Ask a College Expert: Meet Elizabeth Hamblet

Our guest this week in the Ask a College Expert series is Elizabeth C. Hamblet. She is a speaker, college learning disabilities consultant, and has worked in college disability services offices for more than two decades. She is also the author of 7 Steps to College Success – A Pathway for Students with Disabilities.

Focus Collegiate: Thank you for being with us. You have so many areas of expertise, which of them do you consider to be your specialty?

Elizabeth Hamblet: Educating professionals and parents.

FC: What inspired you to get into this business?

EH: I started in education as a high school special education teacher and at one point when I had a part time job, I began working at a college disability services office and realized I did not know how much things changed when students transitioned to college. In 2008, I started making presentations about these changes to fill the information gap. I also started my consulting business (LD Advisory) around that time. I had a bunch of information I wanted people to be able to access for free. My first book was published in 2011, we’re now on the third edition.

FC: You have so many areas of expertise when it comes to students with disabilities, I want to direct people to your website, LDAdvisory.com, which is a terrific resource. For today, I want to focus on accommodations. What are the most common accommodations students request?

EH: I want to start by saying that when I use the word “common,” I try to support that with statistics. “Common” is in the eye of the beholder; we need to represent facts. Whether accommodations are “easy to get” or “hard to get” will depend upon a person’s experience.

What I can tell you is that in National Longitudinal Transition Studies funded by the U.S. Department of Education (this is in Appendix A in my book on page 182). 21% of the students they followed got extended test time or were allowed to test in a different setting. What you’ll see immediately is that will not sound like these types of accommodations are common. 6% of students were allowed to use a calculator when others were not. 16% of students got a note taker.

I will tell you anecdotally, in my own experience, extended time is not indefinite as it is in high school. Students are generally given 1.5 times more time for tests and they may be tested in rooms with fewer distractions. But be aware that a “distraction-free environment” cannot be guaranteed. And know that there are differences in vocabulary: terms that high schools use are less specific than how we approach them in college.  [EH has published a blog post on this subject: https://ldadvisory.com/college-accommodations-changes-in-vocabulary-and-expectations/]

Some students are given permission to record lectures, some can use their laptop for notetaking. But notetakers and peer notes are generally only given to those who cannot physically take notes. They are given permission to record and can have copies of notetaking software like Glean or Otter, which allows students to capture what they missed but does not replace their notes. This software is only meant to supplement a student’s notes, it does not identify the most important parts of the lecture—students are supposed to figure that out for themselves.

FC: What is the process for getting accommodations in college? 

EH: Students should find the steps online on their college’s website. Typically, the process includes at least two things:

• Fill out a form
• Provide documentation.
• Maybe do an intake meeting. Not all schools require these. This meeting is not like an admissions interview or a job interview, but a chance for the DSS office to follow up on student requests. And it’s an opportunity for students to ask some questions.  [A colleague of EH’s discusses the intake interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9GxzyaSXx8]

FC: What is the parent’s role in this process?

EH: To support and coach. Look, parents have done a great job advocating and making sure their student has had what they needed all the way up to this point. This is a time for students to take responsibility for themselves and get the experience of speaking and advocating for themselves.

Parents can help draft an email or figure out who to talk to—coaching and supporting— from behind the scenes to allow for the student to have the experience.

FC: What accommodations are students asking for that they’re probably not going to get?

EH: Very frequently students won’t get extended time to complete assignments. Even when their disability effects time management, they won’t get extended time.

There are not any stats on this, but not everyone who requests a single is going to get one. The bar for establishing a need for this may be very high.

Students will have to do the same assignments as their peers and take the same types of steps.

Often students will not be granted the use of a memory aid on tests.

FC: What advice would you give students who are not great self-advocates, who might be too anxious to ask for accommodations?

EH: There are lots of different reason why students may be anxious, but they are not getting anything that is unreasonable, they are not getting an advantage, they are not cheating. The accommodations they are getting are appropriate to their disabilities.

Students should keep in mind that if they request accommodations, the only people who need to know are the ones who will have a part to play in providing those accommodations. And what those people will know is that students were approved, they won’t know why—this is private—if that’s the student’s concern. That’s a fear I can address.

FC: What advice would you give their parents?

EH: One of the things parents can do is review the process, show them how to do it, ask if they’d like help complete the process (not do it for them). Parents need to make sure students feel confident. Doing things for them does not build confidence, allowing them to do it does. Often when parents do everything, in place of the student doing it, that communicates that they don’t think their student is capable. I don’t have data on this, but it is something to consider.

FC: Is there anything I haven’t asked that you’re just dying to be asked?

EH: It’s good to be optimistic about your student’s transition to college and realistic in that all students must make adjustments—even the straight A students need to figure out how the new environment works.

Competence builds confidence. The more independent we can make a student in all aspects—executive function, academic, social—the more experience they will have, the more confident they will be, and the more relaxed the parents will be.

Not everyone is in the same place. They all have different goals. That’s why Focus Collegiate exists, right?

FC: What is your greatest success in your role as a learning disabilities specialist?

EH: (Laughs) As an LD specialist, when students apply the strategies we worked on together effectively, when they don’t need me anymore and I put myself out of a job. This is my greatest success.

You can follow Elizabeth on the following social media channels:
Instagram:  ld_advisory
Twitter (X): @echamblet
Facebook: Elizabeth C. Hamblet, LD Advisory (https://www.facebook.com/LDadvisory/)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-c-hamblet
Threads: ld_advisory
Bluesky: @echamblet.bsky.social