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Page 3A • Thursday, November 6, 2003
Learning to cope
Students deal with learning disabilities with the help of campus organizations
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By Jimmy Hissong
THE BATTALION
Taylor Gilley, a junior marketing major, gets up in the morning
ltd proceeds with the daily juggle of professors, exams, work, bills,
ectures, extracurricular activities, friends and family like any other
ollege student. Every now and then, however, Taylor Gilley is
moneyriforced to balance one more ball in the hectic collegiate circus equa
te abir ion: a learning disability.
Ninety-five percent of Aggies registered with Student Disability
Services are affected by a learning disability. The exterior invisibil-
ty of Attention Deficit Disorder and other learning impairments
increases the likelihood that students come into contact with stu
dents with disabilities regularly without any knowledge of having
done so.
Gilley, who was diagnosed with ADD her freshman year at Texas
A&M, said everyday classes can be a struggle.
“Sometimes I’ll have trouble taking notes during lecture,” she
aid. “In situations where there are no slides or outlines to follow, I
may have difficulty determining what is important or writing things
down while the professor is still talking.”
Approximately 550 students register with SDS each semester,
aid David Sweeney, an adviser for students with disabilities and the
jrogram director for A&M’s adaptive technology services. While
tils number accounts for only one percent of the Student body, it is
stimated that 8 percent of the general population is afflicted with a
mental or physical impairment that substantially limits one or more
major life activities.
Students who register with Student Disability Services do so
under their own discretion. Students are not sought out by SDS, and
therefore an inconsistency arises between the percentage of students
registered with SDS and the percentage of students who are eligible
to register with SDS.
The reasons students do not register vary. Some students sim
ply do not know about the services SDS provides. Others, howev-
fear unwanted attention from professors or classmates,
Sweeney said.
“It is always difficult to ask the professor for another favor, or be
the one missing student in a classroom of 20 on test day,” said a stu
dent with a learning disability who asked not to be identified.
De-emphasizing the existence of an impairment is a common
means of permitting a student to be identified by his personality
rather than his disability.
“The goal of Student Disability Services is to make student dis-
abillks as transparent as possible across campus,” Sweeney said.
The labs that accommodate students with disabilities are open-
access labs and are available for use by the entire student body.
SDS and its advisers generally encourage students to work with
Paul Wilson • THE BATTALION
their professors to establish an accommodating environment in
the classroom.Some students have developed the false notion that
students who take advantage of the services SDS provides, specifi
cally the test- taking services, receive excessive benefits not avail
able to students, Sweeney said.
“There is no modification of the curriculum,” Sweeney said.
“Student Disability Services simply provide an opportunity to learn
and level the playing field.”
SDS testing facilities help provide recognized students with a
less distracting environment and extended time. The exams are pre
pared by the professor, and are generally the same test administered
to the rest of the class. The disadvantage of this system is that these
students lose the opportunity to test with the professor and ask ques
tions during the exam. The exams given, though, are the same, as are
the expectations of the professor.
“All my tests are exactly the same (as other student’s tests),”
Gilley said. “They have the same questions and the same answers.
There is no gliding through. The testing services just give me the
opportunity to think about an answer or a question a little longer. I
may learn a little differently, but I am not any less smart.”
Aggie Networks, an organization open to all students, seeks to
correct any false stereotypes regarding students with disabilities and
to educate the general public about them.
“Our goal is to provide disability awareness on campus and in the
community,” said Jessica Frasier, secretary of Aggie Networks and
a senior special education major.
Aggie Networks organizes a series of discussion panels each
semester for various classes that address topics about disabilities.
One week might be concerned with sports and disabilities, and
another week might focus on classroom education and disabilities.
The classroom discussion panels put on by Aggie Networks
are the most personal means of connecting with students, said
Tim Obenhaus, president of Aggie Networks and a senior psychol
ogy major.
“Many students are not aware of the organization, and these pan
els provide us with a unique opportunity to establish one-on-one
contact. The panels are how I learned about Aggie Networks,”
Obenhaus said.
Aggie Networks also tries to increase disability awareness
through hands-on activities on campus and in the Bryan-College
Station community. Recently, the organization visited the Mosaic
house, a local assisted-living home. Group members were able to
interact with mentally challenged adults.
“Mosaics was a fun, firsthand experience. We got to do arts
and crafts with them during the day and then wait with them until
their parents came and picked them up in the afternoon,” Frasier
said. “Most of the people we visited with were 30 or 40 years old.
I got a little emotional, but I was glad we were able to be there,”
Frasier said.
Opportunities such as Mosaics provide members with a chance
for direct exposure to people with disabilities and the ability to gain
knowledge from their interactions.
“We are all aware of disabilities, but we really don’t understand
them until we get the opportunity to get one-on-one with them,” said
Luis Elizondo, the intermediary for Student Disability Services and
a junior biomedical science major.
“It’s a great eye-opener,” Elizondo said, “and just one more rea
son why A&M is the friendliest campus around.”
For more information, students can contact Aggie Networks at
networks@stuorg.tamu.edu or through the SDS office.
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