I’ve previously blogged about the access fatigue that comes along with asking for accommodations. Before you can even ask for accommodations, though, you need to know what to ask for, and that’s more difficult than it may seem.

With my low vision, for example, it may seem obvious that I need good lighting, but what exactly is good lighting? It’s not as simple as buying a good bright lamp. Most of the time, I need bright, preferably natural, light, with no shadows. But if my eyes have been working a lot, like if I’ve been reading or staring at a screen for several hours, that same light can hurt my eyes.

The lighting is part of what I need, but it is not, by itself, enough. I also need to be able to give my eyes frequent breaks and to limit the amount of work my eyes have to do in a day. “Work,” for my eyes, is anything that requires them to focus, including reading, using a computer, being in a remote meeting, and looking where I’m going when I am walking. Back when I was working on campus, if I had several meetings in different buildings, my eyes would be very tired by midday from me having to look where I was walking. When my eyes are tired, they don’t focus, making reading impossible.

I do not need large print to read, but I do need a serif font, and high contrast between the print and the background. Even with the right font and contrast, I often can’t tell the difference between the letters B, E, and the number 8; the letter Z and the number 2;  the letters F, K, P, R, and sometimes A; and the letters C, G, Q, O, and sometimes D. (Lowercase letters are equally confusing but in different ways. I recently realized that I had been misreading words spray-painted on a junction box I pass everyday while walking the dogs: I had misread “don’t make me dream alone” as “don’t make mr dream alone.” For over a year, I’ve wondered about who “mr” is and why he has to dream alone. I just realized my mistake earlier this week.)

What all of this means is that on a day when I have meetings in different buildings on campus, the light in my office that was perfect yesterday may be too bright today. Or reading for five hours may be doable one day but reading for even one hour on a day when I have multiple online meetings may not be possible. This fluctuation in what I need often makes asking for accommodations in advance of a situation difficult.

When students register with the disabilities services office, they need to state what accommodations they want from their professors. Without knowing the exact conditions they’ll be asked to work in, this can be challenging. Even if a student does know the exact conditions, their ability to function well under those conditions even with multiple accommodations may be impacted by other factors, such as what else they’ve done that day, how hydrated they are, the time of day, the weather, and more.

My daughter needed accommodations in high school, and despite extremely supportive teachers and staff, it felt like we were never requesting the right accommodations at the right time. She would find herself floundering in a particular situation, use the accommodations she was allowed, and continue floundering. After the situation was over, we would meet with her teachers to identify what would have helped. She would then ask for those new accommodations in the next situation, but still flounder because those accommodations were designed around the last situation, not the current one. We were always coming up with the accommodations that would have helped last time not next time.

I have a long-time employee in the Writing Center with a traumatic brain injury. She and I meet regularly to figure out what’s working and what isn’t. What worked in the past doesn’t always work in the present. For example, at times she’s needed to do most of her work early in the week, and at other times, she’s needed to do it only in the afternoons. We both have to be willing to tinker with existing processes, pilot new ones, and be uncomfortable. It’s frustrating for both of us, especially because we know that even when we find something that works, it’s only a temporary fix and there is no permanent one.

Despite that frustration, I think accepting that there is no permanent fix is what’s necessary because disabilities aren’t stable. Unfortunately, institutions, including academia, like stability. They assume stability works for everyone and when it doesn’t, that person is identified as the problem rather than the assumption of stability working for everyone being identified as the problem. The accommodations-for-disabilities system is premised on the ableist assumption that disability is a stable concept.  

Universal Design for Learning can help. Understanding disability as fluid can help. Identifying and pushing back against ableist assumptions can help.