Supporting Students with Disabilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Perspective of Disability Resource Professionals

Katherine C. Aquino () and Sally Scott
Additional contact information
Katherine C. Aquino: Department of Administrative and Instructional Leadership, St. John’s University, Queens, NY 11439, USA
Sally Scott: Association on Higher Education and Disability, Huntersville, NC 28070, USA

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: Utilizing national survey data, this paper details the academic and access challenges created by the pandemic for students with disabilities, as perceived by disability resource professionals. Data included in this paper capture disability support service challenges at two unique timepoints during the COVID-19 pandemic—May 2020 [ n = 535] and January 2021 [ n = 631]. Disability resource professionals reported there was difficulty in the initial months of the pandemic for students to provide documentation of a disability to receive accommodations, use assistive technology in the new remote academic setting, and receive testing accommodations within the remote environment. While access and resources improved for students with disabilities over time, a portion of the surveyed disability resource professionals noted no observed improvement in students’ with disabilities communication with instructors as well as a worsening of conditions for students with disabilities throughout the pandemic related to access to counseling and mental health services. In addition to highlighting key obstacles faced by this student group during the pandemic, this paper provides recommendations and implications for institutions to better serve this student group, including how institutions of higher education can coordinate a holistic approach to support student mental health.

Keywords: students with disabilities; higher education; student support; disability support services; administrators (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/4297/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/4297/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:5:p:4297-:d:1083056

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().