Patrick Dwyer: I'm Patrick Dwyer and I am an autistic graduate student at UC Davis. I do some
autism research here myself. I also facilitate a peer support group
for our autistic students. And right now I am outside the Student Disability
Center at UC Davis. Now all of colleges should have a campus
disability office. This is principally responsible for
coordinating academic accommodations for disability, assistive technology, exam
accommodations, extra time on tests, note-taking, you know all these sorts of things.
It is very much on us to initiate contact with the Student Disability Center if
that is indeed the path that we think is right for us. And on that question of
self-determination, we're about to go in and meet Dr. Joe Spector who is very
much a believer in the importance of the topic of self-determination.
If we're imagining
that, you know, we're a student who was thinking about college and thinking they might want to register
with the Student Disability Center how do they go about doing that?
Joe Spector: Well as you
know I'm a big believer in self-determination which involves
starting out early and navigating through life supporting some of your own efforts.
So, I believe a lot of it starts in high school and at that point the students
are developing skills in advocacy, skills in requesting accommodations,
and developing good patterns for school. I strongly recommend the students take
the lead in that process. So, part of the transition to college involves high school
time because at that point not only are you working through that high school process, but hopefully you're
developing the kinds of documentation that will help you succeed in accessing
services like at a Student Disability Center at the post-secondary level.
Patrick Dwyer: Right.
Joe Spector: So one of the first things I recommend is that the students have up-to-date
documentation, or evaluations, or reports, so that if they choose to come to a
Student Disability Center they have the documentation part ready to go.
Patrick Dwyer: And if somebody is not sure if their documentation is appropriate can
they just approach Student Disability Center and ask?
Joe Spector: I recommend that. On this
particular campus we might call that an inquiry meeting. An inquiry meeting can occur
during high school. In fact, I strongly encourage that, they're really pleasant meetings
that gives the student a chance to speak for themself and to get to know what an office
a disability office is like. But it can also occur the summer before school starts
or even during the course of school.
Patrick Dwyer: What happens once people are are registered
and they're looking to access accommodations?
Can you say anything briefly about that or?
Joe Spector: Students need to interact with the instructors about
where the accommodations will be provided, what time the test will occur,
if there's extra time, how to manage that. Many campuses such as ours don't
have a large developed test center, so the instructor has to work out where the
test will occur. So that connection between the instructor and the student is
especially important. Because for each test there may be a different time and a different location.
Patrick Dwyer: Right, right.
And I'll just take a quick moment to mention that Stairway to STEM STEM website
does have a lot of resources being developed about how to communicate with
instructors so those definitely would be a thing to check out. And then one last
question because, you know, I know a lot of students are more reluctant to
seek out formal accommodations for various different reasons and I'm
wondering if you have any thoughts to people who, you know, that maybe they are not
wanting to disclose their disability, or they don't feel they need accommodations, or
feel guilty about the idea of accommodations.
Joe Spector: One thing I've learned in the
several decades that I've been working with students with the diagnosis of
autism is to respect some of their own beliefs and some of their own
perceptions. There will be those students who generally don't do believe that they
need academic accommodations and in fact some of them probably don't.
So, I've learned to respect that that choice of
when it's time to get the help and when it's not time to get the help. However, reluctance
about coming here shouldn't involve a sense of shame, or stigma, or
embarrassment. At the point that that's going on I think it it helps to reach
out to your friends, your parents, people like you, to help coach them towards
coming to a disability center at least beginning the discussion. And for the
most part the disability centers are very user friendly.
Patrick Dwyer: Thank you for watching
this video I hope that it provided useful and helpful information. And
please do comment if you have any thoughts, reflections, if you have your
own experiences that are relevant, any feedback, whatever it is we do want to hear it
so please do add those comments.
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