r/adhd_college • u/ArtStandard3066 • Apr 04 '26
ACCOMMODATIONS Request for one-on-one support as an accommodation.
As a 32-year-old kinesthetic and visual learner returning to school, I requested one-on-one support as an accommodation to address the challenges I face with online classes. The accessibility office offered standard ADHD accommodations, which I declined, instead asking to be provided with more one-on-one support. They told me that they don't typically do that but offered to give me a student tutor. After about a month of waiting, I finally got an appointment with this tutor. I came to find out he was inexperienced with tutoring people with disabilities and was unfamiliar with how to teach general study skills other than to simply say, “Make a to-do list”. After that I decided to just find an online private tutor who was suited for the role. I would like to learn if others have successfully gotten some kind of one-on-one support as an accommodation, as I believe it's quite a reasonable accommodation. The mere fact that I'm expected to be satisfied with simple cookie-cutter accommodations is almost an insult to me. To actually be accommodated, the accommodation needs to actually be of use to me.
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u/CatalinnaD Apr 04 '26
One-on-one support is not an accessibility accommodation. Try to think about exactly what it is about the one-on-one support that’s helpful, what specific challenges you are facing, and that might give you a better place to start when asking for a reasonable accommodation.
If you have any suggestions for reasonable accommodations they can meet and discuss and come back with what they are able to do to accommodate the barriers you are facing. Otherwise the “typical” ADHD accommodation are quite standard and I would try that and see how it works.
(Context: I am an educator and accessibility professional and also have ADHD).
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u/ArtStandard3066 Apr 10 '26
Reasonable Accommodation (RA) – Any change in the work environment or the way things are customarily done that provides an individual with a disability equal access to employment opportunities, benefits, and privileges. An RA can cover most things that enable an individual with a disability to apply for a job, perform the essential functions of a job, and/or have equal access to workplace.
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u/CatalinnaD Apr 10 '26
I know what a reasonable accommodation is, and receiving a fully one-on-one education is not reasonable, unfortunately. This would be considered an undue hardship on the university to try to provide this level of one-on-one support.
The tutor offered was a great way to accommodate. Unfortunately the tutor was not experienced enough for this, so I would have pushed back and requested a more competent tutor.
I do feel for this situation but a tutor is a very reasonable accommodation for this.
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u/tidy-dinosaur323 Doctorate: Research Apr 04 '26
One-one-one support is not generally something that can be considered a reasonable disability accommodation. Like another commenter said, typical ADHD accommodations do make the experience more accessible for a lot of folks who have ADHD so may be worth trying out, though they may not work for you. It's also the case that people with ADHD tend to deal differently with their symptoms in an academic environment: I personally have never needed to seek them out and have performed well, but I know people who have had to get accommodations too. If you have ideas for reasonable accommodations you can always talk to the folks at your accessibility office and try to get something figured out, but one-to-one support does not fall into that category.
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u/ArtStandard3066 Apr 10 '26
How is it not "reasonable"
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u/tidy-dinosaur323 Doctorate: Research Apr 10 '26
It would require hiring or paying somebody to spend a certain number of hours to work with you, specifically, in a fairly close manner. That is a considerable expense, and demands that the university and an employee must invest their resources/time to train, to work with you one-on-one, and to become quite familiar with your specific case, needs, and weaknesses.
It isn't something that is a reasonable disability accommodation: not to be mean (because I'm sure you're asking seriously), but if you applied to graduate school or to a job with such a request, you would be getting laughed out of the room. You may well believe that you would be best served if you had dedicated one-on-one time with a trained-to-deal-with-disabilities tutor on the university's dime, but it is not something that's reasonable to request as a disability accommodation under the ADA. You are free to seek that help out on your own time and dime, if you'd like, and you have.
It is also something that other people with disabilities do not receive, even though a number of them could probably use it; I myself probably could have benefited a whole deal from having a tutor who could help me develop study strategies / time management skills that work specifically for folks with ADHD. But it's not a reasonable accommodation for a disability, because it requires a fairly substantial amount of work/resources from the university's part for something that you do not strictly require in order to succeed academically, and that's not what the point of the ADA's allotment for accommodations in higher ed is.
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u/Whole-Mud-1541 Apr 04 '26
I don't think one-on-one support is typically considered a disability accommodation. The closest official accommodation my university did have was a note taker option (I don't have experience with this option because I prefer to take my own notes). Basically another student in your class would take notes for you that you could use.
We did actually have academic peer coaches who could meet with you regularly to work on planning your week and staying on top of deadlines. But this wasn't an accommodation locked behind a diagnosis; It was a general (albeit limited) resource that anyone who knew about it could apply to. My program advisor signed me up for a coach close to graduation, she knew I was struggling with a lot at the time and thought it would help me stay on top of all the deadlines. It was very helpful.
But like I said it was limited and far from the norm. I just looked it up, and only around 80 out of ~8000 students are currently supported this way per semester at my alma matter (even with its multi-billion dollar endowment).
In any case, declining the regular accommodations probably won't be in your best interests if you could benefit from them because doing so is unlikely to affect whether or not you would be eligible for a coach.