Disabilities, illnesses mean teachers must adapt

Professors at Iowa colleges and universities teach the same classes, but each semester brings a new experience with all kinds of students — ambitious students, quiet students, lazy students, disruptive students.

They also teach students with illnesses and disabilities that, in some cases, are not easy to see, but to which faculty have to respond.

"I didn't realize how much of a visual teacher I was until I started teaching blind students," said Paul Brooke, a Grand View University English professor who has been teaching for more than 20 years. "You have to put yourself in their position and really think, 'How am I going to learn this?' "

PREVIOUSLY: College students battle hidden illnesses

Brooke taught two blind students in his first year of teaching.

But, not every disability is as apparent as blindness. An increasing number of these disabilities are categorized as hidden disabilities or invisible illnesses. This can include chronic illnesses, such as Crohn's disease or POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), and learning disabilities, such as dyslexia or ADHD, and mental illnesses, such as anxiety or depression.

They fall under the "invisible" category. With these illnesses or disabilities, students walk across campus and sit in class and do not appear to outsiders to struggle with anything. Each school year, more students with invisible illness and disabilities pursue higher education.

A 2014 report from the Higher Education Research Institute states that about 12 percent of incoming freshman are entering higher education with a reported disability.

Accommodating them is not always easy. Professors have to be aware of their teaching styles and adjust to accommodations students need while being the silent mediator for all students and maintaining an effective classroom environment.

Disabilities can challenge professors to think about the way they teach. Brooke ended up bringing in Braille for the blind students he taught. In hindsight, he said, this early experience helped, leading Brooke to understand that not every student can be taught the same way.

"It's put more responsibility on me and making sure that I'm connecting to them, and that's good because it makes me see it from their point of view," Brooke said.

Experience and perceptions

Professors at five Iowa colleges and universities — Grand View, Simpson, Drake, Upper Iowa, and Wartburg — who were interviewed for an IowaWatch/Simpson College report on hidden disabilities said faculty often are not offered training on how to handle students with these disabilities. They also are not trained on the types of accommodations or situations they might come across.

Instead of being prepared for these circumstances, each professor learns from experience, the interviews revealed. The approach and perception of hidden disabilities is often molded by specific experiences.

Psychology research has shown our first experience shapes our initial perceptions, and further experiences either enforce or change these. Brooke said he comes in with an open and flexible mindset, but that may not be the case for every professor.

"There are a small percentage of faculty who feel like it's an advantage to them (the students) to be diagnosed and whatever the circumstances might be, is a benefit to them. They feel like it's unfair," Brooke said.

Brooke said that would be an exception for him and that he has found that most students don't use their disabilities as a way to manipulate the system.

Summer Zwanziger Elsinger, an assistant professor of marketing and a management professor at Upper Iowa University in Fayette, has seen both extremes of students — those who keep to themselves and a few who have acted out. In her case, her perception stems from a personal experience, as she has a learning disability.

"That's part of how I deal with it, and I know that's affected my perception of how I see other people struggle," Zwanziger Elsinger said.

At Drake University in Des Moines, Debra Bishop, an associate professor of practice in management and international business, relies strongly on the student disability services office at the Business College and a system for handling disability accommodations.

Drake professors need documentation from the student disabilities office before giving students classroom accommodations. They send students to the student disabilities office for assessment and documentation.

"I guess I've always been in the mind that if those are the accommodations, then they're the experts. And if they're saying this, then it's what it should be," Bishop said.

Self-advocates and support

Having available accommodations and support doesn't mean diagnosed students will use these services. For some students, a sense of pride kicks in.

"They're reluctant to use the accommodations at first, because they come to college and think, 'I can do this on my own,' " said Tammy Faux, an associate professor of social work at Wartburg College in Waverly.

In other instances, students attempt to change others' perceptions.

"They want to start over again. They don't want to be seen as being different anymore," Brooke said. "In trying to forge that path, it may not go well. It may lead to struggle."

In Brooke's experience, every student handles his or her situation differently. Some students simply hand him an accommodation request form and walk away. "The student that comes to me and actually has a conversation with me, I always feel like that's a better situation," Brooke said.

That conversation isn't always easy.

"Students have to be willing to open up and have that conversation, and that's risky for a student," Bishop said. "That's the stigma associated with it: I'm flawed, and people don't want to admit they're flawed. But we're all flawed in some way or another."

Faux teaches a May term course at Wartburg called "Working with Different Disabilities." Typically 15 to 20 students take the class, in which students are paired with other students who are young adults with various significant disabilities.

Structure in the classroom plays a role in how students with disabilities learn. A lecture class gives a different experience than a discussion class gives.

"I have a couple students who are very proud and not going to tell anybody," Faux said. "But then how they communicate in class and come across in group activities probably suffers. They've got something really great to say and deep thoughts if you can just give them the time to get it out."

This story was produced as a Simpson College journalism project for Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism-IowaWatch.org, a nonprofit, online news website that collaborates with Iowa news organizations to produce explanatory and investigative reporting.