Bumps Abound When Students Become Their Own Advocates

His parents have pushed to get him accommodations such as extra time on exams, tried organizational tricks such as color-coding notebooks, sought out therapists, experimented with medications, sought advice from teachers. At times, it seemed to swallow up everything else, his mother said.

In recent years, federal protections, better screening and, critics say, some over-diagnosis have made learning disabilities and attention disorders common in mainstream classrooms. Schools have improved and expanded the help available. Federal law requires primary and secondary schools to identify students having trouble, design individual education plans, set goals and offer accommodations including quiet rooms for test-taking, additional time for homework and non-written evaluations.

In many cases, parents become fierce advocates, demanding services, meeting with teachers, threatening lawsuits, spending countless hours helping with homework and paying for private tutors.

Then, when they get to college, many students and parents are surprised to find out that they need recent tests -- ideally, from the junior or senior year -- to claim a disability.

Ann Deschamps, a transition resource teacher for Fairfax County public schools, helped create a series of lessons to ease the transition and try to increase the number of students who continue getting academic accommodations in college. "It's tough," she said. "Their parents have been driving the whole way, and now the students have to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and what they need to be successful."

Still, only about one-third of college students with disabilities get accommodations from their schools. The others don't, usually because the schools don't know they need them, according to a national study for the U.S. Department of Education; only 40 percent tell school officials that they need help. Half of them don't consider themselves disabled.

American University has a small group of first-year students who, among other things, meet with an adviser weekly and take the introductory writing class with a professor who has specialized knowledge about teaching students with learning disabilities.

Other schools, including the University of Virginia, provide accommodations such as tutoring, peer note-takers, reduced course loads and high-tech software that reads books aloud, makes studying more interactive and engaging, or helps students organize scattered thoughts.

Since the 1970s, Montgomery College has had an intensive college access program that offers small classes, tutors, academic counseling and other help for students with learning disabilities.

But there are still colleges that parents say aren't eager to help. Selene Almazan, a lawyer with the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education, lost faith in her son's top-choice university, the Rochester Institute of Technology, when school officials told her he wouldn't be allowed to use a calculator. They seemed more skeptical than helpful, said Almazan, who lives in Silver Spring. Her son chose another college instead.

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Nick Samara is taking tough classes, and he has a battery of standardized tests this year. He took the SAT with extra time this month, and he will have IB and AP exams before he graduates.