9. Know, Disclose, and Document Your Disability

You Know You Are Ready for College When You:

To get disability support services in college, you have to understand your disability, formally disclose (tell) it to the correct person at college, and prove that what you say is true with a report (documentation) written by a professional. Now, there is more to it than that, but those are the basics. You may feel you have a good knowledge of your disability, disclosure and documentation requirements. If so, scan the headings for new ideas or simply click this link to jump to summary for Checkpoint 9 then go on to Checkpoint 8.

Knowing your Disability

Knowing about your disability is different from just knowing how you learn best (checkpoint 10). You need to have detailed knowledge of what your disability is and how it affects your ability to learn. For example, let's say you have a friend who knows her disability well. She is deaf, which obviously means she cannot hear. Deafness limits her experience in a lecture to what she can see. That is not going to be enough. She needs a sign language interpreter and captioned videos as academic adjustments.

Now let's say your disability is not quite so clear-cut. People have told you that you have a learning disability. You know you work a lot harder than others to keep up in class because it takes so long to read. You and the college Disability Services (DS) Office will need to understand the specifics of your learning disability and exactly how it affects learning in college classes. Based on that information, the Disability Services and you will decide on the academic adjustments that will give you access to learning.

To prepare for that discussion, talk with your parents, teacher and/or school psychologist about your disability and ask to review the documents that describe it. These might include special education eligibility evaluation, IEP's and testing reports done by professionals outside of the school system.

Deciding to Disclose Your Disability

The paragraphs above assume that you intend to tell the college about your disability. This is called disclosure. You choose to disclose your disability or not to disclose your disability. Whether or not you disclose is entirely up to you. The college will not ask you and will not provide support services unless you choose to disclose. If you do choose to disclose, you can expect that all discussions about your disability will be held in confidence. Generally, held in confidence means that no one in the Disability Services office tells anyone about your disability unless you tell them to. There are exceptions that each college will describe in a privacy policy statement under the heading need to know.

If you are feeling uncertain about whether or not to disclose your disability, do a little research to clarify your thinking and understand the consequences of your decision. The HEATH Resource Center posts an excellent document titled The Disclosure Dilemma for Advocates by Laverne Buchanan, EdD. It explores the "Whys, Whens and Hows" of disability disclosure. Disclosing your disability is not an automatic request for services.

Documenting Your Disability

Now it may seem harsh, but the Disability Services Office is not going to provide support services without written proof of your disability. They are not doing this to give you a hard time. Colleges must have policies and procedures that require this information so that they protect your rights, their rights and can provide you with support services that are reasonable and likely to be effective. Not all colleges will have the same requirements for documentation. Click here to learn the general requirements of documentation and visit another Web site with more specific guidelines.

Summary

1. Discuss the specific name and nature of your disability with someone who is an expert (your parent, teacher, physician, school psychologist). Know how to describe its symptoms, and how it limits your learning.
2. Decide if you are going to disclose your disability to get support in college. Do this based on your research and discussions of what that decision means.
3. Review the documents that state your disability and compare them to the requirements of the college you plan to attend. If you need to arrange for more testing or descriptions by professionals, take care of that as soon as possible.
4. Remember, that knowing about your disability, the decision to disclose and getting adequate documentation are your responsibilities not your parents' or your high school's.