My name is Natalia Rivera. I'm a doctoral student.
And well, doctoral graduate, actually. And in the Department of Hispanic
Languages and Literature at the University of Pittsburgh.
I'm also a Spanish Instructor and I specialize in Latin American,
Italian literature and critical disabilities studies.
So my interests, my academic interests are intimately tied to my personal
experience as a student and now instructor with
a learning disability and co-occurring anxiety.
So, the first memory that I remember, just on a personal level,
recognizing that there was some access issues or some degree of
especially in the high school level. Some degree of
a lack of knowledge, really, of different types of learning styles
and different types of processing speeds because of my diagnosis of Attention
Deficit Disorder. One of the key components of how that,
you know, how ADD affects me is that I have a slower processing speed.
So while my reading comprehension is strong,
my processing speed affects my writing speed so I'm not always
able to produce a paragraph in a timely manner. So, we often
had problems in English class. This was in tenth grade and
the expectation was that we would be able to write a paragraph in half-hour.
And often times I would need double amount of time. I would need an hour.
And sometimes I wouldn't even be able to finish one simple paragraph
in an hour.
And I remember my English instructor, at the time,
after class when I sort of approached her and said,
"Uhm, hey. Not withstanding the original time. I wasn't
really able to finish my paragraph." And I remember she looked at me
incredulous and said to me, "If you can't even write a paragraph,
a simple paragraph in one hour, I don't know what to tell you.
So, I remember that moment. I also remember later on
when I was preparing for her AP Exams. This also happened in high school.
This was my junior year. I was taking an AP World History class
And I remember that I approached my instructor, already knowing on my own
'cause I had already had plenty of experience advocating for myself since
I was a child. I already knew that all standardized testing
had a process for requesting accommodations.
So, I remember approaching my AP World History Exam and-
I meant, my AP World History teacher and explaining to him
that I was registered with disability resources, that I had a documented
disability and that these were the particular accommodations I needed
time and a half. It was a very common accommodation.
And I remember him telling me, "I don't have a problem providing you
classroom accommodations. I'm just not sure that
that extended time is provided on the AP Exam." And I was just
flabbergasted that an instructor would actively misinform me that way
because even I knew at the tender age of, I don't know, sixteen!
that ATS always provided a process for requesting
accommodation. So, I was stunned that an adult felt that he could
just misinform me that way. And I know
that misinforming me not necessarily with a negative intent, but he
genuinely had no notion of the process. And
yeah. So, it's un-willful misinformation, but
the effect is similar. Because imagine had he said something like that
to a student who had no idea how to request accommodations.
You know, how to attain an evaluation to substantiate
the need for accommodations. So it's just a lot of misinformation
Enabled with ignorance, not so much malice.
But just the complete lack of information out there just really compromises
student's ability to advocate for themselves
In my personal work with the disability rights
community because I worked two and a half years at a disability
rights organization called Autistic Self Advocacy Network
and meeting a lot of people my age
a lot of students don't find out that they have a diagnosis until much later
in life. Once they start noticing, picking up on their own symptoms they seek
out individually supports. So I
certainly, on a personal level, benefited from my
mother's knowledge and from her experiences as a parent advocate.
I think my awareness of a level of discrimination