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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

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even if it was kind of on the 
level of microaggression,

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I think I had more awareness of
discrimination at the high school level

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but, my initial exposure to advocacy
really happened when I was young

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and I remember going...
There were some days off from school

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and I remember going to the office with 
my mom. And I remember meeting

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other moms and seeing her work part
time at

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this parent advocacy group for parents
with disabilities

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so I thank my mother for, you know,
introducing me

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to the concept of self advocacy and
for empowering me

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to use it in every aspect of my life and
at a professional level

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and an academic level, as well.

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So, I don't really remember the day of
the Americans with Disabilities Act

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'cause I was just a couple of months 
old.

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But, the impact on me, basically
I sincerely

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doubt had I been born, I don't know,
forty years ago

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as opposed to thirty years ago, there's
a possibility that I would not have

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attended college. And even if I had
attended college,

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I just sort of feel that I would have
never considered doing a

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PhD, if it hadn't been for the Americans
with Disabilities Act.

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Because graduate school, the level of
support at the undergraduate level

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at least at a liberal arts college

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that tends to be more supportive is 
radically different from graduate school

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where the level of support is practically
non-existent, I feel

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and I think a lot of graduate students
feel the same way.

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So without the ADA, I'm not even sure
I would have been fortunate enough

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to attend college so I think that it
offered me

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the protections that I needed to go
beyond what my

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wildest dreams, right? So I feel like...

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I've had a very privileged life and I'm
grateful for my academic

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opportunities that I know there are so
many deserving students

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who didn't have the opportunities that I
had and I'm not only grateful to my family

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for their unyielding dedication

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to advocacy and also very

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grateful for the ADA as well. I mean,
disabilities definitely run in my family

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neuro-developmental disabilities, learning
disabilities. I do have a cousin who

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was on the autism spectrum and

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I don't think, by no means, benefited

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by the protections offered by the
Americans with Disabilities Act in the

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same degree that I did. I think
unfortunately because I think there

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still cultural stigma

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particularly if an autism spectrum
disorder

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co-occurs with a intellectual disability,
but he

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finished his associate's degree with
minimal supports.

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I think because the ADA empowered me,
I feel like

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I'm prepared as an instructor to offer
support

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to students with other disabilities. I
have

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students with documented disabilities
and I feel that because

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of my personal experience as a
student

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with disability, I feel much more
prepared to work with

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a wider range of students who need
different needs and I'm prepared

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to be accommodating, I'm prepared
to

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at least endeavored to make students
feel like they're valuable members of

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my classroom. I'm not a perfect 
instructor. I still have a lot to learn

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but, I think that level of

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humanity, I think, that speaks to a
lot of students and I think that I'm

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better able to connect to connect with
my students. So,

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the ADA allowed me to be useful as
an instructor, basically. But, I

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remember one interview I did with
a student on the

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autism spectrum, who was attending
a

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college specifically for students with
learning disabilities.

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And she made a very astute observation
about

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learning disabilities under colleges and
sort of their

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focus on vocational training as opposed to
academic training and

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this was a smart girl who wanted to

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pursue a degree in humanities and she was
doing an interdisciplinary liberal arts

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degree, but she couldn't take philosophy,
for instance. Or

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she couldn't do a major in history.
And I think the way

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the classes, the course work, the
curriculum...

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just how all the academic options were
structured in this particular college

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it sort of reinforced this idea that
traditional academic

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disciplines are somehow out of reach
for a student who

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reads as having an intellectual disability
or who reads as having

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potential learning difficulties and she
lamented and I

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wholeheartedly agreed with her appraisal.
She lamented the fact that she couldn't

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pursue a traditional discipline she would
have wanted. She wanted to be a historian.

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So I think that in a way, people wouldn't 
really read the legislation

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very carefully.
I guess in their attempt

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to sort of include people, they're
inadvertently limiting the options

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for a lot of students because there
are students who may need to

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do- There are students who may
want to pursue

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physics, right? But they need a longer
timeline to complete

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their coursework, but it's just in a
traditional four-year

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college. Those mechanisms just
aren't in place to provide

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that support system for a student who
needs additional support, but

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who wants to pursue a traditional
academic discipline. So, I think in that

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regard, even though the spirit of the
ADA, you definitely get the sense

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with the wording of the legislation
that it's intended to