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My name is Natalia Rivera.
I'm a doctoral student.

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And well, doctoral graduate, actually.
And in the Department of Hispanic

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Languages and Literature at the
University of Pittsburgh.

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I'm also a Spanish Instructor and I
specialize in Latin American,

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Italian literature and 
critical disabilities studies.

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So my interests, my academic interests
are intimately tied to my personal

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experience as a student and
now instructor with

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a learning disability and co-occurring
anxiety.

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So, the first memory that I remember,
just on a personal level,

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recognizing that there was some access
issues or some degree of

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especially in the high school level.
Some degree of

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a lack of knowledge, really, of
different types of learning styles

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and different types of processing speeds
because of my diagnosis of Attention

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Deficit Disorder. One of the key 
components of how that,

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you know, how ADD affects me is that
I have a slower processing speed.

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So while my reading comprehension is
strong,

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my processing speed affects my 
writing speed so I'm not always

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able to produce a paragraph in a 
timely manner. So, we often

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had problems in English class. This
was in tenth grade and

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the expectation was that we would be
able to write a paragraph in half-hour.

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And often times I would need double
amount of time. I would need an hour.

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And sometimes I wouldn't even be able
to finish one simple paragraph

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in an hour.

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And I remember my English instructor,
at the time,

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after class when I sort of approached her
and said,

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"Uhm, hey. Not withstanding the
original time. I wasn't

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really able to finish my paragraph."
And I remember she looked at me

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incredulous and said to me,
"If you can't even write a paragraph,

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a simple paragraph in one hour,
I don't know what to tell you.

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So, I remember that moment. I
also remember later on

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when I was preparing for her AP Exams.
This also happened in high school.

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This was my junior year. I was taking
an AP World History class

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And I remember that I approached my 
instructor, already knowing on my own

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'cause I had already had plenty of
experience advocating for myself since

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I was a child. I already knew that
all standardized testing

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had a process for requesting 
accommodations.

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So, I remember approaching my AP
World History Exam and-

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I meant, my AP World History teacher
and explaining to him

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that I was registered with disability
resources, that I had a documented

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disability and that these were
the particular accommodations I needed

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time and a half. It was a very common 
accommodation.

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And I remember him telling me, "I don't 
have a problem providing you

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classroom accommodations. I'm just not
sure that

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that extended time is provided on the
AP Exam." And I was just

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flabbergasted that an instructor would
actively misinform me that way

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because even I knew at the tender age
of, I don't know, sixteen!

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that ATS always provided a process
for requesting

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accommodation. So, I was stunned
that an adult felt that he could

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just misinform me that way. And I
know

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that misinforming me not necessarily
with a negative intent, but he

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genuinely had no notion of the
process. And

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yeah. So, it's un-willful misinformation, 
but

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the effect is similar. Because imagine
had he said something like that

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to a student who had no idea how
to request accommodations.

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You know, how to attain an 
evaluation to substantiate

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the need for accommodations. So
it's just a lot of misinformation

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Enabled with ignorance, not so much
malice.

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But just the complete lack of information
out there just really compromises

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student's ability to advocate for
themselves

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In my personal work with the
disability rights

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community because I worked two
and a half years at a disability

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rights organization called Autistic
Self Advocacy Network

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and meeting a lot of people my age

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a lot of students don't find out that 
they have a diagnosis until much later

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in life. Once they start noticing, picking
up on their own symptoms they seek

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out individually supports. So I

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certainly, on a personal level, benefited
from my

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mother's knowledge and from her
experiences as a parent advocate.

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I think my awareness of a level
of discrimination