Episode 1 notes and transcript

In this episode, Christina talks to Sydney Cicchini about central auditory processing disorder and ADHD, why teachers should reach out to their students, and how it can be difficult to find resources for disabled students.

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Some key takeaways:

On central auditory processing disorder: “When someone's talking to me, what they say might not be entirely what I hear. So I may hear, for instance, like you're talking about cats, but then because my brain is thinking about something else simultaneously. It might think something else, and sometimes that can cause confusion, and a lot of, I would say, mild paranoia, because sometimes I go back and I'm like, “Wait, did I hear that correctly?” … When I was little, it was really, really hard for me to process words and talking to people. And like social skills were not strong, because simply hearing someone talk was just like a dog barking. Like I can only hear the sounds. I cannot understand the words. So it was really hard for me to communicate even with like my parents, and like understanding social skills.”

On talking to professors: “It's kind of like when you're sitting down and there's like a dog in your lap and you’re afraid to get up so you kind of just sit there. That's kind of like what the situation is with me, sometimes, reaching out. I don't want to feel like I'm a burden on these people. Because in the past some different people that I've talked to have said I have been a burden by the fact that I'm just asking for help... I feel like the professor should know beforehand, that there are some people that have trouble approaching and it is okay to reach out to us because we will reach out back.”

Why schools should help students who don’t have a documented disability: “I wish we had more posters, and more things around the school, like, “Hey, there's a workshop coming up. If you need help with this.” … I know there can be someone who doesn't have what I have, but they struggle with time management. I struggle with time management, but they could also too. So I wish some of these opportunities were also open to kids who need them maybe just because it's a personal flaw. Sometimes it's hard having a disability. But looking at our kids that struggle like we do but don't have or are undiagnosed, it's harder for them. Because they don't really know where to go, or who to talk to.”

Transcript:

Music: “Shaolin Dub” by Skinwalker

CHRISTINA BAKER:

Hi, welcome to Beyond Accommodations at Disability U, a podcast where disabled Penn State students envision a world by us, for us. I'm your host, Christina Baker. And today my guest is Sydney Cicchini. Would you like to introduce yourself?

SYDNEY CICCHINI:

Yeah, I can do that. My name is Sydney. I use any pronouns. I'm a sophomore, so this is my second year. My major is Digital Arts and Media Design. So mainly like animation and such. The disability that I have, and we're going to be talking about, is central auditory processing disorder.

Christina:

So the structure of this podcast is, we talk about how your disability impacted you in school, what a school system created for your disability would look like, and how you cope within the current system.

Christina:

Just to start, we're going to use words in this podcast like SDR. That stands for Student Disability Resources, which handles accommodations for Penn State students. An IEP is an Individualized Education Plan, which some disabled students have in K-12 education. Other K-12 students might have a 504 plan, which is named for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which also offers protections for disabled students. I try to define these acronyms as they come up in conversation, but sometimes I forget.

Christina:

Can you just talk a little about your history with your disability and how you got diagnosed and stuff like that?

Sydney:

Yeah, so I have central auditory processing disorder. Basically what it is, is whenever someone talks to me, face to face, I usually -- I can mishear things quite simply. So if I'm thinking, and I also have attention deficit [hyperactivity disorder], so my brain is constantly working and constantly thinking and analyzing. And so when someone's talking to me what they say might not be entirely what I hear. So I may hear, for instance, like you're talking about cats, but then because my brain is thinking about something else simultaneously. It might think something else, and sometimes that can cause confusion, and a lot of, I would say, mild paranoia, because sometimes I go back and I'm like, “Wait, did I hear that correctly?” And I constantly feel like I’m saying, like, you know, “Wait, what did you say? What’d you say?” I'm probably the most annoying person I know at that point. But I've had it since I was pretty much born. As someone who's adopted, I don't really know if it was hereditary or not. But I know I had it really, really bad when I was younger. So when I was little, it was really, really hard for me to process words and talking to people. And like social skills were not strong, because simply hearing someone talk was just like a dog barking. Like I can only hear the sounds. I cannot understand the words. so it was really hard for me to communicate even with like my parents, and like understanding social skills. And when you have all this on your plate, it's hard to really focus, so I didn't really do well in school, but the school they were very polite about it. And I had a bunch of resources like Children's Hospital. I did a bunch of hearing tests and therapy. And I learned to write a lot later than most kids — so maybe like a year or so. And although my speech patterns aren’t exactly perfect today, they were really, really rough back then. And so I had speech therapy as well. And it was honestly to the point where I was really self-conscious when I was a little kid. And for a little kid to be self-conscious, it's a lot. It was really hard for me to make friends. But eventually, I kind of, like, grew out of it. Since I had this whole phase where I would just non-stop read. When I figured out how to read. [laughs]

Christina:

I did that too.

Sydney:

It was just book after book after book. So now where I'm at with my disability, I recognize that it's there, but it's less than I feel self conscious about it and now I'm more open about it. Because everyone's got their fair share of problems and that's totally okay and totally valid. So instead of feeling self conscious, or feeling a need to hide that in high school, I had an IEP and I was very self conscious about that. But that's actually where I met a lot of my friends. The accommodations with Penn State, I would say I think they do pretty good with their accommodations. I work with Robert Barian. And he is … I would say he's amazing, honestly. I would give him a ten out of ten. He's super nice to talk to in-person and he's great to be in contact with and he provides me with everything that I need. I also use him with my ADHD as well. Basically what they do depending on what disability you get, you have different perks. So, I would say perks, because --

Christina:

[interrupting] I’m just gonna, I'm just gonna say -- just putting it on the record. They are legally mandated accommodations.

Sydney:

I know. [laughs] I would say perks and I'm gonna say perks because they are. But, because like I get first pick, I got like a month, a whole month to choose my classes before everyone else did. All because I have attention deficit. It does really, really help because I'm someone who will be like, “I'm gonna do that tomorrow.” And then I'll do it, like, months from now. But yeah, these accommodations are given to us. You get prioritized seating up in the front if there's no spaces, you get extra time on tests. So it's like time and a half. You're allowed to -- because, like, sometimes we want to take the test before everyone else or after everyone else.

Christina:

Like you can schedule…

Sydney:

You can schedule a test over, like, Zoom or something like that if you're more comfortable. We get resources immediately sent to us via email. And Barian, he’ll also send workshops for you to do for like time management. Or, like, “What are some better ways to study?”

Christina:

Can you talk a little bit more about when you got diagnosed with CAPD?

Sydney:

Yeah. So I don't really entirely remember everything but I know that I was diagnosed at a very young age and like I said before, it really affected pretty much everything. I didn't really understand what it meant at the time. I just knew I had more trouble with things than other kids did. And therefore I felt like I had to work harder. In a lot of things and it led to a lot of frustration.

Christina:

When you were in school. Did you ever feel like the method of instruction or the way that your teachers were operating was, like, not really designed for you?

Sydney:

Are you talking about high school? School in general? College?

Christina:

Pre-college.

Sydney:

Okay. I did use the accommodations given to me in high school quite frequently because a lot of teachers -- a lot of their methods of teaching did not align with how I interpreted. So it was a little difficult, but I'm here. I just, all I really had to do was reach out to the caseworker back in my high school that I was working with and let her know what was going on. And so she would actually email that teacher that I was working with, saying, “Hey, Sydney is yadda yadda yadda in this class and we'd like to do this instead because she thinks that it would help a lot better. Is this okay?” And most likely, pretty much 100% of the time the teacher would be like, “Yes, of course we can move her to the front” or “We can give her the notes” or “I can talk to her after class one on one and we can see what we can do about this.” Most teachers were very, very nice and open about it. I did have one or two that were very, like, cold shoulder about it, but that's in the past.

Christina:

Can you think of examples of times when there's sort of like a conflict between how the class was operating and how you were able to process information.

Sydney:

So, like I said before, I have a very, very active mind. So while it can do multitasking, it is very, very good with one track. So I did have one teacher and I do believe her teaching methods were, I think, good for the other kids, but maybe less for me. She talked a lot about, you know, her personal life during class, which I didn't mind, but I was also very antsy, like “Hey, you know, I'm not doing very well in this class. And I don't really know what's going on, but I don't feel like she likes me. Because I keep going up to her and she is visibly annoyed whenever I talk to her.” And, and that caused a lot of anxiety that I was not going to do good in that class. I was also put around a very, very talkative group of kids. So it's very, very hard to concentrate with someone who also has attention deficit. So I'm more likely to zone off or get distracted. And quite frankly, these kids were not super nice. Not directly to me, but just a lot of things that they said and that made me very uncomfortable. But I ended up working things out with that teacher saying, “Hey, I am not doing good your class. I need help but I'm not comfortable going to you one-on-one anymore because of how you talk.”

Christina:

It sounds like you're suggesting that the way that she was jumping around between topics and like the way that she made you feel uncomfortable sort of made your symptoms of your auditory processing disorder and your ADHD worse.

Sydney:

I have reason to believe that it did. Because this class, it was AP English. Although I have ADHD [and] auditory processing, I took -- I still took honors and AP classes, and I did fine. It was just this singular one teacher that kind of brought the downfall of this one grade in my class.

Christina:

Can you give examples of how those types of factors impacted your grade or, like, made it harder for you to get a good grade in that class?

Sydney:

Yeah, I guess a really big thing with central auditory processing is that we are not auditory people, but we’re also not, like, test-taking people. We’re like very visual people, but test taking is not our strong suit. Perhaps for some it is, but for me, it's not. So with the tests that she was giving me, it was really really hard for me to understand the information. These tests that she gave us were very complex. And although it was the same format every time, I feel like the questions were too detailed for me. Because the books, one, were very hard to understand. And there was not a lot going on for me to completely understand. But the way that she set up these tests was not adequate to, like, the information that I had. I feel like to an extent I understood the books. As a reader, it was challenging, but I'm gonna give myself some credit and say that I think I'm okay with reading it. But these tests are basically coming back and saying, “You did not read this and you just chose whatever answer and wrote down whatever.” And that's not what really happened inside my own brain. And so, although she never changed these tests -- she never gave me, like, a personal test or anything. The best thing she could do was like send me to another class and have me work one-on-one with the accommodations caseworker, so I would take these tests with her and it did help a little bit. If I talked about it, if I go on like a tangent about one question, or just talk about it, it did help.

Christina:

So how, generally, have you found that teachers, like, react to your needs and your accommodation?

Sydney:

I would say most generally, teachers are very understanding because they get a lot of students like me, telling them “Hey, I have this that prevents me from making things easy in this class. And I would like to talk to you about making things easier for me.” I feel like a lot of professors, especially professors here, I've never really had one particular professor that went against my needs or ignored me. Overall, I think everyone here so far, that I've had, I think is pretty accepting and actually quite open. These professors are really easy to talk to even just having a simple conversation.

Christina:

I've had other people who I've spoken to who have very mixed reviews of their professors here. So I'm wondering if maybe it's like the department that you’re in?

Sydney:

It's probably the department and the certain classes because I'm in the art department. So although not everyone's perfect, most of the people that I have have been generally okay. Because with digital arts, a lot of these classes are project based. So there isn't tests. There isn't quizzes. It's really not much. And it's really nice, because, whenever we do get a quiz every once in a while, in like a digital class, it was all, “Based on your experience with this program. Let me test and see if you know how to use it.” You know, and that's through experience. So whenever I do something hands-on and then I kind of do the test, it's a lot easier to understand. Because a lot of my memory and [ability] to reciprocate information comes from experience, especially with projects it's a lot easier.

Christina:

I think that leads really well into the next section of the podcast, which is what do you think a school system created for, like, specifically students with your disability would look like?

Sydney:

It's a very difficult question, but it's very simple at the same time. It takes a lot of creativity, I guess it just has to be very, very open to people of all different times with all different kinds of disadvantages, and should be opened with getting resources. As well as talking to these kids one-on-one saying, “How can I help? What can I do to make things easier?” And with one method being easier to meet could be different for someone else, it could be harder. So with my experience now, this is true. But I would really like to have, like, a personal basis with the professor concerning my needs or just in general to be honest, because, especially with someone who has anxiety, knowing your professor one-on-one and seeing them as more than just a professor really helps because it helps you love the class. It helps you even enjoy it a bit. It really helps tone down the nervousness and tone down all the anxiety that I have sometimes because like within the first week of school, I tried to make it my priority to say to my professors, “Hey, I'm a student in your class. There are some things I would like to talk to you about and I would see if there could be any changes.” Did I do this with my professors this year? Yeah, I did. And it helped actually, I think another thing, especially for students with auditory disorders, having a headset and having the professor talk and having them be louder in the headset really, really helps actually.

Christina:

Just to be clear with what Sydney means here. She's referring to a set of headphones that students with difficulty hearing would hear the professor would speak into a microphone and they would be amplified in the student’s headphones.

Sydney:

Also, there's some schools that actually have a pen that has, like, a microphone built into it.

Christina:

Yeah, we have that.

Sydney:

Yeah, yeah. So like whenever you're writing, you can kind of hear more with what's going on around you and it'll actually record everything as well. And I think that's pretty cool. Honestly, oh, I'm on to the point where I need that because I'm able to hear I haven't had any issues. But I think that's really, really creative and really cool.

Christina:

You mentioned earlier that in a school that was created specifically, like, for students with your disability, the professors would be taking the initiative to form personal relationships with their students. Rather than, currently, it's sort of the other way around and we are encouraged to form relationships with our professors.

Sydney:

So the reason I said that is there's a lot of students like me who have of social anxiety so when we’re in public, there's just some things that we just cannot bring to talk about. Even like getting in a line or asking for a coffee is a lot on us sometimes, and talking to people that we don't know, especially professors — like staying after class. That can be a lot. It's kind of like when you're sitting down and there's like a dog in your lap and you’re afraid to get up so you kind of just sit there. That's kind of like what the situation is with me, sometimes, reaching out. I don't want to feel like I'm a burden on these people. Because in the past some different people that I've talked to have said I have been a burden by the fact that I'm just asking for help. So as we're growing up, we do need the kind of support rather than consequence-driven

Christina:

I've spoken to people about this who said, especially when you have ADHD, but just any disability where you're falling behind or like feeling overwhelmed in your classes, the burden to reach out to instructors is worse. That's just another task on your list that you have to do and you might neglect it because it doesn't feel as urgent as other classes. You feel like you've fallen too behind and you would feel guilty to reach out at this point.

Sydney:

Yeah, there's, there's a class right now that I'm in that I've like, haven't finished the previous project and I'm too scared to go into class and just sit there because there's only like 10 kids and I don't want the teacher to come up to me. I don't want him to come up to me and be like, “Where's your projects?'' But the fact that he's so nice. It's just the anxiety, [so I feel] like, “You know, it's fine. I'll just do the rest of the project back at my apartment.” And I feel like the professor should know beforehand, that there are some people that have trouble approaching and it is okay to reach out to us because we will reach out back.

Christina:

And I think also when you've had professors or teachers in the past who didn't respond well when you were struggling because of your disability or who weren't really interested in accommodating you after you fell behind in their class because of a disability. Then you sort of are hesitant to reach out to the next one because it's like, will this person help me or will they just say, “I'm so disappointed in you” or something?

Sydney:

Yeah, but I know they're not gonna say that. But I also like --

Christina:

I’ve gotten that before.

Sydney:

No! I'm so sorry.

Christina:

They're like, “Oh, you had so much potential!” And it's like, “Maybe I'm not the problem here.”

Sydney:

All over the years when you have teachers who aren't very helpful or you see them, like I was talking about my English teacher, she was visibly annoyed with me coming up to her desk to ask for things. It builds up.

Christina:

I know you mentioned earlier that you really like how your classes right now were very project-based because that way you're getting the information for yourself and you don't have to sit through a class. Would you say that's the ideal mode of instruction for people with your disability? Or at least, for you with your disability?

Sydney:

So it works very well with me. I can't exactly confirm for other people since I'm not other people. But I know for me that helps and it's, it's worth a shot because I don't just have CAPD. I have several other problems. And I guarantee you, you ask someone else, they're not just going to have one thing. They're going to have a couple things and depending on you as a person with your personality, mixed with what you got going on, that kind of combination. You just have to kind of figure out what works best with you. So that's why it's really best to be on a one-on-one [basis] talking with someone who can help you kind of figure out what is the best way. And that's what I realized back in high school because I took a lot of our classes. I realized, “Oh, I'm succeeding in a lot of art classes. I'm succeeding in a lot of project-based classes.” That's because I don't have to worry about test taking or remembering things. All I have to do is go through the experience, reciprocate it and turn it in, for instance with writing essays as well. I'm very good at English. Essays have always always been my strong suit. Test taking not so much. So I actually get really excited when there's an essay coming up knowing that I think I'm going to do okay on it.

Christina:

The last episode I did was about autism, but the people I was interviewing had ADHD too. They were sort of hesitant to endorse project-based learning just because they feel like you can fall really behind with project-based learning and, like, put it off or you feel like you don't really know where to start with the project. They said more of a guided project would work better where there’s someone making sure you're hitting certain milestones at certain points. Would you say your classes are sort of operating like that?

Sydney:

I do have one class that is operating like that. And it's a class where you choose one or two projects and that's what you work on for the entire year. And there's a lot of midway critiques to make sure that you're keeping on schedule that you've created for yourself. That professor is very open to saying like, you know, “How are you doing?” She'll stop in every once in a while at your desk and see where you're at and I really, really like that because with people with ADHD, we have to kind of train ourselves constantly and constantly give ourselves goals and deadlines. Otherwise we get stuck. And when we get stuck, it's really hard to get unstuck. So our entire lives are based on hyper fixations and goals. So, guided projects, I think are really, really nice because they keep me on schedule. They keep me preventing me from having anxiety with the project and if I do have a little bit of anxiety, I have someone to go to

Christina:

What did you think of taking remote classes? Do you think that works well with your disability or work well with some parts and not well with others?

Sydney:

I know for the year and a half that we were remote. I did really, really well in my classes because I like being in the class. I like meeting people. But being online with someone creates a lot less anxiety because you don't have to see people face to face. You don't have to worry about forgetting something and you can just sit in your own dorm, especially for people that — I don't want to say don't work well with others, but there's some people that really work well with other people and are leaders, and there's some people that would rather be an individual and would rather work alone. And that's where my strong suit lies, as long as I know what's going on. Taking tests on the computer feels a lot less stressful than taking a test on paper. There's a lot more freedom. And there's a lot more experimentation with or “What suits best for me now that I'm home in a classroom? Do I work well in quiet places? Do I work well in loud places?” Going back to the classes after a year and a half of not actually being in classes was actually pretty rough. Did I do okay? Yeah, I did just fine. But I'm still really, really nervous to talk to them, even sending an email, because they don't know you by face. So it feels weird to me to like send an email and that's actually one of my professors did this this year that she wanted to make sure that she knew all of her students face to face. So she required us, as a part of the class, to make an appointment with her for 10 minutes just to talk and get to know you. And she did it once or twice and was actually really, really amazing. Although this was for like a stress management class. It, it really, really helped. So I would just go. We just sit outside, talk for 10 minutes to all tell her what's going on, you know, heard about my classes, talk about my favorite things. That really forms a bond with your professor. And that's really, really something that helped me as someone who is disabled.

Christina:

That's really interesting, though, because you're, I think, the only person I've met with ADHD who actually preferred online learning. Most people didn't like the lack of structure and they felt like that was really holding them back. Do you think that affected you?

Sydney:

Oh, yeah, it affected me. But I think it affected everyone to be honest. There was a lot of imperfections because this is something that none of us are familiar with. So you the professor's us, everyone we're going into this brand new era pretty much no idea what's going on. I didn't know what the heck Canvas was when I got to college. I was like, “What is this? This is messy.” And then for another class that's on Canvas I was like “Oh, this is so nice.” And all the modules were set up and there's a calendar and we're following so precisely. And I love it. And then the next professor was nothing on Canvas and you have no idea what's going on because they didn't tell you they have a secondary website that they use that they put everything on you find out about this until two months into the year you're very confused.

Christina:

I think teachers laying out the expectations for the class or being sort of unclear about the expectations for the class is something that's really important, especially when you have ADHD or like this sort of disability where you're like missing class pretty often. I had a teacher freshman year who, every single class, she would say “Okay, take out your syllabus.” I lost my syllabus on the first day. So I would just look at the person next to me, but she would say, “Take out your syllabus,” and then she would say, “Turn to the schedule part of your syllabus.” And then she would go through the next four classes and be like, “Okay, so next week, then you're going to turn in this, and the week after that you're going to pick your groups for the group project.” And I did really like how every day I knew what was coming up in that class. Especially it helped me when we were on Zoom and everything was just a blur. I have other professors who just won't put certain things on the syllabus or like the syllabus is poorly arranged. I think it's just very important, especially when you have disabilities where you're missing a lot of class or where you have ADHD and you're not always paying attention in class. That's something that I wish a lot of professors would work towards a little more, making sure that students know what's going on all the time.

Sydney:

Yeah, I'm also very forgetful.

Christina:

That's a that's definitely an ADHD thing.

Sydney:

Yeah, I'm very forgetful person. So despite the fact that the professor said “Oh, next week, you need to do a reading on insert last name.” It will go in one ear and right out the other. And when I go online, I'm fully aware that he has changed the calendar on the syllabus. So it's not perfect, and that every time it kind of like frustrates me cuz I know I go to the syllabus every time to check what reading we have to give to do for like the next day. But then I quickly remember, “That's not the reading. I think he changed -- I think we're a week ahead or a week behind or something.” And then I have to like go and find like an email or like an announcement that they posted.

Christina:

I have a professor who really doesn't put anything in writing. Most of the expectations for a project, instead of being like a rubric or a sheet of instructions for you, just sort of tells you in class.

Sydney:

That is so hard.

Christina:

Yeah. So like first of all, if you're not paying attention 100%, you might miss the guidelines. And I missed a couple of her classes because I had the flu a couple weeks ago and I really have no idea what I missed because she didn't put it in writing.

Sydney:

That's, that's hard. I would probably start crying honestly.

Christina:

Luckily she's flexible. If she was not flexible, I might have started to try and complain and be like, “Excuse me, SDR. This has gotta be violating something, right?” So is there anything else that you think would be different in like a school that was created for students with your disabilities?

Sydney:

If you look at the schools, now, they're not going to assume everyone that's going to come in is going to have some sort of special disability that is going to lead to accommodations. I wish we had more posters, and more things around the school, like, “Hey, there's a workshop coming up. If you need help with this.” I just wish there [were] not just opportunities I have to go to someone to ask about. I wish they were already put out there for everyone, not just us, because I know there can be someone who doesn't have what I have, but they struggle with time management. I struggle with time management, but they could also too. So I wish some of these opportunities were also open to kids who need them maybe just because it's a personal flaw. Sometimes it's hard having a disability. But looking at our kids that struggle like we do but don't have are on undiagnosed, it's harder for them. Because they don't really know where to go to or who to talk to. And if they do know who to talk to, because they're undiagnosed or they don't really have anything, it's hard for them to put them in the right place. So I wish there were just more workshops and things to really attend. Even therapy, it's not cheap. We can't just go online and ask, “Do I have ADHD?” Or, “Do I have OCD?” Or, “Am I depressed?” Because we can't always pinpoint what exactly is causing problems. So I think, instead of just reaching out to students with a particular disorder, reach out concerning what the struggle is. Like, “Are you struggling with taking tests? Are you struggling with talking to kids?”

Christina:

And I think if you don't already, like know what your disability is, and have it documented by the time you go to college, you probably don't know what SDR is or how to register a disability or where to go to get diagnosed. When the pandemic started, I got a therapist who specialized in my disability because I knew that a lot of the factors about the pandemic were going to exacerbate it. And I found him by emailing SDR and asking for local therapists who specialize in my disability. I don't know how I would have found him if I didn't have SDR to email. Like I'm very grateful that I got diagnosed in eighth grade instead of trying to get evaluated, figuring out who is capable of evaluating me, while I'm juggling all of my classes. It's really nice that my parents were the ones handling that when I was younger.

Sydney:

Yeah, and now that we’re in college we have to handle this ourselves. It's not easy. Yeah. You realize how much you have to do just to get an answer to something.

Christina:

Yeah. And when I got to an SDR luckily I already had all of the paperwork from my IEP. I just had to email my high school and then forward it to SDR. When you get the note taking accommodations, you have to fill out a form every semester and even that was like oh, I didn't do it the first couple semesters even though I had that in my accommodations. I just didn't bother because, wow, that form is really annoying. I think we're sort of already in part three a little bit, but part three is how you cope within the current system that we have right now. So we've talked about what accommodations you have, are there any accommodations that you want, but aren't really offered here?

Sydney:

I haven't really run into any instances where I felt like I needed an accommodation but couldn't find what I needed. I know that people have very different experiences, but I guess because of the department that I'm in, it's hard to have. But I guess the guided projects you were talking about before, I guess I wish more professors were like that, especially in the field that I'm in because I can easily just stop doing any project and just say, “I'm done. I'm not doing it. I can't finish it.” It's so easy for me to just drop my pencil like that. So it would be really, really nice if I knew that there was a TA or even the professor themselves could reach out every once in a while or instead of me having to set particular deadlines for myself — which are not easy, first of all, but to kind of have checkpoints, saying “Alright, once I complete this much, I'm going to let them know. And then if I have any questions, then I can talk to them and then continue from there. And I think that would be nice because it provides a kind of stability and structure. Although you have help. It's not going to make me feel like I'm any less than any of these students because I just work well under different conditions. And that sometimes I do sometimes feel like I'm different because I have this and it's okay to feel different. But what I'm starting to realize is not okay is constantly feeling bad. And I think the best thing to do is just if I'm feeling bad about things, especially like, “Okay, I need someone to stick by me to make sure that I'm doing okay with this project.” Sometimes I'll even ask a friend, say, “Hey, a week from now, can you like ask how I'm doing on the project?” Just a little thing like that even can do a whole lot for someone like me.

Christina Baker 4:04

You talked about some of the coping strategies that you use, like making one-on-one relationships. Are there any other strategies for outside help to do well in school?

Sydney:

Another thing that I've realized that helps is knowing someone in your major. And they don’t even have to be in your class, but someone you can also talk to and it's not just like, “Oh, let's bounce notes off each other.” But you want to have like a working study buddy. So that's why from member to Gen Ed I try to see if a friend is also taking that same Gen Ed.

Christina:

Even being in a GroupMe for my classes. And it's really nice. If the teacher says “no class today” and then I forget, I really like being able to check the GroupMe like so you’re not going back or like you're walking into a class and it's just dark. I really like being able to check the GroupMe. I had one professor this semester. I don’t know when he told us that there wouldn't be class, but it was, I think one email, a week or two before the class was taking place. And so I showed up and another girl showed up, and we were both combing through our emails to be like, “When did he tell us not to be here?” But anyway, the GroupMe is really good for finding out if there's an assignment coming up that I forgot, if there's a class that was canceled that I forgot, what the professor said to do about the final. I've never had the nerve to start a GroupMe for my classes, but there's been a lot of classes where it's like, “Wow, I wish I had a GroupMe for this.”

Sydney Cicchini 6:39

Yeah, especially for classes that are very prominent in test taking and exams and not just projects, like a lot of lecture classes with notes and such.

Christina:

Is there any advice that you would give to students with your disabilities in college?

Sydney:

I guess the best advice that I could give is: if you ever feel like you're completely lost, never be afraid to reach out to someone. And sometimes that person isn't always the right person to reach out to. Even if it's just a friend or perhaps it's more of an academic struggle, so you reach out to a professor. I know it's a lot of anxiety to reach out to professors, especially if you don't really know them very well. But they are there if you need them. And if they're not, there's always tutoring. Although I've never worked with the tutors. I've always heard pretty good things about them. There's a couple of friends that I actually helped with English because they're taking English and they're like, “Sydney, can you review my essay?” And you know, I'll just take the time whenever I'm free to look over their essay real quick, it's this little things like that because if there's something that I've always struggled with is reaching out for help, and although I still struggle, this is also advice to myself, someone just reach out to someone. I know it seems like a lot but want to do it. And once it's done, then all you have to do is wait. And that is probably the best thing that I could say, because reaching out could quite literally save your grade. If you don't reach out, you're kind of just sitting there, dark room, no lights, no music, you know, nothing's going on and you're just in there struggling, but it's more of an internal struggle. And if you reach out, you're not the only person who's struggling. Even reaching out to your advisor, having a very personal basis with your advisor I think is really important as well.

Christina:

Well I think that's all of my questions. Is there anything else that you want to say about your disability or anything that you want to say to professors who have a student with your disability?

Sydney:

I guess the best thing I can say is: bear with me. I'm struggling too.

Christina:

All right. Well, thank you for listening. If you'd like more information about the topics discussed today, please check out this podcast’s website and make sure to listen to the other episodes. As a reminder, I'm your host, Christina Baker, and this podcast is intended to be one part of a larger conversation about disability in education and disability in American life. I hope you keep listening.