Counseling Center

Services for Students with Disabilities
Student and Parent Resource Guide: How to Make the Transition: Suggestions for Parents and Students

After being accepted at Susquehanna University, parents and students should start preparing for life in college. As a student with a disability, it is imperative that all the issues surrounding college attendance be anticipated. Even the most independent high school student may not be prepared for the changes in work load and responsibility that are expected in college.

Suggestions for Parents

• Share and discuss all psychoeducational test data and academic history. Students should have a clear understanding of their academic strengths and needs and how their disability affects their learning in the classroom. Help the student to articulate their expected needs to professors and other staff.
• If appropriate, contact a physician in the Selinsgrove area if choosing to change the monitoring/prescription process for medications. Students should be reminded that sharing or selling controlled substances, such as Ritalin, Adderal, Concerta, Stratera, etc. is ILLEGAL.
• Help the student arrange or order e-texts, books-on-tape, software or hardware (Palm Pilots, laptops, PC) etc. Contact the DSD as soon as possible when requesting e-texts or audio books as soon as the student's fall schedule is confirmed.
• Purchase assistive technology, appropriate computer equipment, special alarm clocks and software. Make sure that the student has enough time to learn new software so they are ready for the first day of class.
• Put together a list of names and resources for on-campus and off-campus services, such as, Campus Security, the Health Center, and CDS.
• Eliminate or adjust curfew to allow the student time adjust to this new freedom.
• Set up a bank account and instruct students how to use it.
• Discuss expectations about grades, attendance, drug and alcohol use.
• Discuss the family health care plan and how the student can access health services.

Suggestions for Students

• Contact the DSD office as soon as you know you will be needing accommodations. Some of these accommodations may include requesting e-texts from a publisher once your schedule is confirmed or obtaining simple classroom accommodations, for example, extended testing time.
• Gain a full understanding of your academic strengths and needs and practice articulating them as if you would to a professor or other staff member on campus. It is important that you know how your learning difficulties directly affect your writing, reading, test-taking and note taking skills.
• Set realistic goals and priorities for course work. This might mean, e.g., limiting your involvement in extra-curricular activities or taking a reduced course load during your first semester or when you're taking particularly demanding courses. College level work and related assignments are often much more difficult and time consuming than in high school.
• You must speak with your professor EARLY in the semester about your accommodations and if you are having difficulty with the class.
• Develop a Semester Calendar and Weekly Calendar listing all of your assignments and due dates.
• Consider taking difficult courses during the summer when you can focus exclusively on those courses. You could take them at SU in the summer or, with the prior approval of your advisor and the Registrar's office, you could take them at another college and transfer the credits, so long as you earn a "C-" or above. (Grades do not transfer in from other schools, but credits do. So whatever grade you earn at another school, good or bad, will not affect your grade-point-average at SU.)
• Balance your schedule by taking demanding classes with less demanding classes.