Accommodations

Students with disabilities will be provided with comparable, convenient, and accessible on-campus housing/food service at the same cost as that provided to students without a disability. Contact Disability and Accessibility Services or call 608-663-2831 for more information.

If a student has a disability that may occasionally impact the ability to attend class and/or complete assignments and tests at the scheduled time, flexibility in attendance is considered an appropriate accommodation. The student is reponsible for communication with instructors about absences and requirements for making up missed classes, assignments and tests. If the student is not able to demonstrate the required skills for the course due to absences a medical withdrawal may be considered. Contact Disability and Accessibility Services or call 608-663-2831 for more information.

For more detailed information: Flexible Attendance Accommodation Responsibilities

When assistive technology would allow access to instruction for a student with a disability it may be listed as an accommodation. Some supports may be loaned by Edgewood College to the student, others may be purchased by the student.

Examples include:

1. Student purchases or uses a free version of text-to-speech software on their personal computer, to have access in all settings.

2. Edgewood College provides a licensed text-to-speech software on specific computers in the library to provide access on campus.

3. Student is approved to record lectures and provided with note-taking software licensed to Edgewood College.

4. Student’s instructors are provided with FM transmitters or WebEx microphones to assist student in hearing lectures.

5. Student is provided with large screen monitors for use in classes.

6. Student is permitted to use personal device to take pictures of notes in class.

Contact Disability and Accessibility Services or call 608-663-2831 for more information.

Follow these steps to obtain digital texts:

1. Check Edgewood College’s Online Bookstore, which carries digital copies of many required texts. You can purchase those instead of paper copies, or buy both if you wish.

2. If purchasing digital copies is a hardship, or if a digital copy is not available from the bookstore, then make scans of your paper copy to be used with a text-to-speech reader. This is not a copyright violation if your disbaility requires digital texts.

3. If you want us to check with a pubisher, complete an Alternative Textbook Request Form to have us request a digital copy. Be aware that some publishers do not provide a digital copy and others can take several weeks to respond. Please check back a few weeks after the semester starts if you have not received your requests. Continue to scan the text while waiting to hear from us.

Contact Disability and Accessibility Services or call 608-663-2831 for more information.

When a student with a disability is impacted by the disbaility in the learning of  a foreign language,the Foreign Language course requirement may be modified as an accommodation. The student may take courses related to a country, region, or a group of countries or people sharing a common language other than the student’s first language. The student may also study abroad as substitution for the foreign language course requirement. Contact Disability and Accessibility Services or call 608-663-2831 for more information.

Accommodations for individuals with a hearing or vision disability are determined through the collaborative intake process. Such services may include captioning, interpreting, larger print and text-to-speech supports. If you are in need of Hearing or Visual Impairment Accommodations as a student at Edgewood College, contact Disability and Accessibility Services or call 608-663-2831 for more information.

Some students with disabilities may experience difficulty in taking notes in the classroom. Peer note takers have been used in the past, but research has shown they do not help students develop their own note-taking skills. The preferred accommodation is to allow the student to record the class using note-taking software provided by Edgewood College. This software lets the student easily add notes to the audio trail of the class, then go back to any parts later to quickly review and update the notes.

Access to instructor notes is another accommodation that may be helpful. The tutoring suports available for all students is also often used for students to provide feedback on notes.

Contact Disability and Accessibility Services or call 608-663-2831 for more information.

Priority registration can be an appropriate method to provide an accommodation for students with disabilities, based on their functional limitations in the educational setting. The following are examples of how a disability may impact scheduling:

1. A student’s physical fatigue requires consideration of the number of classes per day.

2. A student’s processing speed requires consideration of balancing text-heavy classes.

3. A student’s anxiety requires consideration of lower-stress courses.

Priority registration is not a guarantee of specific courses at specific times,. It does allow the student to register in advance of the general student body in order to find the most appropriate balance of courses based on the limitations of their disability.

Contact Disability and Accessibility Services or call 608-663-2831 for more information.

When a student’s disbaility impacts the amout of time or the settgin required to take a test an accommodation may be made. Students should work with their course instructors in advance of tests to decide how the alternative testing supports will be provided. In most cases instructors will adjust the Blackboard online test length and confirm the student’s alternate location and hours of access.

Contact Disability and Accessibility Services or call 608-663-2831 for more information and for assistance in deciding how to provide the testing accommodations in a support plan.