Name
What the Experiences of Student Clinicians with Non-Apparent Disabilities Can Teach Us
Date & Time
Thursday, March 14, 2024, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Track
Student Concerns; Disability Inclusion
Session Type
Workshop
Description

This qualitative exploration of the lived educational experiences of student clinicians with nonapparent disabilities, yielded, in painful transparency, their plight with sigma, shame, and rejection in human service graduate school environments. They described how they managed disclosure of their disability, their awareness of the accommodations process, their interactions with instructors, supervisors, and peers and their takeaways, and their awareness of internalized ableism, implicit ableism, and the social barriers they encountered. These students, through their lived educational experiences, offered numerous recommendations for change that reflected their self-determination and empowerment and provided an individualized vision for the future - a wake-up call to higher education in the areas of faculty training in accommodaons, sensitivity with student disclosures, the necessity to unlearn implicit ableism, and the impact on recruitment and retention particularly post-pandemic given increases in enrollment of students with disabilities.