Self-Advocacy Skills for Students With Learning Disabilities: Making It Happen in College and Beyond

This is THE book anybody with a disability--and our parents---must read before selecting a college. It officially mentions learning disabilities, but I found much of the material would also be adaptable to other kinds of disabilities. It clearly explains how college accommodations processes legally differ from those which a student currently receives in their high school special education program. And even better, it clarifies that the student themselves must be the proactive advocate for obtaining their accommodation services. Regardless of an intended major or extracurricular interests, college students with disabilities can't expect others to procure accommodations for them. Self-advocacy isn't about becoming a young so-and-so, it's about becoming a responsible adult. Even the larger college disability support offices are not going to remind enrolled students to come and visit them. We have to do this ourselves, or go without services. Because it's never too early to start self-advocacy, the author explicitly recomends the student assume responsibility for their education while still in public school. This is another awesome suggestion which I have not seen in so many other books purporting to 'help' people with disabilities. It's your education, take charge of it immediately! He then takes issue with 'helicopter parents'. These parents who don't know when to let go of their children, particularly those with a disability. This too is a subject area which hit very close to home to my own college experiences. My parents generally had encouraged me to understand and exercise my legal rights. Yet, while trying to navigate a very-hastily put together state standardized test program, I ultimately learned my dad was in fact a helicopter parent, who had difficulty recognizing me as an independent adult. Having been the first in his immediate biological family to attend college further gave dad the false sense of entitlement: He was going to 'direct' my college experience to 'protect' me! He would boast to me that he had spent hours on the phone with administrators--yet, could not produce anything constructive for those efforts. The results were hardly suprising, but they did not enhance my popularity with the professors whose classes I attended. Some of my own college professors actually appeared disgusted when recounting they had received a phone call from him. It was difficult convincing them that he had actually attended college. Contrasting, my own research and action not only effectively solved my dilemma, but inadvertently ended that same problem for other college students with disabilities. I had effectively made my case as an adult who could and did effectively take care of her own affairs. This is another strategy again recomended by this book. Finally, it avoids making any misleading recommendations about where to apply. Reiff understands that people with disabilities are free to attend college anywhere in 21st century