Five sentence summary There are many accommodations that can make managing ADHD much easier. The table below may be helpful in determining what accommodations you should investigate. By thinking of meetings as lectures, defenses as tests, and so forth, graduate students may find a lot of the accommodations in the table could apply. The Job Accommodation Network can be a great source for more information and ideas on potential accommodations. ADHD manifests itself in different ways in different people. Some of these accommodations may work for you and some may be useless. Some may work at certain times and not at others. Some may not be available at your college. If you're learning and you have ADHD (you're an undergraduate student, you're taking a single class at a college, you're a graduate student, or you're enrolled in a course for professional development or for a skill), here are some accommodations that might be useful.
Alternative formats Alternative formats might include always having written instructions rather than a mixture of verbal and written. Or you might have instructions or lecture slides reformatted so that they have no distractions on them and just contain the most essential information. You may be able to provide your professors with a template that works well for you, such as a table with assignments, due dates, instructions for submitting those assignments, and your professors can use that to help you. Assistive technology Assistive technology might include speech-to-text software if you find you're better able to write papers while talking and walking. Text-to-speech software is another technology that can really help ADHD folks because we tend to do better with two modes of receiving the same information. There are also some really advanced note-taking software that can record the lecture as it's given and help you organize your notes. Taking notes In terms of assistance for notes, you may find that focusing on the lecture material is hard enough, so having someone else take notes is beneficial. Taking notes yourself may be better, in which case you may be able to request certain software to help you or use notebooks with a recording device built in. Accommodations that might not be granted Accommodations that might be a bit more challenging to get approved include
I've heard before that giving ADHD students extensions doesn't teach us to meet deadlines, which is what the Disability Office would prefer. Other times, they're not considered an unreasonable ask, so it will depend on your office. The same is true with a flexible attendance policy. There may be some sort of middle ground you can meet. For example, rather than lose 10 points per day for an assignment that is late, you miss 1 point per day or something. Rather than have an unlimited ability to miss class, you are permitted three unexcused absences per semester. Graduate students Graduate students often ask what accommodations they should ask for if they don't take classes, but a lot of the accommodations above might still be useful. Think of your meetings as lectures and reframe how the accommodations might apply. Think of how assistive technology could aide in research and projects and think of your defense as a test. For example, assistive technology such as text-to-speech and speech-to-text can be useful with all of the reading and writing required of graduate students. Rather than recording lectures, you may want to record important meetings with your advisor/committee. Other accommodations might include:
Job accommodation network The Job Accommodation Network has a very useful section on ADHD, including what accommodations employees might ask for. I recommend both undergraduate and graduate students review JAN's website, simply to spark your own ideas of which accommodations might be useful and what you may want to discuss with your disability advisor. You may not know what specifically to ask for, and that's okay. You should be able to sit down with your advisor and tell them what you're struggling with. They may have suggestions for new technology or accommodations that you wouldn't have known about otherwise. If your disability advisor does not have any suggestions, it can't hurt to ask if there is an advisor in the office more familiar with ADHD or who has more experience working with ADHD students. Key points:
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