Student Disability Statistics

Who is Disabled at Emory?

At Emory there were 573 students registered with the Office of Disabilities Services (ODS) during the 2008-09 academic year. The distribution of the students across divisions is show in the chart below. These are individuals who brought documentation to support this classification and who demonstrated a significant limitation in their functioning to warrant some type of accommodation.

Use of Accommodations

Not every student who is registers as an individual with a disability requests an accommodation or uses accommodations consistently. For example, a student with depression, a mood disorder that is quite prevalent in young adults, may find the disorder well controlled with the right dose of medication and not require an accommodation for a period of them and then find that under different conditions the medication has lost its efficacy. Another student with a learning disability may find that the teaching style of the instructor and the course requirements do not require the designed extended time on test accommodations because course assessment is based on discussion and papers.

Although it is sometimes helpful to consider classifications of disabilities when judging the needs of individuals with disabilities, within each classification there is wide variation in functional capacity, depending upon the adaptive capabilities of the individual and the environment in which he or she is required to function. Therefore, caution should be used when developing modifications to instruction and accommodations for students with disabilities based on the type of disability. What is needed to ensure educational “access” may differ widely among individuals with similar disabilities. Each category of disability and individual within that category requires different accommodations in order to gain full access to educational opportunities. Cases are considered individually and accommodations developed based on the unique needs of each individual.