Tips for deaf students starting university
In the next few weeks, many deaf students will be starting university. Many of you will not have studied at university level before and may also be taking up the challenge of leaving home for the first time. I would like to share with you some guidance and advice I have picked up from my own and other deaf people’s experiences.
Use the ‘disability’ support available
Support for you as a deaf student comes from two main sources: the university and Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSA). The university is required to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 to ensure you as deaf students have full access to all services and opportunities the university offers. It is important to remember you pay the same fees as hearing students, and proper access will increase the chances of you getting a good degree, staying on your course and having better job opportunities in your life.
Common adjustments universities can provide include:
- Flashing and vibrating fire alerting in university owned accommodation. If you live in private accommodation contact your local fire service as they may be able to help with this.
- Lecture notes/slides in advance of sessions (so you can see new vocabulary in text).
- Reminding lecturers to use microphones in teaching rooms.
- Exam arrangements like extra time, seating location or written copies of announcements.
- Library support such as 1:1 inductions at quieter times.
- Ensure video material is all subtitled and audio/podcasts have a transcript.
- Deaf awareness or deaf equality training for your teaching staff.
DSA is a non means tested grant which should not affect other benefits or student finance that you receive. There is also no such thing as “not deaf enough for DSA” as long as you can provide evidence from an audiologist or doctor that says you have been deaf (or expect to be deaf) for more than 12 months and gives some examples of how it affects your day to day activities such as hearing alarms or following speech.
DSA may fund the following kinds of support to deaf students :
- Radio aids.
- Software to help with academic work.
- Manual notetaking (handwritten notes).
- Electronic notetaking (realtime access and typed notes).
- Lipspeaking.
- Speech to Text Reporting (STTR) which is live verbatim captioning of what is spoken.
- British Sign Language (BSL) / English interpreting.
- Specialist support with language.
As the whole DSA process can take 3-4 months to complete (before support can often be put in place) it is best to start your application as soon as possible – you can start this while waiting to see disability services. As DSA is handled by a few different funding bodies depending where in the UK or Channel Islands you are and what course you study, you should check the Disability Rights UK DSA page to help you identify your correct funding body.
Changes for deaf students
Academic areas
One obvious change is learning environments:
Lectures are where a tutor presents from the front often using slides or audiovisual materials to an audience of between 50 and 400+ students. Depending on your course you could have as many as 15 of these a week or several back to back in one day. While some deaf students find the single-speaker reasonably straightforward, others can find having to listen and lipread for the hours needed to be too difficult and exhausting without assistance. You may wish to try radio aids again even if you haven’t found them necessary in the past. You may also benefit from a notetaker or real time communication support.
Seminars are discussion based sessions usually based on reading materials set in advance (sometimes your classmates may not have done this!). There can be between 5 and 40 students in these discussions and the quality of facilitation can vary. Sometimes students are awarded marks for participation in these and they can be one of the more interesting chances to explore course material so it is important to get access right. Many deaf students can find seminars very stressful due to access difficulties and concerns about speaking in public or out of turn. You may wish to ask the university to arrange for seminars to always be in a room you can see other speakers, are well facilitated so one person talks at a time, people have to be selected to speak and speakers encouraged to use a visual cue (maybe holding a mascot object or a microphone) before speaking. Again DSA radio aids, notetaking or communication support may be invaluable here. Sometimes students only use communication support in seminars and not other sessions – which is entirely valid.
Other environments such as laboratory work, placements, fieldtrips can bring various access challenges for you as a deaf person such as weather conditions outside, or hearing alarms. It is best to talk to your university about how they and DSA can put adjustments and support in place help you access these fully. For many courses the ethos behind teaching and learning changes at university. There is a greater focus on how you find and justify your answers or construct your academic ‘argument’ rather than simple ‘right and wrong’. Teaching sessions are likely to be designed to provide a framework which you as a student are expected to build upon through personal study. Your university will probably provide many optional sessions about study skills, referencing, using the library, plagiarism and more. I strongly advise all students, especially deaf students, to make the most of these. You should be able to use your DSA communication support and if you are still struggling with understanding, you can ask the university for further adjustments.
Social aspects of university life
University provides a unique opportunity to try new activities and meet new people that you otherwise never get again. As well as your classmates and flatmates who you rarely get to choose, your university will have a students union with clubs and societies with people you have more choice in spending time with. There are likely to be options which are both easier or excitingly challenging for you as a deaf person.
Understandably meeting new people may be very daunting. In all areas of university life you will be spending time with people not mainly from one area, but all around the UK and overseas. This means an infinite range of new speakers and accents which can be difficult for you to hear and lipread. It can be tempting to avoid people who are more challenging to hear or understand, but then you lose out on meeting some lovely and interesting people and the benefits of diversity.
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Be open about your deafness
The most happy and successful deaf students at university are those who are open about their deafness. Think about ways you can explain your deafness quickly and easily with a focus on what people can easily do to share the responsibility for communicating with you at that time. That might be asking people to speak on your better hearing side, speak slower or more clearly, or writing things down. It can be worth telling people that as you get to know them you are likely to find it easier to understand them. You may find it easier to build up relationships one to one rather than in larger groups. Or in noisier spaces where lipreading skills may give you an advantage!
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Technology
Do take advantage of technology. Are there social media spaces such as Facebook or Whatsapp for your classes, flats or societies? If not, could you create them and invite other people to join? Having a text or visual based modality will enable you to engage easily and supplement your face to face interactions. If you use sign language, teaching other students some sign (and not just the swear words) is something many hearing people are interested in.
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Not everyone settles immediately
You may feel other students appear to make and settle into friendships more quickly than you, but in reality lots of new students take several weeks to get used to university life. Look out for options for new students, or those struggling to settle (usually hosted by welfare departments) as these events can often be quieter or more structured.
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Do you have any tips for deaf students you would like to share?
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