How to Teach — Not ‘Accommodate’ — Students with Learning Differences

To the Editor:

As someone who teaches at the college level and as the father of a daughter on the autistic spectrum, I very much hope that Alan Levinovitz’s “Do Colleges Provide Too Many Disability Accommodations?” (The Chronicle Review, September 25) will touch off discussion and soul-searching about how colleges can best meet the needs of student with learning differences and disabilities.

My daughter went to a top 50 liberal-arts college and the accommodations she received were of almost of no practical use to her, and, in retrospect, I think they stood in the way of her learning and development. She now has a master’s degree from a similar institution but remains underemployed, as many on the spectrum are.

The discussion needs be about not how to “accommodate” such students, but how best to teach them. Such a discussion should be the basis for the development of clear duty of care standards for faculty and institutions, and of reform of current law and regulation to support such standards.

Peter Wiley

Adjunct Instructor
Department of English and Creative Writing
Susquehanna University School of Humanities