College ADA procedures

[Guest guest]

Well, our son finally decided to 'declare' his Asperger's with the College disabilities office.  We met with a College Psychologist yesterday and discussed the various accommodations that he is entitled to due to the ADA.

Our son has a very difficult time asking for help of any kind, and also hates the idea of being viewed as helpless.  So, while the psych was asking if he might need help with this or that, he was acting as if he wouldn't need most of the help, and there I was, saying that I believe he could benefit from the assistance. lol 

In my opinion, it didn't seem as if he had many 'rights'... They did mention longer testing sessions in a less distracted environment and getting copies of screen presentations printed on paper.  However there were some classes he has been interested in, or even tried to take previously and dropped, where group projects were required.  Or presentations.  He could not manage in those situations.  The College Psychologist said that my son could contact the individual professors for any of these courses and see if he could substitute a written project or analysis (etc) for the group/presentation portions.  However, he said it would be up to the individual professor to decide if he would make any of these accommodations. This presents a real road block for our son as he is very anxious about asking a professor for special provisions and would likely accept whatever the professor suggested, rather than discuss it further.  I was told that the professor can apparently state that the accommodations " alter the structure of the course " and deny them on that basis.  This leaves our son with trying to negotiate course content in these instances, difficult for an aspie with significant social issues.

Any experience or suggestions with this topic would be greatly appreciated.thank youMelani