Disabilities and neurodivergence
Accessibility in Academia: One Disabled Student’s Experience
Isabella Spinelli (They/Them/Theirs)
Submitted September 2024
Now I’m entering my fourth year at Royal Holloway, I reflect on the countless conversations I’ve had with my disabled friends regarding our access arrangements at university, the inequalities and ableism we’ve faced, and the extra degrees of difficulty we’ve tackled in our assessed work. For me, these experiences come from someone who is Autistic, and has ADHD and a chronic pain condition. I’m about to begin my final year of my MSci in Psychology with the hopes of becoming a special educational teacher, a job I already assist with during summer holidays. As a teacher, my main priority has always been to provide flexibility in the accommodations made to my disabled students (or those showing signs of disability). This has opened my eyes to the importance of both systemic and individual care regarding accessibility as educators. Higher Education has a long way to go before meeting the goal of providing an equal experience to all students, regardless of disability, but some of my recent personal experiences have given me hope that individual lecturers are designing their modules and assessments with equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) issues in mind.
Access arrangements at the institutional level often lack the flexibility and compassion needed for the institution to truly support their students. I entered university in the midst of receiving my autism diagnosis, and having been referred but still waiting on my ADHD diagnosis. Unfortunately, my lack of confirmed diagnoses meant that regardless of a psychiatrist’s notes for my accommodation needs, systems such as Disability and Neurodiversity Service (DNS) were not able to assist me fully. My mental health was abysmal at the start of my first year for countless reasons all related to my disabilities, and the barriers towards receiving academic support made it difficult to feel confident in my ability to continue my degree. I would also like to note that although I am Latinx, I am racially white and did not experience the vastly greater barriers to diagnosis and accommodations that disabled people of colour do; which is so unbelievably important to acknowledge in discussions about improving systemic issues. I also found that the DNS at Royal Holloway (similarly to most if not all other such services across the UK) are very particular about which accommodations can and cannot be granted. This is especially the case for non-physical disabilities where the solutions may not appear so “clear-cut”. For instance, I once requested to receive a “green marking sticker” concessions for my handwritten exams (only), as my fine motor skills diminish quite quickly while writing exams, and I can often visually skip over words in my head while rereading my work meaning that spelling mistakes/unwritten words go unnoticed. However, upon hearing my reasoning, the DNS officer I spoke to was unable to grant me the accommodation, as it was exclusively for Dyslexic and Dyspraxic students. And so, in my exams this last year I wound up using the five minutes rest time I get for my chronic pain to instead take writing breaks and stretch my hands, still needing to use physiotherapy tape on my wrist afterwards. I have had lovely experiences with the DNS staff as a whole, they truly do seem to care about our wellbeing. It is simply the system and guidelines they have to operate under that are currently failing to meet students’ needs. An interesting source I’d recommend for reading into this further would be Disabled Students UK, who conduct a report each year measuring the experiences of disabled students in universities across England, including Royal Holloway (2023 edition linked here).
The systemic faults of institutions are widely responsible for inaccessible education, yet that does not disregard the individual impact and responsibility of the educator to not only make their content and classroom welcoming, but also to challenge systems within the university that are misaligned with EDI values, and to advocate for their students. In previous years, I’ve found myself losing marks in assessments, sometimes quite significantly, due to misunderstanding the assessment expectations, going “off topic” for the sake of what I thought was a relevant point, or confusion due to formatting. I once wrote an entire half of a report on an unapproved topic because the physical layout of the Moodle page relied on images rather than titles, and I confused two lectures of similar content. Not only did my marks suffer for this error, but my mental health and self-esteem took quite the hit: My otherwise well-written report had achieved such a low mark for what could be classed as a stupid mistake, but rather was a consequence of how I, as a disabled student, had interacted with the learning resources provided. Such situations have also taken place when I’ve not understood how to expand on seemingly simple assignment briefs (such as answering yes-or-no questions), losing me marks due to my inability to stay on topic when I had, in fact, thought I had found an interesting and unique angle towards addressing the subject. The lack of instruction exemplifying what successful work would look like, alongside the inability to receive feedback regarding the specifics of our topic due to anonymity concerns, results in the need to trust that what we believe to be interesting and insightful, but that may simply not reach the brief.
In the third year of my degree, I was reminded that I am an intelligent and capable student, when I achieved an excellent, First Class mark in the assessment for the Psychology of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) module coordinated by Dr James Ravenhill. More specifically, the way the assessment information had been presented to students had so clearly outlined the expectations for our work that I felt none of my usual anxieties about misunderstandings, and instead could pour all my energy into producing my work. I achieved my best mark of my academic career to date in this assessment and I wholeheartedly believe that it is because I knew from the start what was expected of me and what would be appropriate topics for this specific assessment. The factors I found most supportive were the following:
- The lecture slides describing the assessment included an example outline with wordcounts, which clearly highlighted which sections of our reports should be the most focused, while also not requiring students to follow this formatting precisely, thus allowing for some flexibility.
- The Module Co-ordinator recorded a video of himself going through the assessment lecture slides, which not only provided extra context and detail into the expectations, but also meant that anyone who may have missed the lecture for countless reasons (i.e., pain flares, fatigue, or even just illness) wouldn’t be less informed going into their work when compared to their peers. I’d like to note that lectures are recorded to be uploaded at a later date for those who cannot attend, but these are still susceptible to technical difficulties which risk missed content.
- The shared information identified what stronger reports would show for this specific assessment. We very often get referred to the WAKE-guidelines to understand what stronger work may look like (W(riting); A(nswering the question); K(nowledge); E(valuation)), which are technically specified for each individual assignment. However, for this assessment we were further told what particular topics or concepts to touch upon that may expand the value of our work, and subsequently facilitate higher marks. For example, in the case of this report, we were told that stronger papers would address intersectional identities alongside those we had already discussed, even though that was not a requirement for the assignment.
It would be dishonest to claim that I’ve had the picture-perfect academic experience at university. I had always loved learning, but academia as an institution has been simply inaccessible to me. However, my recent experiences of studying at Royal Holloway, and the presence of initiatives such as THESIS (Teaching in Higher Education: Supporting and Inspiring Students) have shown me that many staff members truly are emphasising the importance of improving inclusivity in their classrooms, something I didn’t expect or see to the same extent four years ago. The efforts being made to improve our experiences are truly being felt, and from a student’s perspective I’d like to thank you all. Royal Holloway has felt ever more welcoming because of it, and that is due to the continued efforts of the teaching team.