for her 3-4 days) when she literally could not spell (and she was at an Ivy). The brain takes time to recover. And academic work or lack of sleep before the brain recovered was counterproductive. MD’s helped the school understand this and besides, she clearly hated accommodations and if given two weeks to finish would hand the paper in in 4 days. Most kids with real disabilities do not like accommodations, as we have said before.

it is a really good point that extensions can snowball and you can get behind. My daughter ended up with a reduced course load at the suggestion of the college. Once that adjustment was made, it was amazing how much her health improved and how much she could live life: she had an internship, had some successful other accomplishments in her field, and saw friends etc. Financial aid was extended for the extra time- another right under ADA.

Before the proper meds were found, even this would not have worked. Zannah is right: there are times when it is clear a medical leave is needed or some other adjustment. Playing catch up just doesn’t work and can even cause further health problems.

kac425 I thought the same thing about HIPPA. At most colleges, when the student hands the letter from the disabilities office to the professors (and the letter only says the student is registered with the disabilities office), it is at the discretion of the student to disclose the specific disability. In my opinion, the main reason for any of this is often not even accommodations, but to avoid misunderstandings. For instance, my daughter had a low blood sugar and could not walk across campus until the ingested glucose got into her system. She was late for class. of course this only happened once or twice, but she had told the professor she had type 1 and it was important to her that he know she was not disrespectful or rude.

One of my kids went to a school where the disability documentation went into an open file, and professors could look in the file to see what the student’s disability was. I found this troubling- could mere curiosity motivate such a search? But I also assumed that the college had lawyers and this must be allowed. Maybe my kid signed a release, who knows.

I think it is important for students to do all they can to avoid accommodations. My daughter religiously goes to bed before 10, gets work done in advance in case something happens, and doesn’t drink or smoke marijuana or any of those things. She hangs out with all kinds of people and they understand why she lives like this, vaguely anyway.

In return, I think medical and academic professionals never doubted her and trusted her completely. The lack of trust in Zannah’s comments is understandable but a little strange to read from the other side, so to speak :slight_smile:

15

Let me clarify. When I said that there needed to be a time connection between the episode and the request for additional time, I certainly meant to include a recovery period. I also think it is useful to hear from the other side whether it is a parent, student, faculty or disability services provider. My comments are based on years as both faculty and disability service provider. I would have trusted your daughter as I did hundreds of students. However we both need something tangible that ensures that both the student and I were protected from how come she got and complaints of favoritism.

There is a world of difference between one student like your daughter and the reality of college life. I had significant health problems problems in college to the extent the college waived room and board and put me in the dorm with a 24- hour health services. Depend on it, I lived a different lifestyle and still do. Like your daughter I was an excellent student who was trustworthy. Not not every student is like us. As my mother said when I started teaching, you aren’t teaching yourself. That was true in so many ways.

Like most people with disabilities, I too resisted accommodations unless absolutely necessary. By necessity, I went to the SS office to check on disability assistance and was interviewed. The interviewer quickly received my medical record and scheduled medical visit for the next day. The doctor’s report zoomed back. My approval for benefits came within about three weeks from start to finish. I was trustworthy, but there is a process that everybody follows for the benefit of all.

Please understand that different isn’t necessarily wrong. About the open files, I would have screamed my way up the ladder to OCR if needed to shut that down.

16

I agree with you about the open files. I was overwhelmed at the time and my other daughter left that college.

I think I was my daughter’s 24 hour health service! Now she is well enough on meds so I do it via technology.

Sounds like you made your way through with the same tenacity and positivity as my daughter. I am passionate about students like her- and you- accomplishing their goals with accommodations- and I am glad you are in the field now!

17

@compmom can you connect the dots linking (medically-necessary) reduced course load and extended Financial Aid for us? How does one educate a financial aid officer about this ADA requirement, and how does one show that one qualifies? I was tempted to PM, but thought others may benefit. PM reply if it works better for you.