Wall Street Journal on rampant growth in percentage of college students with “disabilities”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is similar to the proliferation of service animals and I’d absolutely question the underling condition and motivation for these so called disabilities. We’re becoming a nation of weak imbeciles.

And yet people with disabilities are over-represented among entrepreneurs ... hardly somewhere we would expect to find weak imbeciles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

Obviously, with more time they could out-perform their peers who have to stick to the time limit.

Accomodations may also include having another student tasked with taking notes for them. The students who get these work-study jobs are often A students -- so this student gets perfect notes taken by an A student while your B plus student gets notes they took themselves. And if the student is too depressed or anxious (or tired or hungover) to go to class, they still get perfect notes taken by an A student.

I was a note-taker in college. If I do say so myself, I take excellent notes. My notes didn't have some magic pixie dust on them that meant the students I provided them for go automatic As. The students who got my notes still had to study and understand the material, they had to be able to turn my notes into actual knowledge inside their own heads.

But aside from that, were you never part of study groups? I thought being paid to be a note-taker was awesome because I already was giving my notes away for free to anyone who asked and my study groups. Thank you to the students who went to the trouble of getting the disability office to make this a thing! I got through undergrad on work-study, and note-taking was by far the easiest work-study job I had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are disability accommodations as a result of mental illness (the root cause of the large percent, as highlighted in the article) a bad thing? What makes them less deserving of attention and consideration than someone who is physically disabled or blind?

Because it's not clear if those disabilities even require academic accommodations at all. In elementary and secondary school, having a disability alone does not qualify you to get anything. You only get accommodations and services if they're needed. Being anxious does not mean you need more time to take a test, or to have a reduced homework load. Maybe you get some specific accommodations for a panic attack during an exam. But as anyone who has actually dealt with anxiety and panic knows (raises hand!) the proper treatment for situational anxiety is not avoidance; it's learning how to cope with the situation.

Learning how to cope with the situation? Like, oh, running into a question and your mind going blank. So putting the pencil down. Closing your eyes for a minute. Taking a few deep breaths. Telling yourself you can skip this problem and move on to the next one. Opening your eyes, picking up your pencil, and moving on to the next question? That sort of coping with the situation?

That's exactly what my child with anxiety does. And sometimes, it means my child spend half an exam working through anxiety reactions. So yes, extended time on exams is a perfect accommodation because it means my child's anxiety isn't ramped up because he fears he's going to run out of time. Instead he gets to practice his coping techniques and his teachers actually get an exam that is reflective of what he knows rather than reflective of a panic attack.

I'm glad your anxiety is less intrusive or you have better developed skills. These are kids. They're still learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/articles/colleges-bend-the-rules-for-more-students-give-them-extra-help-1527154200

“At Pomona, 22% of students were considered disabled this year, up from 5% in 2014. Other elite schools have also seen a startling jump in disabilities, according to data from the federal government and from the schools. At Hampshire, Amherst and Smith colleges in Massachusetts and Yeshiva University in New York, one in five students are classified as disabled. At Oberlin College in Ohio, it is one in four. At Marlboro College in Vermont, it is one in three.”

I’m sorry, but this is disgraceful. It’s one thing if you are legally blind, but anxiety or ADHD should not be grounds for giving someone twice the time to take an exam. It’s unfair to the more humble students who are less inclined to take advantage of what should be reserved for people are are truly in-need.

The amount of ignorance in PP's comment is really what is disgraceful.

Just because you know ASHD people that went to college does not mean it is the norm.
If you went to jail you could say the same thing. I went to jail and tons of people in jail have ADHD.



? How so? The rate of increase since 2014 is staggering.

Having a disability isn't disgraceful. Having a disability and attending college isn't disgraceful. Having a disability, attending college, and having appropriate accommodations isn't disgraceful either. Also, ignorant people like OP don't get to decide what is or is not a disability.

but it's obviously gaming the system. No possible way could there be a four-fold increase in "disabilities" in just 4 years. I think the prof's posting above probably explains what's going on about right

Yes there can if people with disabilities were unlikely to be labeled as such until recently. I know plenty of people with ADHD or ASD who've graduated college without having been diagnosed. It's incredibly common in my generation to only learn of your diagnosis after the diagnosis of your child. I also know people who have very successful careers who were unable to complete college because of their disabilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/articles/colleges-bend-the-rules-for-more-students-give-them-extra-help-1527154200

“At Pomona, 22% of students were considered disabled this year, up from 5% in 2014. Other elite schools have also seen a startling jump in disabilities, according to data from the federal government and from the schools. At Hampshire, Amherst and Smith colleges in Massachusetts and Yeshiva University in New York, one in five students are classified as disabled. At Oberlin College in Ohio, it is one in four. At Marlboro College in Vermont, it is one in three.”

I’m sorry, but this is disgraceful. It’s one thing if you are legally blind, but anxiety or ADHD should not be grounds for giving someone twice the time to take an exam. It’s unfair to the more humble students who are less inclined to take advantage of what should be reserved for people are are truly in-need.

The amount of ignorance in PP's comment is really what is disgraceful.

? How so? The rate of increase since 2014 is staggering.

Having a disability isn't disgraceful. Having a disability and attending college isn't disgraceful. Having a disability, attending college, and having appropriate accommodations isn't disgraceful either. Also, ignorant people like OP don't get to decide what is or is not a disability.

but it's obviously gaming the system. No possible way could there be a four-fold increase in "disabilities" in just 4 years. I think the prof's posting above probably explains what's going on about right

Yes there can if people with disabilities were unlikely to be labeled as such until recently. I know plenty of people with ADHD or ASD who've graduated college without having been diagnosed. It's incredibly common in my generation to only learn of your diagnosis after the diagnosis of your child. I also know people who have very successful careers who were unable to complete college because of their disabilities.

Sure. But that's not 25% of the entire college class! Come on.

In wealthier areas schools, 11-13% of the kids receive special education services. I would guess that if a college were well known to have a superior students with disabilities office, they would receive a disproportionate percentage of applications from students with disabilities. My DS has dyslexia and ASD and you'd better believe I pay attention to conversations about where other kids with disabilities are headed to for college even though that is years off. Hell, I've mapped out which HSs offer Latin or ASL for the language requirement.

OP's use of scare quotes and "rampant" and PP's fixation on extended test time demonstrate an assumption that the vast majority of students with disabilities are cheaters who just want to game the system. That is a willfully ignorant. It's not clear at all from the numbers that there is abuse or, if there is abuse, what form it takes. We do know is that the percentage of children being diagnosed with ASD is steadily increasing. We know that somewhere around 15% of elementary students have some level of reading disability (but we refuse to screen for it, so it is vastly under-identified). We know that record number of high school students are suffering from anxiety and depression. But here you are, so concerned that there might be college students getting extra time on tests.

I find it extremely hard to believe that a quarter of students in any give college have disabilities that *require academic accommodations.* Just because a child has anxiety or depression does not mean that they need extra time on a test or special care. In fact, that kind of treatment can be counter-productive. Your child with ASD and dyslexia is a different story. Also, where do you get that 15% of kids have a reading disablity? that seems hard to believe.

Require academic accommodations or require accommodations? Accommodations include accessible dorm rooms for students with physical disabilities.

Yale studies in the 90's showed about 20% of the population have dyslexia. They tested all students in the sample population rather than testing only parent or teacher referred students. That study also debunked the myth that boys have higher rates of dyslexia than girls; it's a result of significant selection bias. Dyslexia is a very common non-obvious LD that schools fight tooth and nail not to identify because of the potential resource drain of providing services. They also don't provide services to any appreciable degree. Many parents of kids with any significant level of dyslexia spend hundreds to thousands of dollars a month on tutoring ... which also means that kids of families who can't afford it likely will never do well academically. This is the reality of disability in education ... not this phantom menace of hordes of undeserving slackers gaming the system.

Here is from US News & World Report in 2011 -- http://dyslexia.yale.edu/colleges-step-up-to-meet-dyslexia-challenge/

According to a 1991 study conducted at the University of California-Berkeley, this makes a difference. Dyslexic students taking a standardized reading test scored on par with their peers when granted extra time, but lagged significantly when they were not. Importantly, students without the disability produced virtually the same scores regardless of whether they were given additional time.

But getting such help can be a challenge for those who need it. Each year the College Board administers the SAT to more than 2 million individuals. According to Steven Pereira, the College Board’s executive director of services for students with disabilities, about 32,000 members of the class of 2010 took the test with accommodations.

Pereira says that about 85 percent of all students annually who request assists receive them if they can document their disabilities. However, Shaywitz points out that since dyslexics alone are about 20 percent of the population, the fact that so few students are accommodated suggests there are flaws in how they are handled.

There is a strong belief among some that many kids diagnosed with ADHD also have mild dyslexia since the two have some sort of correlation.

I seriously doubt that 15% of kids are getting into top colleges with previously undiagnosed dyslexia that requires academic accomodations. Come on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

This starts at high school and at my private, kids come up w diagnosis near SAT time and get extra time to improve scores esp SAT subject tests. The it continues in college, to get the better grades that allow one to get scholarships and better internships etc. I think the fairest method is to give everyone extra time. Then there will be no advantage to those gaming the system and we should see a decline and to those who really need the accommodation, they get it.

I think it starts way before HS.

And here we are with more ignorance. To receive accommodations for the SAT and ACT, you have to have a diagnosis and a history of needing accommodations in school. You can't go out the night before and get a piece of paper saying you need more time and be allowed more time. It just doesn't work that way. Students have to have a medical evaluation between 1 and 3yrs before the SAT date and an IEP or 504 that has been in place before the appeal.

So their parents start arranging for that at the same time they start arranging for SAT prep classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What concerns me from a related article is the statement that wealthier students are more likely to receive accommodations than poor students.

What happens when these kids graduate college? Is an employer going to give a person who takes twice as long to do something the same salary as someone who meets deadlines?

The student is going to find a field appropriate to their strengths and weaknesses. Like we all do. How is this so shocking?

My dyslexic sibling takes longer to read and synthesize information than his non-dyslexic coworkers. Should he be fired? He has other strengths in his job that compensate for the time he needs to take to read information, and he deliberately chose a line of work where reading information isn't terribly time sensitive so he can spread it out and make sure he's not missing critical information.

No, he shouldn't be fired. But that's not the question here. The question is whether somehow 25% of the population suddenly has learning disabilities; whether those students benefit from accommodations; whether those accommodations are legitimate or not. Arguably, an accommodation just stops the student from learning where their proper niche is. In high school or elementary school it might be more appropriate; but college IMO is where they start needing to face their abilities and disabilities in the real world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are disability accommodations as a result of mental illness (the root cause of the large percent, as highlighted in the article) a bad thing? What makes them less deserving of attention and consideration than someone who is physically disabled or blind?

Because it's not clear if those disabilities even require academic accommodations at all. In elementary and secondary school, having a disability alone does not qualify you to get anything. You only get accommodations and services if they're needed. Being anxious does not mean you need more time to take a test, or to have a reduced homework load. Maybe you get some specific accommodations for a panic attack during an exam. But as anyone who has actually dealt with anxiety and panic knows (raises hand!) the proper treatment for situational anxiety is not avoidance; it's learning how to cope with the situation.

Learning how to cope with the situation? Like, oh, running into a question and your mind going blank. So putting the pencil down. Closing your eyes for a minute. Taking a few deep breaths. Telling yourself you can skip this problem and move on to the next one. Opening your eyes, picking up your pencil, and moving on to the next question? That sort of coping with the situation?

That's exactly what my child with anxiety does. And sometimes, it means my child spend half an exam working through anxiety reactions. So yes, extended time on exams is a perfect accommodation because it means my child's anxiety isn't ramped up because he fears he's going to run out of time. Instead he gets to practice his coping techniques and his teachers actually get an exam that is reflective of what he knows rather than reflective of a panic attack.

I'm glad your anxiety is less intrusive or you have better developed skills. These are kids. They're still learning.

That sounds appropriate for elementary and high school, but not college, honestly. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

My dd is finishing her junior year. She has two close friends whose parents are trying to get them diagnosed to get accomodations...yes, now, after junior year, after their first SAT/ACT scores, just to try to get another round of tests done with extra time and to have extra time on AP exams. What is this world we’re living in?
Would accomodations ever be given to kids who have already scored a 27 on the ACT and a 1250 on the SAT?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

Obviously, with more time they could out-perform their peers who have to stick to the time limit.

Agree SATs and ACTs are as much a test of getting through all the questions within the time limits as a test of skills/ability. If one kid has say 45 seconds to work out a math problem, it is harder to get it right than if they have 90-120 seconds per question. When there's a strict time limit, many kids don't have the luxury of double checking answers. I think a lot of test prep is to teach kids how to zero in on the right answer, dismissing clearly wrong answers, as quickly as possible. It must also be more comfortable writing the SAT essay when you've got double the time to think and plan.

You don't get it. It takes the ADHD/ADD/anxiety/EF disabled student longer to do the same work, so 45 seconds for a non-disabled student = 90-120 seconds for a disabled student. There is no advantage, only a levelled playing field. There is no extra double-checking of answers. It takes the disabled student the entire period to simply get through the test! There is no extra time to plan an essay response. It takes that long just to decide what to write and write it! Some of you need to study up on this type of disability rather than impulsively responding. -Mom of ADD DD who barely squeaked by HS -- even with so-called "extras."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

Obviously, with more time they could out-perform their peers who have to stick to the time limit.

Agree SATs and ACTs are as much a test of getting through all the questions within the time limits as a test of skills/ability. If one kid has say 45 seconds to work out a math problem, it is harder to get it right than if they have 90-120 seconds per question. When there's a strict time limit, many kids don't have the luxury of double checking answers. I think a lot of test prep is to teach kids how to zero in on the right answer, dismissing clearly wrong answers, as quickly as possible. It must also be more comfortable writing the SAT essay when you've got double the time to think and plan.

You don't get it. It takes the ADHD/ADD/anxiety/EF disabled student longer to do the same work, so 45 seconds for a non-disabled student = 90-120 seconds for a disabled student. There is no advantage, only a levelled playing field. There is no extra double-checking of answers. It takes the disabled student the entire period to simply get through the test! There is no extra time to plan an essay response. It takes that long just to decide what to write and write it! Some of you need to study up on this type of disability rather than impulsively responding. -Mom of ADD DD who barely squeaked by HS -- even with so-called "extras."

I think YOU don't get it. Standardized tests are build to test processing speed and working memory, in part. They're not designed to test content knowledge and creativity. It would be laughably backwards to argue that a kid should get longer on tests because he is "disabled" due to his reduced executive functioning ability.

Now, a much better argument is that schools and colleges should design evaluations and courses that give more kinds of options to different kinds of learners. That, I agree with. But standardized tests measure processing speed, period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What concerns me from a related article is the statement that wealthier students are more likely to receive accommodations than poor students.

What happens when these kids graduate college? Is an employer going to give a person who takes twice as long to do something the same salary as someone who meets deadlines?

The student is going to find a field appropriate to their strengths and weaknesses. Like we all do. How is this so shocking?

My dyslexic sibling takes longer to read and synthesize information than his non-dyslexic coworkers. Should he be fired? He has other strengths in his job that compensate for the time he needs to take to read information, and he deliberately chose a line of work where reading information isn't terribly time sensitive so he can spread it out and make sure he's not missing critical information.

No, he shouldn't be fired. But that's not the question here. The question is whether somehow 25% of the population suddenly has learning disabilities; whether those students benefit from accommodations; whether those accommodations are legitimate or not. Arguably, an accommodation just stops the student from learning where their proper niche is. In high school or elementary school it might be more appropriate; but college IMO is where they start needing to face their abilities and disabilities in the real world.

So a blind person should not go to college because their acccommodations just stops them from learning where their niche is? What about a deaf person? We should stop people from wearing glasses too, because that gives them too much advantage. A person with an LD just needs a different way to access the material in school. It does not change the fact that they have to learn that material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Truly - what is the harm of accommodations? What is one single example of an accommodated kid gaining an unfair advantage? I am asking this and my kids are accommodation free. These kids may not fit into the box they are dealt with but this has nothing to do with intellect, ideas or ability to innovate. Sure - perhaps there are some careers where they may not be properly suited but that’s between them and their employer.

This starts at high school and at my private, kids come up w diagnosis near SAT time and get extra time to improve scores esp SAT subject tests. The it continues in college, to get the better grades that allow one to get scholarships and better internships etc. I think the fairest method is to give everyone extra time. Then there will be no advantage to those gaming the system and we should see a decline and to those who really need the accommodation, they get it.

I think it starts way before HS.

My DS (currently in early elementary) has documented fine-motor delays that absolutely mean that he will be at a disadvantage in a hand-written test. However, I'm currently not planning to accept accomodations that would extend testing time. I think it's important for him to learn about his limitations, within reason. He gets a lot of support to work on his handwriting and focus; but I believe that at testing time, he should just do what everyone else does.

Best of luck to you on this, but once the stakes are higher, you will likely regret not putting accommodations in place -- even if you don't need to use them -- early on. I know that every kid is different, so our experience with this may not apply.

We did not know that DD had ADD and EF disorder until the end of her sophomore year. Her grades through elementary and half of middle school were As and Bs. Once she hit high school, and the workload and expectation level was higher, her grades dropped. We had her tested, and while her IQ was high, her working memory and processing speed were significantly lower.

Had we known this earlier, we could have supported her better throughout the years when grades did not count as much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What concerns me from a related article is the statement that wealthier students are more likely to receive accommodations than poor students.

What happens when these kids graduate college? Is an employer going to give a person who takes twice as long to do something the same salary as someone who meets deadlines?

The student is going to find a field appropriate to their strengths and weaknesses. Like we all do. How is this so shocking?

My dyslexic sibling takes longer to read and synthesize information than his non-dyslexic coworkers. Should he be fired? He has other strengths in his job that compensate for the time he needs to take to read information, and he deliberately chose a line of work where reading information isn't terribly time sensitive so he can spread it out and make sure he's not missing critical information.

No, he shouldn't be fired. But that's not the question here. The question is whether somehow 25% of the population suddenly has learning disabilities; whether those students benefit from accommodations; whether those accommodations are legitimate or not. Arguably, an accommodation just stops the student from learning where their proper niche is. In high school or elementary school it might be more appropriate; but college IMO is where they start needing to face their abilities and disabilities in the real world.

So a blind person should not go to college because their acccommodations just stops them from learning where their niche is? What about a deaf person? We should stop people from wearing glasses too, because that gives them too much advantage. A person with an LD just needs a different way to access the material in school. It does not change the fact that they have to learn that material.

No, it's different for someone with a bona fide physical disability. And in any event - yes, they do have to find a niche as well. They're likely not going to go for a career in air traffic control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What concerns me from a related article is the statement that wealthier students are more likely to receive accommodations than poor students.

What happens when these kids graduate college? Is an employer going to give a person who takes twice as long to do something the same salary as someone who meets deadlines?

The student is going to find a field appropriate to their strengths and weaknesses. Like we all do. How is this so shocking?

My dyslexic sibling takes longer to read and synthesize information than his non-dyslexic coworkers. Should he be fired? He has other strengths in his job that compensate for the time he needs to take to read information, and he deliberately chose a line of work where reading information isn't terribly time sensitive so he can spread it out and make sure he's not missing critical information.

No, he shouldn't be fired. But that's not the question here. The question is whether somehow 25% of the population suddenly has learning disabilities; whether those students benefit from accommodations; whether those accommodations are legitimate or not. Arguably, an accommodation just stops the student from learning where their proper niche is. In high school or elementary school it might be more appropriate; but college IMO is where they start needing to face their abilities and disabilities in the real world.

So a blind person should not go to college because their acccommodations just stops them from learning where their niche is? What about a deaf person? We should stop people from wearing glasses too, because that gives them too much advantage. A person with an LD just needs a different way to access the material in school. It does not change the fact that they have to learn that material.

If for some reason a test involves visual or auditoryl processing -- say, an art history class where you have to identify painitngs or a music class -- then a deaf or blind person can't get any accommodations. Similarly if a test is SUPPOSED to measure how quickly you process information, then it doesn't make sense to give accomodations to people who process information more slowly.