Is Learning Disability a mental disability?

University Student with learning disability: My niece attends a well known CA University who accepted her as a?

• student athlete; she listed herself with a learning disability (she graduated HS with a 3.3 but with poor SAT scores). She is now a 4th year (with 5 classes left) majoring in Psychology an Social Behavior with a Minor in Education. She has a note taker and special accommodations for extra test taking time in a quieter test area for she has Auditor Processing/Memory Disorder with ADD. This last quarter she took three Psychology classes in which were much more difficult than expected which she did extra credit and did very well in the written papers but is a very poor test taker (as seen early on her SAT tests) with multiple choice (one misunderstanding of a word or structure of the sentence of the question can through her off completely to the wrong answer) If the final test were a format that would have been more designed to her needs I'm most confident the grades would have been much better knowing how well she does in her written assignments and projects. Today she receives a letter from the college of her major saying due to her low grades she has not met the requirements and will be dropped from the school if she doesn't change her major (again she is now 5 classes from graduating with her minor). She has contacted her disability adviser who has written a letter to appeal this on her behalf; my niece is going to write one as well. During her time at the school she has had to contact professors for note takers and let them know she is struggling and if they could help. Some professors did help, others fought against her basic requests of accommodations ( as a note, she was just tested last year at the university and proved once again at age 20 she had a learning disability.) She has over 25 e-mails to professors and TA's stating her needs and requests to help her to be successful in their classes. Another disadvantage for her at this University is that it only accepts non student athletes with a GPA of 3.5 and over with very high SAT/ACT scores which causes a greater competition within the class room if the professor grades on a curve; this makes her grade automatically a grade or two lower to just keep up with the high achievers without disabilities. QUESTION: How should she appeals this dismissal from the college as a student with disability needs who can prove she has attended 96% + of all her classes, has completed extra credit when offered, had weekly meetings with her Disability Adviser to keep her on track with classes, who has written proof of her correspondence with professors of her needs and difficulties. Is there something in the Disability Protection Laws of Education that will keep her from being dismissed? Please help and suggest.... Thank you so very much!

• Answer:

  This is covered under the legal requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. However - there likely is some provision to appeal within the college itself. Is she getting an athletic scholarship? If so that might be why she is being eliminated as they have so many slots. You don't say anything about that in your information. You likely will find some answers and suggestions in this publication: http://www.disabilityrightsca.org/pubs/530901.pdf Look near the end - there is information on how to file a complaint and where - how to ask for mediation. The difficulty is that these situations are administered via the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and there are not many people to cover quite a few states. It appears you have met several of the steps by keeping good records, and documentation. Keep at it.