[QUOTE=Mark in Idaho;1067425]SEM,

You may need to create a distinction between your intellectual performance and your academic performance. Intellectual performance may have minor deficits while academic performance suffers greatly. You may have the same intellectual skills but need more time to use them. Academic performance is very comparative within a standard protocol of comparison, such as test taking and time to write a paper.

We often can not maintain the same performance time wise or in a large room with others taking a test and the ambient sounds and sights of such a room. We need the distraction free environment and maybe a bit more time. It does not mean our intellectual skills are less.

I am surprised that others in a special ed program are questioning your needs. They are studying was to accommodate the needs of persons with special learning and testing needs. Are they just getting the additional degree to qualify for better pay or do they have a desire to help those with special needs ?????

Your life experience will give you a very special insight into the needs of others.

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Mark-

I agree with you about intellectual versus academic functioning. It was hard in the beginning to accept accommodations, but I know that without them, I can not give my best work.

I think it goes back to this being an "invisible" injury. A lot of people in my life judged me prior to this by my academic/intellectual abilities. Now that I need accommodations to show my best intellectual ability and people can't see how bad I'm suffering on the inside to have the same academic abilities, (via accommodations and the help of a cognitive therapist), I feel like I'm not good enough. (I have always had very low self-esteem and this has really shook me even more).

And yes, it makes me sick that many of the people in my program don't understand my need for accommodations. Our program is mostly full of people who work for nonprofits, so money is not the motivation for completing the program.

My first professor when I started back, said that he didn't really feel my "accommodations were necessary" when I handed him my letter from my disability resources office. A class later, a classmate asked me how I got lucky enough to get out of taking exams, (but I was really taking them in the academic testing center instead of with my class). And this past semester, someone asked me if I visited my Dr. in jail now because they consider me disabled and have provided paperwork saying so.

But the BIGGEST blessing, is that I now understand so much more what my students go through, especially those with autism who have sensory issues. It's going to make me a much more compassionate, understanding therapist when I hopefully can return to the field when I finish my degree.