By Stephanie Lai: For Complete Post, click here…
Many are having to press their universities for accommodations — or drop classes entirely.
Jessica Chaikof, a hearing- and visually impaired graduate student at American University in D.C., grew increasingly frustrated as the minutes ticked by in her 2½-hour sociology course. She could not hear or read anything.
It was her first in-person class, and Chaikof had set up a second laptop and a school-provided microphone near her professor and her socially distanced classmates to transcribe the conversation in real time. She squinted to read the resulting words, but even as her three classmates got out of their seats and shouted into the microphone to try to help, the transcription service picked up little.
“It’s affecting my learning. It’s affecting my ability to do well in class,” said Chaikof, whose hearing and visual impairments are caused by Usher syndrome. “Overall, it’s been really frustrating.”
Many students welcomed the return to in-person learning, but the change has revived pre-pandemic difficulties and created new ones for some students with disabilities. Some lamented the reduction of online instruction, which allowed them to read closed captions during lectures in real time, turn their cameras off when needed, and watch recorded lectures at home and at their own pace, among its benefits.
Losing that flexibility, Chaikof and others said, has brought them physical and mental distress — and the feeling that they’re being forgotten.
“I have to work 10 times harder than my classmates just to be able to succeed, and yet I’m not being supported,” Chaikof said.
