Making Arrangements for Study Abroad Students with Disabilities

What steps do faculty leading study abroad programs or disability services staff at community colleges need to take when a student with a disability applies to participate and disability-related arrangements need to be made?

“We request health history forms from all students and review those beforehand so we know if they have a disability. If so, I contact the [disability] office and we meet with the student to find out exactly what the student’s needs are, and then I check with our overseas partners to see if those needs can be accommodated,” says Carola Smith, Senior Director of International Programs at Santa Barbara City College. She also discusses any necessary issues with the faculty leading the program, since they assist all students.

Other community colleges do not send faculty overseas, but instead hire professors or staff who live in the host country to coordinate study abroad programs. “Sometimes partners overseas will say they don’t have the facilities there, but they usually are very creative and used to working with students with a lot of different needs. They will come up with alternatives – for example, a tutor who is a student there or the professor will spend extra time with the student. I’ve never had a student that said, ‘You can’t accommodate me, I’m not going,’” says Jill Heffron, Study Abroad Coordinator at City College of San Francisco.

Most U.S. community colleges have at least one person, and sometimes an entire office, which works to accommodate students with disabilities in their classes, but this may or may not be the case overseas. Dayna Defeo, who both coordinates disability services and teaches Spanish at a two-year college in Carlsad, which has now become part of New Mexico State University, knows first-hand that accessibility in other countries is not perfect, but that it is still doable. “Where I lived in Costa Rica, the infrastructure for people with physical disabilities and medical care is less than [in the United States], but these are things you would discuss on an individual basis with students and figure out how much it would impact that particular student.”

Rosalind Latimer Raby, Director of California Colleges for International Education (CCIE), says,  “[An open access policy] means that the community colleges cannot deny access to any student for any reason. Community colleges that are planning study abroad programs need to be aware that they cannot turn away a student. For example, a student with an inability to walk, cannot access many of the European buildings – therefore the college needs to make accommodations in those locations in which the students can best navigate.”

Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, encountered barriers when trying to find funding for an American Sign Language interpreter to provide services for a Deaf student going abroad. “We went back and forth with College Consortium for International Studies about whose responsibility that was and finally our office decided, it was somebody’s responsibility, so our community college would send an interpreter,” says Carolyn Kadel, the Director of International Education. “That was a very successful program for that student. It was costly of course for the college but it worked well – there were no major problems.”

“[An open access policy] means that the community colleges cannot deny access to any student for any reason. Community colleges that are planning study abroad programs need to be aware that they cannot turn away a student." -- Rosalind Latimer Raby, Director of California Colleges for International Education

Many accommodations or services that are needed, however, incur few if any costs. “Since I have been in this position, accommodations for students with disabilities might have been a matter of finding a room on the first floor or something like that which wouldn’t require additional costs,” says Smith who sends 250 Santa Barbara City College students abroad each year. “On our recent China program, we had some students that had walking limitations and for those students we can accommodate them by taking them up the mountain in a car. We paid for that additional cost of transportation to get them up there because we didn’t want them to miss out on that experience.”

On the other hand, many students with disabilities choose not to request accommodations, and decide to manage on their own. “I was surprised how many students with disabilities did not ask for accommodations. I have heard about that for the college in general, but since study abroad is more personal, I was thinking that there would be more discussions,” says Raby, Director of CCIE. Many students, in particular those with mobility disabilities, were prepared for less than ideal accessibility and used their creativity to get around. Other students with disabilities may find that existing options for all study abroad students, such as choosing single occupancy dormitory rooms, may also satisfy disability-related needs.

“[Accommodation] depends on the student and what they disclose and at which point they disclose. If it’s six months before departure, obviously I can do a lot more for them. If it’s at orientation there’s not as much time to do it,” says Heffron, Study Abroad Coordinator, who works with her college's Disabled Students Services and Programs office. “Generally, I find if the student has a learning disability and they don’t self-identify – they are over there struggling and we haven’t prepared to do anything to help them. If they self-identify before they leave, then we do whatever we can to get extra test time, arranging for another student to provide them notes, or providing things we can in audio format instead of written format.”

The students need to be well aware of how the host country will be different, says Kadel. She encourages all students with and without disabilities to ask as many details as possible to learn in advance how the location may be challenging. One way to do this is for the student or study abroad advisor to contact the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange administered by Mobility International USA (MIUSA), and sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

“If somebody has a student with a disability that wants to study abroad I usually say, ‘Are you familiar with Mobility International USA [and the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange (NCDE)]?’” says Heffron.

With a website full of tools, advice on specific disabilities, online publications, peer networks and a database of disability organizations worldwide, the NCDE can point students and professionals in the right direction. NCDE staff can also answer questions and problem-solve on a case-by-case basis.

The next article “Specific Disabilities of Study Abroad Students” provides further discussion on how students with certain disabilities were accommodated or independently navigated study abroad programs. It also includes advice from the NCDE’s publication, Building Bridges: A Manual on Including People with Disabilities in International Exchange Programs. Copyright © 2006 Mobility International USA/ National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange (NCDE).