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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