<p>mdcissp, I’ll just add a thought from a different perspective–my freshman D was placed in a room with a girl who had very unusual behaviors and who we suspect is somewhere on the spectrum. D recently was able to switch rooms, but until then her situation was quite an unhappy one. So your quest for a single room may benefit not only your child, but also a potential roommate whose freshman adjustment period should not be unduly burdened. I only wish the parents of my D’s roommate had followed your path.</p>
<p>My dd will have to have a single due to several medical problems. One is insomnia, one is migraines, and the third I will not discuss here. I have been checking schools and it seems they need a note from a medical professional so I plan to have her pediatrician or one of her specialists write the letter. (She has two different specialist following these problems plus her pediatrician). It will be a deal breaker for her since I cannot see her subjecting anyone else to her insomnia or to her specially designed bedroom plans (all light emitting things covered with heavy towels or other fabric and dark curtains to prevent light). SHe had a seven month long non stop headache her freshman year and I don’t want that ever happening again.</p>
<p>I hope that colleges do not require a statement from an MD documenting a student’s Asperger’s, since MDs are not usually the professionals who make such diagnoses.</p>
<p>For what it is worth, schools seem to take the report of an MD – any MD – more seriously than other professionals. I’m not sure it is a battle particularly worth fighting, particularly if your child’s doctor is already aware of the diagnosis.</p>
<p>My kids’ private U accepted a letter from our kids’ MD about their medical issues and diagnoses. They did NOT have to provide documentation of the testing, the letter from the MD was sufficient. You can double-check with whatever schools your S is accepted at to see if that is sufficient for them without the bother & expense of repeated testing. The disabilities offices at most Us are pretty helpful in letting you know exactly what their school requires.
Our kids chose NOT get medical singles, tho others with similar medical conditions have opted to get medical singles, with their docs’ support. Our doc left it up to the kids. Both wanted to have room mates because they thought it would be helpful for them. It worked well for both of them. Some folks have found “suites” to be a good option, where each student has a single & they share a common living room & bathroom. This gives a bit more privacy but also has a communal aspect that helps with socialization. You might see if some of the schools your S is interested in have this as an option as well.
For both of them, the U said they could have a medical single if their doc indicated it was what the doc recommended. No special testing was required to be attached.
Good luck!</p>
<p>My step-D who has some emotional issues was able to have a single all 4 years based upon a letter from her doctor. The best thing to do is contact your S’s university’s housing office as soon as he decides where to go. (You might contact the housing office at each place he’s applied to find out the possibilities for a single - that might be a factor in his decision where to attend.)</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>To keep our kid’s app from possibly being affected, we opted not to contact any disability offices until AFTER acceptances had been received. We used our discussions with the disability offices as a major consideration in choosing the school that would best work with our kids. This might be something to keep in mind when you consider the timing of your contact.</p>
<p>Depending on the extent of the disability, I don’t think there’s a danger of negative affect from contacting Disability Services ahead of receiving an acceptance, though waiting may be more efficient (if you’ve already chosen what schools to apply to, you’ll only need to know about the services at the ones that accept you). </p>
<p>I’m not saying that admissions officers have 100% no stigma for students with special needs, especially if they have mental or behaviorial rather than physical challenges. A lot of it boils down to what the school thinks it can reasonably and safely support in terms of services. But in the case of a mildly Asperger’s student, I don’t see that that will come into play, since the services he will need are minimal and he will be one of a growing group of Asperger’s/Autism spectrum American kids heading to college.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>At some unis (I believe Clark is one), singles are available at an additional fee. Since the family is “purchasing” the single, there’s no need to document anything.</p></li>
<li><p>You can contact the disability office before being admitted, but schools understandably spend less time responding to pre-admit inquiries than to those of admitted students deciding whether to enroll. Also, after having been admitted, your family may be more willing to share info w/ the disability office, enabling the office to make a more accurate assessment and give you a more accurate repsonse.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>It would be pretty counter intuitive if the disabilities office, which is there to serve disabled students, sat around all day calling the admissions office to let them know who they’ve been chatting with.</p>
<p>Many folks I have corresponded with who have medical singles are NOT paying any additional fee (tho they were prepared to do so), because their U did NOT assess it for this accommodation. It just made us feel better to wait until AFTER acceptances before we called disability offices instead of having more conversations than necessary (with schools that might even admit and provide merit awards).</p>
<p>Sorry if my post was unclear. At some unis, any student can get a single by paying an addit fee - - these are not medical singles. Medical singles usually require some documentation and even w/ documentation not every medical condition makes a student elig for a single room (at D’s LAC, for example, no singles for insomnia, regardless of documentation).</p>
<p>My point was that if documentation is a problem, or if even w/ documentation your student is inelig for a med single, at some schools you can just buy your way out of the problem.</p>
<p>Yes, that works where there is a sufficient supply of singles for those willing to pay the fee. At many campuses, there are simply more people wanting singles than rooms to meet the demand. </p>
<p>I believe all schools give priority to properly documented medical needs (filed by deadlines), whether or not they assess any additional charge. As you mention, though, which conditions are sufficient to justify a medical single vary by campus as well.</p>
<p>Chances are good that you don’t even need to call the university housing office to obtain the form you need to submit to request a single room for a child with Asperger’s. The form likely can be found online, along with details of the information that your child’s physician will need to provide to support a request for housing accommodations. Just Google the university name and “housing” and “accommodations.” If you do call the housing department, remember that the receptionist who answers the phone is likely to be a work-study college student who may never have heard of Asperger’s. To get accurate and complete information, politely ask to speak to the person in charge of providing disability-related housing accommodations, i.e., someone other than the person who answers the phone.</p>
<p>The medical documentation you will likely be required to provide may include date and manner of diagnosis/diagnoses; current prescription medications for any co-morbid conditions (anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc.); the child’s symptoms; his specific disability-related housing needs; and an explanation of WHY he needs the requested housing accommodations. </p>
<p>As other posters have noted, the physician may wish to note not only why the student with Asperger’s needs a private room but also why the student’s symptoms would make it difficult for a neurotypical roommate to share close quarters with him or her. </p>
<p>An earlier post suggested that M.D.s do not diagnose Asperger’s. Actually, they do. While public schools performing global psychoeducational evaluations for IEP purposes do not routinely provide medical evaluations, private child psychiatrists (M.D.s) are actually the best individuals to diagnose AS. Asperger’s is a DSM-IV medical diagnosis. Unlike with dyslexia, for instance, there are no pen-and-paper psychoeducational tests , the results of which are used to help establish the AS diagnosis. Instead, accepted protocol requires child and adolescent psychiatrists to diagnose based upon patient history, review of records, and clinical interviews. </p>
<p>A diagnosis might instead be made by a private, multi-disciplinary team that might include, for example, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a speech-language pathologist, and an occupational therapist. This is especially true where the diagnosis is made at an autism clinic at a medical school or through a state-funded (free) autism center. If the documentation you need must come from a large institution, start EARLY to get the necessary information. Things move slowly in bureacracies, and you don’t want to miss the deadline for submitting the housing accommodations request.</p>