Acceptable sources of documentation for substantiating a student’s disability and request for particular accommodations can take a variety of forms:

Primary Documentation: Student’s Self-report

The student is a vital source of information regarding how they may be “limited by impairment.” A student’s narrative of their experience of disability, barriers, and effective and ineffective accommodations is an important tool which, when structured by interview or questionnaire and interpreted, may be sufficient for establishing disability and a need for accommodation. At minimum, in many cases a student's self-report may prove sufficient for provisional accommodations.

Secondary Documentation: Observation and Interaction

The impressions and conclusions formed by ACCESS professionals during the intake interview and conversations with students or in evaluating the effectiveness of previously implemented or provisional accommodations are important forms of documentation. This can include observations of students’ language, performance and strategies as an appropriate tool in validating student narrative and self-report.

Tertiary Documentation: Information From External or Third Parties

In the event that primary and secondary documentation attempts are insufficient, we may require tertiary documentation to supplement self-report. Documentation from external sources may include educational or medical records, reports and assessments created by health care providers, school psychologists, teachers, or the educational system. This information is inclusive of documents that reflect education and accommodation history, and teacher observations. External documentation will vary in its relevance and value depending on the original context, credentials of the evaluator, the level of detail provided, and the comprehensiveness of the narrative. However, all forms of documentation are meaningful and should be mined for pertinent information.

We accept many different forms of tertiary documentation which includes but is not limited to: 

• An Individualized Education program (IEP) - please note we may ask for supplemental documentation if the IEP indicates you were ineligible for services under IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).
• a 504 Plan - A document describing services or accommodations provided pursuant to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation act of 1973
• A plan or record of service from a private school, local education agency, state educational agency or other institution of higher education provided in accordance with the ADA.
  • A plan or record of disability from another institution of higher education.
• A record or evaluation from a relevant licensed professional finding that an individual has a disability
• Documentation of disability due to military service in the uniformed services. 

The most useful documentation not only specifies a diagnosis, but also provides scored testing done to establish the diagnosis and functional impacts on higher education. This not only gives you as the individual a better understanding of what functional impacts you are mitigating, but enables us as an office to craft the most comprehensive accommodation package possible.  

ACCESS staff are ultimately responsible for determining whether an accommodation is reasonable and appropriate within the context of a specific course. Instructors play a pivotal role is helping ACCESS staff make this determination as they are the experts on the essential course requirements for the courses they teach. ACCESS recommends that instructors be as clear and deliberate as possible on the essential course requirements when outlining them in their syllabi.

After registering with ACCESS, you'll need to submit a Semester Request for every semester going forward in order to let us know which classes you are taking and what instructors need to be notified. You access the Semester Request page by logging into the Accommodate platform using your university eID and password the same way that you would log in to CougarNet or Blackboard. Please note, upon approval for certain accommodations you may be asked to sign additional paperwork indicating your understanding of our policies.

Semester Requests can be submitted for each semester on the following dates:

• August 1st - Fall
• December 1st - Spring
• May 1st - Summer
  
  

Through ACCESS, SIUE provides qualified ASL interpreters to help students in class by interpreting what their faculty and fellow students say. Deaf students are strongly urged to register early and submit their semester requests to ACCESS as soon as possible to start the process for receiving services for each semester. 

Interpreters also are available for faculty conferences, advising sessions, and at faculty-student conferences. Most major campus events have interpreters, generally at one corner of the stage, or captioning equipment. For smaller events such as a club meeting, students need to contact ACCESS for information about how such meetings can be covered. The SIUE graduation ceremony also features interpreters or captionists. But other events may not automatically plan for interpreters, so students need to contact ACCESS or the organization sponsoring an event to ensure that interpreters or captioning equipment will be available.

International students with disabilities are provided equal educational opportunities under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act as (ADAAA), which is the law that defines disabilities and the general principles that guide accommodations. Under the ADAAA, international students who have disabilities are entitled to general accommodations in school, such as wheelchair access to school facilities, service and support animals and personal devices (e.g., hearing aids) to help overcome a disability.

For testing accommodations, this is also true. There are many diagnoses for which extended time may be approved or assistance such as a reader or scribe may be warranted. However, language proficiency is not sufficient rationale for accommodations to be extended through ACCESS.  ADAAA Accommodations are not to lower expectations but to level the playing field for students with disabilities. If you are an international student and have appropriate documentation justifying the need for accommodation under the ADAAA, please proceed through the intake and accommodation process.   

International students who have questions or concerns about academic issues may review resources at Office of International Affairs. International students may also request an appointment with the International Student Program Advisor for additional academic and campus resources by contacting: isss@siue.edu.

According to the ADAAA, Emotional Support Animals are often used as part of a medical treatment plan as therapy animals, but they are not considered service animals. ESAs provide companionship, relieve loneliness, and sometimes help with depression, anxiety, and certain phobias, but do not have special training to perform tasks that assist people with disabilities. Emotional support animals are usually dogs and cats, but they can be any animal that provides comfort during times of sadness, anxiety, or emotional stress.

 

Under the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Fair Housing Act, a housing provider may request reliable documentation when an individual requesting a reasonable accommodation has a disability and disability-related need for an accommodation that are not obvious or otherwise known. Some websites sell certificates, registrations, and licensing documents for assistance animals to one who answers certain questions or participates in a short interview and pays a fee. In accordance with HUD, such documentation from the internet is not, by itself, sufficient to reliably establish that an individual has a non-observable disability or disability-related need for an assistance animal.

By contrast, many legitimate, licensed health care professionals deliver services remotely, including over the internet. One reliable form of documentation is a note from a person’s health care professional that confirms a person’s disability and/or need for an animal when the provider has personal knowledge of the individual. If you already have a professional looking after your mental health, that is the best person to talk to regarding your interest in an emotional support animal. Our Emotional Support Animal (ESA) form will allow your physician to answer all necessary questions regarding your accommodation request. If you have additional questions regarding this form, please arrange to speak to an ACCESS staff member.

 

A legitimate ESA letter can only come from a licensed healthcare professional, such as a therapist, counselor, social worker, psychiatrist, psychologist, nurse, physician’s assistant, or doctor. If you didn’t talk to a board-certified doctor or licensed mental health professional, you are being sold an unenforceable document.

Beware of sites that:

• Approve you for an ESA letter after only asking a few questions online.
• Have you message or talk with a mental healthcare professional who is not located in your state (often overseas).
• Register your emotional support animal and tell you registration is sufficient for protecting your rights. Registration is NOT the same as getting an ESA letter.

If you have additional questions, comments or concerns about an ESA accommodation, please register with ACCESS and schedule an appointment to speak with an ACCESS staff member to provide more information.

Service animals are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Examples of such work or tasks include guiding people who are blind, alerting people who are deaf, pulling a wheelchair, alerting and protecting a person who is having a seizure, reminding a person with mental illness to take prescribed medications, calming a person with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during an anxiety attack, or performing other duties. Service animals are working animals, not pets. The work or task a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.

This definition does not affect or limit the broader definition of “assistance animal” under the Fair Housing Act or the broader definition of “service animal” under the Air Carrier Access Act.

Some State and local laws also define service animal more broadly than the ADA does. Information about such laws can be obtained from the relevant State attorney general’s office.

A service animal must be under the control of its handler. Under the ADA, service animals must be harnessed, leashed, or tethered, unless the individual’s disability prevents using these devices or these devices interfere with the service animal’s safe, effective performance of tasks. In that case, the individual must maintain control of the animal through voice, signal, or other effective controls.

SIUE is committed to providing a safe, welcoming and accessible campus for students who are choosing to train their service dogs. Service Dogs in Training and the trainer are afforded the same access to the campus as a Service Dog.

Specific laws in the State of Illinois state that that a trainer of guide dogs or support dogs shall have the right to be accompanied by a dog that is being trained for the purpose. These laws are The Guide Dog Act, Public Act 93-0532, The White Cane Law and the Guide Dog Access Act, 720 ILCS 630.

Please note, if you are training a Service Dog on campus, please be aware of and adhere to the following responsibilities:

• The care and supervision of a service dog in training is the responsibility of the student designated as the puppy raiser/trainer. The student must maintain control of the dog and its behavior at all times.
• The student is responsible for the health of the animal.
• The student is responsible for maintaining annual vaccination of the animal.
• The student is responsible for maintaining licensure of the animal.
• The service dog in training must be on a leash at all times that the dog is outside the campus residence.
• The student is responsible for the clean-up and the proper disposal of all animal waste in an appropriate receptacle.
• The student who has a service dog in training on the University grounds or facilities is financially responsible for: (1) property damage caused by his or her dog; (2) injury to another individual or an animal owned by an individual that is caused by the dog.
• The student must never leave the service dog in training alone at any time. If the trainer cannot be with the animal, a “sitter” must be engaged to take responsibility for the animal. The dog is not to be taken beyond the residence hall complex in which the dog and puppy raiser/trainer reside while it is in the care of a “sitter”.
  
  

Exams should always be scheduled at the same day and time as your regularly scheduled class. In extenuating circumstances students may be permitted to schedule an exam at an alternative time to allow for an extended time accommodation that may interfere with a subsequent class, or to accommodate a make-up exam. Any exam, including make-up exams, scheduled outside of the standard class time, must have instructor permission and must be completed by 4:30 pm including extended time accommodations.

If you are eligible to receive your textbooks in an alternative format as an accommodation, you must complete the Alternative Format Textbook Agreement. Select the appropriate format based on the approved accommodation to access your assigned readings. The following digital formats are available: e-book, PDF, doc, RTF, txt, Daisy and mp3*. These files may be placed on your personal e-reader, tablet, or computer or you may receive a Kindle on loan from ACCESS for the semester.

The form also includes an agreement which must be signed stating that you understand that these are copyrighted works and cannot be shared with other parties under any circumstances.

* File type is determined based upon the device utilized.

RedShelf is the Content Delivery System used on campus for all digital course materials. RedShelf grants students access to their digital course materials on the first day of class through the link installed in Blackboard. The program originally started with all publisher courseware and is now moving towards transitioning print adoptions over to eBook adoptions. RedShelf currently partners with over 100 publishers to distribute the content faculty adopt for their courses via Blackboard.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) was signed into law on June 27, 2023. This federal law aims to protect the rights of pregnant employees by requiring employers to treat known limitations resulting from pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions as conditions essentially equivalent to a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Similar to the ADA, the PWFA requires the university to engage in the interactive process to identify reasonable accommodations. Under the PWFA, reasonable accommodations are intended to enable an employee to remain in active work status.

It is also important to note that, unlike the ADA, no disability is required for reasonable accommodations under the PWFA. The PWFA requires only that there be a known limitation related to pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition.

 

If you are pregnant, recovering from childbirth or have a condition related to pregnancy, you have the right to ask for a reasonable accommodation. This may include, assistance with heavy lifting, a private space for expressing milk or time off to recover from your pregnancy. Other pregnancy related accommodations include but are not limited to:

• Ability to sit
• Ability to drink water while working
• Flexible work hours
• Appropriately sized uniforms and safety apparel
• Additional break time to eat, rest, or use the restroom

 

Like employee ADA accommodations, pregnancy-related accommodations for employees are facilitated by Accessible Campus Community & Equitable Student Support (ACCESS). To begin the process, please register on Accommodate to articulate your need for a workplace accommodation under the PWFA.

Once your submission is received an assigned case manager will work with you to obtain medical documentation if necessary, and identify and verify the known limitation(s). ACCESS will then coordinate the interactive process intended to identify reasonable accommodations that will enable you to continue working with the known limitation.

 

More information about the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act can be found at U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

 

Your accommodations as a Graduate Student will still be facilitated through the ACCESS office, however they may look very different than at the undergraduate level. Depending on the program, instead of testing or exam accommodations, there may be a need for more discussion around accommodation in a practicum or clinical environment. Please plan to discuss with an ACCESS representative what program you’ll be entering and what sort of support you may need prior to the start of your graduate program to develop effective and reasonable accommodations.

 For students with a Graduate Assistantship needing work related accommodations, please contact Dominic Dorsey, Director of ACCESS at dodorse@siue.edu or by phone at 618-650-3726.