Understanding Disability Services Toward Improving Graduate Student Support
Abstract
Few students with disabilities transition from undergraduate to graduate programs. Graduate students often receive ineffective and insufficient accommodations, including lack of support specific to graduate students, because disability services policies are shaped by undergraduate experiences. To understand how disability services offices accommodate graduate students: we (1) critically analyzed disability services websites of 18 U.S. institutions, and (2) interviewed 17 disability services staff. Disability services websites publicly present institutional accommodation policies and guidelines, and staff are responsible for identifying, providing, and implementing reasonable accommodations. We found that policies may be interpreted differently depending on specific student circumstances. We discuss our findings in two main themes: (a) Policies and attitudes ascribed to disability, technology, and faculty, and (b) Impacts of policies and perspectives on accommodation decisions for graduate students. The contributions of this work include an empirical investigation of institutional support for disabled graduate students and suggestions for how to improve support from disability services offices to empower students.
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Writing effective alt text requires both subject literacy and familiarity with accessibility guidelines.
“Writing effective alt text requires both subject literacy and familiarity with accessibility guidelines [2, 73].”
From How University Disability Services Professionals Write Image Descriptions for HCI Figures Using Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as [73]
Most critiques of disability and access have been conducted in the U.S., leaving limited insight into how disability and access vary in other cultural and political contexts.
“However, most critiques have been conducted in the U.S. [55, 76, 77, 85, 97, 98], leaving limited insight into how disability and access vary in other cultural and political contexts.”
From Access in the Shadow of Ableism: An Autoethnography of a Blind Student's Higher Education Experience in China (2026) · cites this paper as [85]
Although requesting accommodations required effort similar to that in the U.S., the process at University B was complicated by nuanced interpersonal dynamics in a context lacking both established support policies and disability awareness.
“In these instances, although requesting accommodations required effort similar to that in the U.S. [41, 55, 77, 85], the process was complicated by nuanced interpersonal dynamics in a context lacking both established support policies and disability awareness.”
From Access in the Shadow of Ableism: An Autoethnography of a Blind Student's Higher Education Experience in China (2026) · cites this paper as [85]
Similar experiences occurred repeatedly throughout Zhang's study at University B; negotiating with others to secure access introduced significant labor to study.
“Similar experiences occurred repeatedly throughout Zhang's study at University B. Similar to findings reported in the U.S. [41, 55, 77, 85], negotiating with others to secure access introduced significant labor to study.”
From Access in the Shadow of Ableism: An Autoethnography of a Blind Student's Higher Education Experience in China (2026) · cites this paper as [85]
Documented assignment-level pathways and program-level skill alignment exist to support curricular embedding.
“documented assignment-level pathways and program-level skill alignment exist to support it [4, 6, 10, 19, 21, 30, 31, 35].”
From Teaching Participatory Inclusive IT Design with a Neurodiversity Lens in Computing Education (2025) · cites this paper as [35]
Embedding UDL and accessibility across core CS courses is one concrete mechanism to interrupt the cycle from curricular neglect to inaccessible educational technologies and back to student access labor.
“In computing, embedding UDL and accessibility across core CS courses is one concrete mechanism to interrupt the cycle from curricular neglect to inaccessible educational technologies and back to student access labor, making the intended transfer pathway explicit [4, 19, 20, 31, 35].”
From Teaching Participatory Inclusive IT Design with a Neurodiversity Lens in Computing Education (2025) · cites this paper as [35]
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References 43 · Cited by 27
- Authors
- Tamjeed, M., Tibdewal, V., Russell, M., McQuaid, M., Oh, T., & Shinohara, K.
- Affiliations
- Rochester Institute of Technology (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2021-10-17
- Pages
- 1-14
- OpenAlex
- W3207298736
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 3.16
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- NSF (National Science Foundation) (1926209)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Disability Education and Employment
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Disability Rights and Representation
- Social Sciences › Human Factors and Ergonomics › Digital Accessibility for Disabilities
- Keywords
- disability services, graduate students, reasonable accommodation, disability services offices, accommodation policy, attitudes toward disability, assistive technology, faculty attitudes, undergraduate-to-graduate transition, higher education accessibility, student empowerment
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