Why Are Disability Services Provided?

Services are provided for students with disabilities in order to assure equal access to programs and services at Amarillo College. Our goal is to assist students in receiving the accommodations, training, education, and support needed to achieve their educational and life-long goals. 

Services for students with disabilities are provided to meet the state and federal guidelines governing the provision of services in an institution of higher education. Amarillo College provides services under the guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Title II), Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act of 2009, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504). 

• Extended Test Time: This is designed to assist students in allowing for additional time for symbol recognition, decoding, cognitive processing, or to reduce the stress of a testing event. Extended test time may be completed in class or in the appropriate testing center where proctors are provided.
• Isolated Testing Location or Distraction Limited Testing Location: This is designed to reduce the impact of a disability by reducing external stimuli that compete with cognitive processing or cue a stress-related reaction. Testing is offered in an environment with reduced noise, light, and activity. All testing must take place in the appropriate testing center where proctors are provided.  
• Readers and/or Scribes for Tests: These assist an individual by providing an alternative format of information assimilation and expression. Readers and scribes augment symbol recognition and decoding skills of students with visual impairments or cognitive processing disabilities. Readers and scribes are not allowed to interpret or change the material being tested. All testing with scribes must be done in a proctored environment.
• Note-Taker, Peer Note-Taker, Note-Taking Software, Voice Recorders for Lectures: These allow reduction of the impact of a disability by providing support for symbol recognition and the decoding process or to decrease the physical fatigue associated with taking notes. They may also be used to augment a student's notes when issues of distraction are prevalent. These devices assist with deficits in short-term memory, cognitive processing, or visual processing difficulties. The Note-Taker / Peer Note-Taker is not an additional teacher to the student. 
• Books: ebooks, .pdf, audio: This may reduce the impact of a disability by providing access to written materials for students with visual, physical, or cognitive disabilities.
• Preferential Seating: Designed to assist the student with learning or physical disabilities. It may range from the provision of a wheelchair table, padded chair, and table to seating in the front of the room.
• Sign Language Interpreters: Reduce the impact of a disability by providing an alternative means of communication for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. The interpreter is there to facilitate communication and voice/sign the material presented by instructor/student. The interpreter is not an additional teacher to the student.
• Permission to stand/leave the classroom as needed (temporary break): This allows for the reduction of the impact of a disability for students with physical or cognitive impairments.

Note: Disability Services provides accommodations; we cannot modify the content of a course or a program.

• Accommodations change How the student learns.
• Modifications change What the student learns.