Editor's Choice: Lessons on Disability and the Rights of Students.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 form the basis for this discussion of students with disabilities and the role played by community college faculty in promoting their success. After asserting the need to foster self-awareness in one's perceptions of those with disabilities, the author defines practices that ensure receptive classroom environments with examples of effective attitudes, behaviors, and language.

Before reading further, stop to ask yourself this question: When I think of a person with a disability, I usually think of someone who has the following disability. What comes to mind? Remember these images, thoughts, and feelings.

Disability is a common experience that we view as uncommon. We prefer to think that disability happens to "the other guy." Yet nearly 1 out of every 5 persons in the United States (54 million people) has a disability that impairs his or her ability to accomplish activities of daily living (National Organization on Disability/Louis Harris & Associates, 1998). If you're typical, the image of someone with a disability probably evokes a mixture of feelings and thoughts influenced by centuries old beliefs involving stereotype, stigma, and devaluation (Gartner & Joe, 1987; Longmore, 1985; Taylor & Bogdan, 1993). We're not sure how to respond to a person with disabilities; on a subconscious level we fear what we see in the other. Rather than say the "wrong thing," we avoid contact. Murphy (1990), an anthropologist, reports the following in The Body Silent:

      One cannot shelve a disability or hide it from the world. It is not a
   role; it is an identity, a dominant characteristic to which all social
   roles must be adjusted. (p. 106)

      The disabled person's radical bodily difference, his departure from the
   human standard, dominates the thoughts of the other and may even repel him.
   But these are thoughts that can barely be articulated, let alone voiced.
   (p. 122)

   The disabled are regarded as contaminated; eyes are averted and people take
   care not to approach wheelchairs too closely. My colleague Jessica Scheer
   refers to wheelchairs as "portable seclusion huts." (p. 135)

Similar to culturally diverse populations based on race, ethnicity, and gender, many students hide their disabilities because of fear and prejudice--theirs and ours.

Students bring a variety of physical, cognitive, emotional, sensory, and learning disabilities into the classroom; hidden and obvious, recognized and unrecognized. Few teachers in community colleges have any didactic or significant prior exposure to disability. Unfortunately, even faculty educated to teach students with disabilities may lack experiential preparedness. As a result, disabled persons may feel misunderstood in educational settings and negatively affected by teacher perceptions about disability. Further, many faculty lack understanding of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as applied to postsecondary education settings.

This article focuses on what students with disabilities wish educators understood about them; its purpose is to assist community college faculty and administrators in their encounters with students who have disabilities. My perspectives reflect personal experience as a parent of a young adult with physical disabilities (Treloar, 1998a), conversations with educators, and responses from disabled adults who participated in a qualitative study that explored the spiritual experiences of 30 people affected by disability (Treloar, 1998b).

Including People with Disabilities in Community Colleges

The Twentieth Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) reports a 31% increase in high school completion for students with disabilities ages 14 through 22, during the 10-year period from 1986-87 to 1995-96 (U.S. Department of Education, 1998). Nearly 25 years earlier, The Education for all Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (P.L. 94-142, later renamed IDEA), legislated the population's right to access to a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. Other education reform efforts facilitate a positive transition into adulthood through increased opportunities for postsecondary training (Neubert & Moon, 1993).

Current research suggests that community colleges, compared to other public postsecondary education sectors, serve a higher proportion of students with disabilities (Pacifici & McKinney, 1997). Data from a 1995 survey by the American Association of Community Colleges and the 1992-1993 National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey indicate that community colleges enroll 71% of all postsecondary students with disabilities (Barnett & Li, 1997). The three most prevalent categories of disabilities in community colleges include learning disabilities, orthopedic and mobility disabilities, and chronic illness or other disabilities. Although about 8% of community colleges students reported having a disability, half this number requested assistance from college disability support services. It seems likely that students with disabilities will continue to participate in postsecondary education consistent with social policy initiatives that support including people with disabilities into society.

These trends present challenges for community colleges that provide education designed to meet career, collegiate, developmental and continuing education needs of people in their surrounding communities (Cohen, 1995). To comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the ADA of 1990, community colleges must assure that qualified students with disabilities have equal access to all institutional programs and services (Miller, 1998; U.S. Department of Justice, 1996). Achieving this goal begins with awareness of language and media images that foster self-awareness of our attitudes toward disability.

Fostering Self-Awareness

Historically, our language and media images surrounding disability have evoked sympathy, pity, or horror. We may infantilize those perceived as weaker or unable to care for themselves. We see a person using a wheelchair and assume cognitive impairment in addition to physical disability. Table 1 summarizes some myths that often surround our perceptions of people with disabilities. Viewing each student as a person begins with self-awareness of personal biases and assumptions about disability. How do we see others: as having value and worth, capable, equal, responsible for self, able to make decisions? "Delabeling" our perceptions precedes our establishing a close relationship with a person having disabilities (Taylor & Bogdan, 1993).

Table 1 Myths Surrounding People with Disabilities

Physically disabled = mentally disabled
Wheelchair = hard of hearing, blind, or stupid
Learning disabled = Ignorant or mentally disabled
People with disabilities want to be pitied.
You can always tell if a person has a disability
  by looking at them.
People with mental disabilities don't know when
  you make fun of them.
People with disabilities must have done something
  wrong to warrant disability.

Our biases and perspectives are not self-evident: What do my perceptions and expectations mean for me as a community college teacher and for students, disabled or nondisabled? Our response to someone who moves, speaks, hears, sees, thinks, or learns differently from the expected has powerful ramifications for that student's relationships with us and his or her peers. We strive to create relationships that emphasize cooperation, personal attributes, and equal status. In so doing, we no longer focus on cane, crutches, wheelchair or other aspects of disability: We see beyond differences in communication or appearance (Livneh, 1994). Positive attitudes toward people with disabilities replace negative responses for stigma, bias, pity, and paternalism.

Don't assume that you understand disability. You may never understand--unless you become disabled yourself. College students with disabilities have learned to compensate for differences; ask how you can work with them. Cathy, a young adult with physical disabilities, described difficulties related to physical disability as "challenges" rather than as "burdens" (Treloar, 1998b): "Sometimes they might be like an obstacle course, but there is a way to get to the other end. Just have to do it a bit differently--not the conventional means. I have speed bumps, doors and windows, all those different types of metaphors."

Disability promotes thinking "outside the box." Do we allow students the freedom to use different methods to learn? Or, do we prescribe both method and learning outcomes? Modification of learning activities becomes justified by the student's achievement of the objectives and performance at a passing level. Believe that the disabled student can achieve the desired results, but recognize that the path in reaching the goal may vary.

Creating Receptive Environments

Effective teachers create learning environments that anticipate success and that assist students to move toward this prize. This becomes increasingly important when students have cultural backgrounds or differences that vary from the expected. Cathy, user of a motorized wheelchair, repeatedly received both direct and indirect messages that she would never become a teacher (Treloar, 1998b). Her teachers' reasons focused on her physical limitations: She could not physically quell an altercation by students were it to arise. Because Cathy could not use her hands to develop audiovisual materials for classroom assignments, she instructed others to prepare the requisite materials. Her physical inability to directly accomplish these assignments promoted the charge by at least one teacher that using others as her hands was "cheating." What does this imply about our attitudes toward reasonable accommodations?

Cathy, now a teacher, capitalizes on the limitations that provoked concern from her teachers. Every student in her class is responsible for a task usually performed by the teacher. Each student's activity is essential for the whole: the teacher facilitates learning. The principal who hired Cathy took a risk: He saw beyond the body that uses a motorized wheelchair. He focused on the teacher as a person; he chose to see what could be, rather than what isn't. Shouldn't that be our perspective when a student with disabilities enters our class? Table 2 summarizes some positive ways to approach students with disabilities, as well as negative approaches to overcome.

Table 2 Do's and Don'ts with Persons Affected by Disability

Do                                   Don't

Treat them as people; see them as    Assume anything; treat them as
able; accept their differences.      unable to do anything; focus
                                     on differences.

Accept them for who they are.        Pity or patronize them.

Let them do what they can; trust     Force your help on them; treat
their judgment about what they       them like a baby.
can do.

Approach them; offer help, but ask   Ignore them; be overhelpful;
first.                               avoid them; act like you don't
                                     hear them.

Have fun with them.                  Be afraid to joke or talk with
                                     them.

Becoming Aware of Language

Although we attempt to create classroom environments that honor the diversity of all persons, we remain largely unaware of disability bias in language (Blaska, 1993). Stereotypical language promotes exclusion and difference, devaluation, and notions of incompetence (Zola, 1993). The words cripple, handicapped, or confined to a wheelchair convey negative images of disability. The phrase a person with a disability reflects "person-first" language that places emphasis on the person, rather than on the disability. Consider the implications of these two descriptions: Peter uses a wheelchair or Peter is a wheelchair user. These differences in choice of language are often subtle and may appear insignificant. However, disability rights advocates emphasize the power of language to shape societal attitudes toward members of social and cultural groups that have been devalued (Nagler, 1993).

Preferences for language use surrounding disability vary significantly among people and change over time. Teachers who acknowledge the worth of any person remain sensitive to language that may devalue or maintain stereotypical attitudes toward others who vary due to disability, race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, or other differences. Table 3 summarizes some effective uses of language to shape one's attitudes toward people with disabilities. Learning the language of disability is one step toward understanding legal definitions for disability and laws that mandate equal treatment for people with disabilities.

Table 3 Sensitivity to Language

Preferred Usage                      Instead of This

The boy who is blind                 The blind boy
The adult with epilepsy              The epileptic
People with disabilities             Handicapped people
Children without disabilities        Normal children
Has cerebral palsy                   Afflicted by cerebral palsy
Uses a wheelchair, wheelchair user   Confined to a wheelchair

Applying the ADA to Community College Settings

A disability involves any restriction on or lack of ability to perform an activity in the expected way. An impairment involves an anatomical, mental, or psychological loss or abnormality. A less commonly used term, handicap, indicates a disadvantage resulting from an impairment or disability (Pope & Tarlov, 1991). Both the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) define disability as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of an individual, a person with a record of such impairment, or a person who is regarded as having such an impairment (U.S. Department of Justice, 1996).

Physical disabilities, learning disabilities, mental retardation, serious emotional disturbances, and health problems such as AIDS and asthma are examples of disabilities that may substantially limit at least one major life activity. A major life activity includes the ability to breathe, walk, see, hear, speak, work, care for oneself, perform manual tasks, and learn. If the student does not currently use unlawful drugs, alcohol or drug addiction may be included. Certain conditions including compulsive gambling, kleptomania, and sexual behavioral disorders such as pedophilia and transvestitism are excluded, as are environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantages (Wehman, 1993).

Community college faculty need skills to recognize a student who may have a disability and the ability to make appropriate teaching and learning modifications. In a recent example, Mr. Brown noted that Ben, a student with very thick eyeglasses, would place his hand around his ear in a cupping motion and turn his body whenever another person began to speak. Ben looked puzzled, with apparent difficulty in understanding the class activity. Finally, he sat with arms folded across his chest, no longer trying to keep up with the teacher's instructions in the dimly lit computer lab. After class, he lingered in the lab. Mr. Brown asked, "Are you having trouble with the computer?" Ben responded, "No, I don't think that's the problem. I can't hear you and I'm legally blind." Ben self-identified his disability and requested help. Mr. Brown responded: "OK. We can make accommodations but you need to contact the Disability Resource Center (DRC)."

He accompanied Ben to the DRC where staff began an individual assessment. Appropriate documentation that established the existence of Ben's disabilities and the need for accommodation were readily obtained. Reasonable accommodations for Ben included using software that enlarged the print size on the computer monitor screen. Instead of using a "roving" teaching style, Mr. Brown restricted his movements so that Ben could read his lips. He also enlarged the font print size on exams and other written materials. In addition, Ben told his peers that he had visual and auditory disabilities. Whoever sat next to Ben would repeat the comments of other students in the room so that Ben didn't miss out on important classroom interaction.

Mr. Brown's interactions with Ben illustrate several important points. People with disabilities are the same as nondisabled persons, although different (Treloar, 1998b). Although Mr. Brown recognized that Ben was just like any other student, he also recognized that Ben's disabilities created a need for instructional modifications.

Postsecondary education settings that receive Federal financial assistance cannot discriminate against or exclude a qualified person from programs or activities solely on the basis of his or her disability. A qualified student meets the technical and academic qualifications for participation in an educational program or activity. An institution is expected to make reasonable accommodation so that otherwise qualified students have equal opportunity to participate in programs, activities, and services. Institutions are not expected to provide accommodations that would fundamentally alter the academic requirements or nature of a program of study. For example, programs designed to prepare students to meet licensure requirements may not be able to accommodate some students. Institutions are not required to accommodate students who provide a direct threat to the safety or health of others.

Accommodations may include an accessible location, extended but not unlimited time for test-taking and related activities, substitution of nonessential courses for degree requirements, adaptation of course instruction, and adaptive equipment or technology such as tape-recording classes or providing other auxiliary aids and services including the use of notetakers, scribes, or readers. Educational settings provide effective accommodations without cost to students and without "undue burden" on the institution. The community college is not required to provide attendants or devices for personal use by the student (other than for academic reasons).

Once the student self-identifies a disability and requests accommodation, the college is permitted a reasonable period of time to make accommodation. An individualized assessment should include appropriate documentation (this may be at student expense) that establishes the existence of disability and the need for accommodation. Decisions surrounding disability and what constitutes reasonable accommodation are usually made by the college Disability Resource Center (DRC). The legal services department may become involved in some instances.

When students self-identify and request accommodation for disability, faculty must refer students to the DRC for an individualized assessment and valid documentation of disability. Effective administrative policy supports the responsibility of students to contact the DRC, rather than limiting self-identification to faculty. Failure to do this could promote charges of discrimination when faculty members provide different accommodations. The college catalog and student admission and registration materials should contain a statement requiring students with disabilities who need accommodation to contact the DRC. Colleges need to establish an alternative mechanism for advising students with visual disabilities who cannot use this information in written form. A student is not entitled to accommodations until he or she self-identifies as a person having a disability.

What kinds of concerns might faculty have related to students with disabilities and the ADA/Section 504? ADA accommodations may inconvenience us. Worse yet, we may question the validity of some alleged disabilities. In other cases, reasonable accommodations for significant disabilities don't seem adequate. Students with mental disabilities who fail to follow their treatment plans may create problems that affect their classroom behavior and performance. Concerns surrounding confidentiality restrict our ability to collaborate with others who might help such students. We can't require that prescribed medications be taken; dismissal may be our only option. Reinstatement of the student should require medical clearance and other possible stipulations consistent with administrative policy. Equal treatment, not preferential treatment, of students with disabilities ought to be our goal.

Promoting Success by Students with Disabilities

The American Association of Community Colleges solicited information from 150 community colleges nationwide about factors that promote success in disability support practices (Barnett, 1993). Leading programs were characterized by four key factors in success that included administrative commitment, community linkages, staff expertise, and faculty support. In addition to institutional support, a student-oriented approach and stable funding, the following practices were found to promote effective disability support: creativity and flexibility in service delivery, job transition or placement activities, comprehensive student support services, assistive technology, and a structured curriculum. Clearly, community colleges provide leadership in disability support practices and innovative solutions that meet students' special needs.

Disability, hidden or obvious, changes the packaging of our bodies. People with disabilities are the same, but different from nondisabled persons. Educators who build community in their classrooms begin with a view of each student as a person having value and worth. Effective teachers don't assume they understand disability: They ask the other person to describe his or her world. Disability challenges all of us to capitalize on the differences of each student, and to anticipate success in learning. These actions by faculty and staff are necessary to ensure that all students have equal opportunity to participate in educational and extracurricular programs in community college settings.

References

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Barnett, L., & Li, Y. (1997). Disability support services in community colleges (Research Brief ACC-RB-97-1). Washington, DC: American Association of Community Colleges.

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Treloar, L. L. (1998a). Lessons from joy: Living with disability. Journal of Christian Nursing, 15(2), 9-13.

Treloar, L. L. (1998b). Perceptions of spiritual beliefs, response to disability, and the church. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Union Institute, Cincinnati, OH.

U.S. Department of Education. (1998). Twentieth annual report to Congress on the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Washington, DC: Author.

U.S. Department of Justice. (1996). A guide to disability rights laws (U.S.G.P.O.: 1997 417-737/64278; Order #622D). Pueblo, CO: Consumer Information Center.

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Zola, I. K. (1993). Self, identity and the naming question: Reflections on the language of disability. In M. Nagler (Ed.), Perspectives on disability: Text and readings on disability (pp. 15-23). Palo Alto, CA: Health Markets Research.

Linda L. Treloar is a member of the nursing faculty at Scottsdale Community College in Scottsdale, Arizona. ([e-mail] or [e-mail])