Only about 700-800 of those students are actually in the system of the Disability Support Services, leaving approximately 1,200 students either not choosing to use the resources the center has to offer, or not knowing that they have a disability.

FC’s disabled students mainly constitute a population of learning disabilities, as opposed to other community colleges such as Golden West that specialize with blind students and the use of Braille. Even though these schools seem to have different strengths, they all have the same programs and offer equal specialization.

It has been said that 30 percent of the population that has a learning disability is never tested or diagnosed.

Personal outside testing can cost from $500-$700. At community colleges, however, receiving an assessment test only costs half of a unit, or $13. Getting tested if you feel you have a learning disability can prove to be advantageous.

The DSS offers a variety of help for students including test accommodations, video captioning, sign language interpreters, tutoring, and a program called Kurzweil.

Kurzweil offers a variety of study help by allowing textbooks to be scanned on to a computer so that they can be reformatted for better understanding, transferred on to a CD, or read aloud right there in the Center.

Kurweil also offers notes on the computer that can directly highlight from the text in three different colors and be transferred on to a word document and printed out.

Two years ago this program was never used, and now it scans up to 80 different textbooks a semester at FC alone.

Though we only have had Kurzweil for this short time, schools like Cypress only had it installed this semester.

The DSS is there to keep equal access for disabled students and help those students with verifiable disabilities receive the accommodations they need to succeed and to do it all in a timely fashion.

By Melissa Philp
http://www.fchornet.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/02/22/43fe1f74b35de