Disclosing Disabilities in Higher Education

By Kelly Lewis

Stonehill News Blog Staff

EASTON – College can be difficult for anyone, but even more so for students with a disability. According to a new study, however, an increasing number of students are hesitant to reveal their disabilities to obtain accommodations, that would give them a better chance at success and ultimately graduation.

Negative experiences in the past and a lack of self-advocacy skills were key factors influencing students’ decisions to not reveal their disabilities to faculty when they entered college, reported a 2015 study published in Rehabilitation Counselors and Educators Journal, titled, “Students with Disabilities' Self-Report on Perceptions toward Disclosing Disability and Faculty's Willingness to Provide Accommodations.”

One-third of students who participated in the study also said they feared faculty would view them differently if they disclosed their disabilities.

The Americans with Disabilities Act defines a person with a disability as someone who has a documented physical or mental impairment that limits one or more of their major life activities, such as walking, hearing or maintaining sustained concentration.

Accommodations, such as auxiliary aids, a note taker, or extra time on a test, gives students with disabilities an equal opportunity.

Eileen Bellemore is the director of the Office of Accessibility Resources at Stonehill College. Bellemore’s office has 278 students registered, which is 10.8% of the Stonehill College student population.

Bellemore has not noticed a decrease among the number of students disclosing their disabilities at Stonehill but has noticed a different trend.

 “Five years ago, we would have more students disclosing learning differences than mental health conditions, and now that trend is sort of reversing, we are seeing less learning differences and more mental health conditions,” said Bellemore.

Bellemore conducted a survey in 2017 in which she found that most Stonehill students who receive services from Office of Accessibility Resources were satisfied. Those who were not indicated struggling with the issue of stigma from family, faculty, and other students.

 “One student said his or her parents told him not to apply for accommodations because they would be labeled as different. Another student mentioned that in general there are many biased students on Stonehill’s campus,” said Bellemore.

“The word ‘disability’ still has such a negative connotation and students are still thinking about people with visible disabilities or people who might be physically impaired,” she said.

While completing interviews with incoming freshmen this year, Bellemore noticed that more students had trouble advocating for themselves, preferring instead to rely upon their parents to speak on their behalf.

She said this could backfire in their first year because students do not know how to reach out to Office of Accessibility Resources or how to converse with their professors and explain their disability.

“Sometimes students will wait, maybe till after they fail a test or until they are really struggling to come and see me, and it’s because of a negative experience,” said Bellemore.

Once a student registers with Bellemore’s office, she writes a letter of accommodation for the student, outlining their needs. However, it is up to the individual student on what he or she does with the letter of accommodation.

James Pentikis, a sophomore finance major at Stonehill College, is registered with Office of Accessibility Resources. He has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified, which is a form of autism.

He finds that revealing his disabilities and utilizing accommodations has helped him to navigate his academics successfully and is an exception to the study’s findings.

One of Pentikis’ strategies is to address his disabilities head-on and hand his letter of accommodation to his professors during the first class. His letter recommends 50% extended time on tests, a distraction-reduced testing room and permission to type written responses.

 “I find my handwriting is very illegible, especially with notes and open responses and I don’t want to get points deducted or not be able to read my notes in preparation for a quiz,” said Pentikis.

In college, and even in the past, Pentikis has not encountered any major issues when seeking additional help. His prior positive experience follows a trend found in the study.

The study found that students with more positive experiences of requesting accommodations in the past were more willing to disclose their disability.

Pentikis has learned to advocate for himself and his disabilities. When it comes to difficult situations with professors, he says it is usually a result of miscommunication.

 “If I had a problem, I would go find someone. I would use my resources very well and that’s how I still do it,” said Pentikis.

Unfortunately, not every student is a forthcoming as Pentikis. And those other students tend to fall below the line when it comes to academics, said Bellemore.

Bellemore encourages students to disclose their disabilities to professors and works to show students that their conditions entitle them to help and that they need to take advantage of that.

She is also in charge of educating the Stonehill College faculty. Every year she presents at the faculty development day, and finds that professors are willing to learn and work with students who have disabilities and need accommodations.

“A lot of faculty will call me because they don’t know how to necessarily implement an accommodation or they feel like an accommodation will lower standards, so we will talk about ways around that, how to be mindful of the law, but also making some adaptations to their course,” said Bellemore.

She preaches a concept known as the “universal design of learning” and says this would help reduce the stigma around disabilities. She explains how colleges could design learning environments that would anticipate some basic accommodations so students wouldn’t have to ask to do something “different.”

 “For example, if faculty designed their exams to be 30 minutes long and they gave everybody an hour to take them, well then you have extended time already built-in and nobody would have to ask for an accommodation for exams,” said Bellemore.