1. Disclose your disability at the educational institute?!

What students tell about their disability, when they do it and the way how they talk about it can depend on a combination of different factors, like:

kind of the disability, the extent of the acceptation, the relationship with the educational staff and personnel, the own personality, the knowledge of the rights, the presence of provisions / adaptations / adjustments / possibilities, the experiences in former education, the culture etc.

Arguments for disclosure can be:

-         Availability of provisions (for instance adjustments in educational methods), rights, attention, support, advice etc.

-         Capacity and possibilities to prevent and solve conflicts, misunderstandings

-         Possibilities to prevent and solve practical problems / hindrances

-         The extent in which fellow students and teachers consider you

-         Proud

-         The aim to create understanding

-         Your expectations about this

-         (for instance at visible disabilities:) people see that something is the matter and ask their selves questions about what it is  but don’t dare to ask you about it. Disclosure prevents wrong images and gives openness.

-         The extent of being open, clear and honest usually

-         The wish to contribute by one’s self to improvement of the image of people with disabilities

-         “Why not? The disability is a normal part of me.”

-         The want to look for support

-         The possibility to tell your story

-         To avoid the energy to hide the disability

-         To excuse one’s self in anticipation

Arguments for not disclosing can be:

-         It is not relevant for the study (there are no hindrances where you can do something about)

-         Not having a clue what the use of disclosure can be (advice, support, adjustments)

-         Not having an idea about your rights (also financial)

-         The want to solve the problems first by one’s self

-         No knowledge about all possibilities

-         Prevailing stigma’s and prejudices (often at the invisible / vague / less recognized psychiatric syndromes

-         The absence of faith in certain person(s)

-         Fear of lack of understanding / fear of prejudices

-         Fear of teachers who start to act like a therapist

-         The want to be free, independent; disliking interference or patronizing

-         New chances, just coming from the preliminary training in another institute

-         The want to be called to account about possibilities, not about impossibilities

-         The need to particularly be as ‘normal’ as possible

-         The wish to keep a low profile, not to attract attention

-         You don’t want to be seen as ‘the person with …..’ (no label; handicap not on foreground)

-         You don’t want the fellow students know about your disability; so you also don’t want visible provisions

-         Fear of opposition in the educational institute (negative or rejecting advices / judgments)

-         Shame (can be related to culture)

-         Motives as careerist

-         Ignorance of having a disability or disease

-         Denial of having a disability: “I only am dyslexic or I simply have got rheumatism”

-         Lack of acceptance of the disability

-         Limited insight in own disease (this can be part of the syndrome; for example in  autism)

-         Insufficient knowledge about what to tell or ask (think of progressive syndromes, varying course of the disease or disease is too young to know what the influence on the educational processes will be)

-         The wish not to moan or to trouble persons (provisions are often seen as favours in stead of rights)

-         Disability is a private affair; “the study has nothing to do with it” (often thought by people with psychiatric disorders)

 2. Signals that possibly indicate the presence of a disability

 Especially pay attention to signals that can indicate a limited chargeability, problems with specific activities (particularly if these activities don’t fit with the usual course of affairs) and varying or decreasing achievements.

 A few examples of global signals are:

-         tiredness, pain, concentration problems

-         difficulty with long days of working, need for extra pauses and rest

-         preference for a certain permanent seat in a class room

-         lack of time, much absence

-         problems keeping agreements, problems with deadlines

-         sensitivity to stress, touchiness

-         being very fixed upon the study (without results), stopping other activities

-         being not quite healthy psychically, physical complaints

-         uncertainty / decreasing motivation

-         changes of behaviour

-         problems with incorporation of information

-         problems with planning, structure, study groups

-         excuses

 Depending on the syndrome there can be many more signals of course.

3. Having a conversation with a student

 If you have seen signals that indicate the possible presence of a disability at an individual student and you think it would be important to get them disclosed, the way to approach this problem can depend on different factors. Here are some examples:

Be Careful!

-         ending up in a struggle, negative atmosphere

-         taking the view that your interpretation of the signals is the right one

-         not every student with a disability meets hindrances

-         a student can choose intentionally not to disclose his/her disability

 Do’s:

-         build up faith, show that you are interested

-         create a positive (nice) atmosphere

-         open attitude

-         ask exhaustive / detailed questions

-         go into the signals

-         give the student a wide berth, offer openings

-         repeat signals / subjects

-         dare to keep silence

-         look for / ask for: what has become different from before? and why?

-         go into the problems the student indicates / experiences

-         name non-verbal behaviour

-         mention a handicap as one of the examples in which case students can get advice, help, provisions, adjustments in case of hindrances

-         accept the limits of the student

-         confront the student (with facts / behaviour/ results)

-         hand the student that a number of the things he gave, takes often place at students with disabilities but these students don’t know about possible provisions and about their rights in may cases; so many of these problems are unnecessary. And tell him/her you want to check/exclude that this happens again now.

-         show that doors are open

-         give information

-         use experiences of other (not named) students, like: “often I meet students with ….. (psychic problems or only a bad patch, fear of failure, stress / chronic disease or with decreased energy, concentration problems etc.); usually they have got ..., usually this functions: …., they can get the possibility …… etc.)

 Dont’s:

-         ask too exhaustive / detailed questions if the student don’t want to answer

-         talk about too much and in too short time (better: continue a next time)

-         interpretations and judgments of your own