Information on Studying with Impairments and/or Disabilities

Students with physical disabilities are usually severely limited in their mobility as they rely on walking aids or a wheelchair. Physical limitations are very stressful for students. Everyday study requires a lot of energy and time. This means that the state of exhaustion is reached more quickly and breaks and rest periods are required more frequently. In some cases, it is also necessary to have a study assistant or caregiver, for example, to assist with going to the toilet or taking notes in lectures. Students have to organise their daily study routine very well in order to make the best use of the time still available for doctor or therapy appointments. This restricts students in their spontaneity and involves a considerable amount of work if a lecture is cancelled or takes place at a later time.

Students with physical disabilities can be limited in both mobility and mobility. Physical disabilities include, for example, amputated limbs or massive organ damage. Although these are not immediately visible, they restrict the student's mobility. In the case of a heart defect, for example, climbing stairs or a heavier physical load (e.g. during excursions) is very demanding on the body.

There are different degrees of severity for visual impairments. Such an impairment is not visible at first sight. Total blindness is different from someone who can distinguish between contrasts (light and dark) and colours or even shadowy outlines. The ability to see very often depends on the light conditions in the room. However, more light in the room does not immediately mean better vision, as some people are also sensitive to glare and therefore tend to see better in dim light. Also, the font does not always have to be displayed directly larger, because someone with tunnel vision, and thus a limited field of vision, can cope better with smaller font. In this case, it is helpful for the teacher if affected students come forward. In this way, you can discuss with the lecturer to what extent the field of vision is restricted and what the lecturer can do to make it as easy as possible for the students to work with the teaching material. Our Professors and Lecturers make every effort to design the lecture material in such a way that sufficient text material is provided. The documents will also be checked for accessibility.

For some blind people, the day-night rhythm is disturbed due to the lack of perception of day and night. As a result, affected students have difficulty following the lecture because fatigue is constantly present. As a result, they have to spend more time processing additional literature and need more concentration, as information cannot be absorbed visually or only to a very limited extent.

According to statistics, around 800,000 adults in Germany stutter. The cause has not yet been researched in detail, but it is known that it is a disorder in the speech process. Emotions and situations influence stuttering. For example, someone stutters less in familiar surroundings than when he or she is giving a lecture in an unfamiliar situation. The main symptoms of stuttering are repeating, stretching and blocking words. During stuttering, accompanying symptoms such as tense facial expressions, nodding the head, pulling up the shoulder or tapping the thigh may occur. Often the breathing technique changes during speech, so that the speaker pronounces words with his remaining air to suppress further stuttering.

Often filler words or phrases such as "well" or "basically" are used to maintain a flow of speech. As a result of the psychological stress caused by stuttering, affected people often withdraw from social life. They are afraid of stuttering in important situations or that strangers might make fun of them. The constant fear of negative reactions completely dominates their everyday life, so that affected persons make their activities dependent on whether they themselves have to speak or whether people speak. Nowadays, there is a wide range of therapy options and treatment approaches to give sufferers a bit more security and thus a stable social environment. However, a complete cure is not possible due to the complexity of the speech disorder.

Chronic diseases are difficult for outsiders to perceive over a long period of time. Many of the diseases are only phasic or have relapses. Relapses are generally hardly predictable and cannot be suppressed by good medication. As a result, affected students are unable to make long-term plans or attend every event.

Affected students have a stressful everyday life, which generally has to be well structured in terms of scheduling, as many doctor or therapy appointments usually have to be attended. This takes a lot of energy and time away from the student, which he/she then lacks for everyday study. In addition, they are often less able to cope with stress and thus less able to perform and concentrate.

Those affected also often complain about mood swings. Changes in the weather, pain and possible side effects of medication reduce the state of mind. As a result, affected students have to take regular breaks or stick to fixed meal times so that medication can be taken on time.

If students seem rude at first, if they do not return a greeting or do not respond when spoken to, it may be that this is affected by a hearing impairment. In the case of hearing impairment, the time of onset of the impairment plays a major role. For example, sign language is the mother tongue for someone who has been deaf from birth, whereas it is different for people with early deafness due to articulation and speech comprehension. Written language is a foreign language for students who are non-hearing from birth, as the grammar of spoken language is significantly different from written language. It is therefore not uncommon for them to have difficulties with grammar and spelling.

It is not the volume at which speech is spoken that is decisive for the understanding of the hearing impaired person, rather the pitch plays the decisive role. A hearing aid does not always help to completely compensate for the impairment. However, it can bring relief in many cases. Hearing aids cannot distinguish secondary sounds from main sounds, so all sounds are reproduced equally, which is permanently very exhausting for the hearing-impaired person. A high level of concentration over the course of the study day is required in order to follow the topics in the lectures well. As a result, rapid fatigue is possible.

Dyslexics are people with a reading and spelling disorder. This means that someone shows considerable difficulty in learning to read and write, with varying degrees of difficulty. This is caused by a neurobiological brain dysfunction. Consequently, the student's visual perception is impaired, so that small differences in speech are not perceived. Texts cannot be perceived without errors. As a result, students have difficulty translating linguistic into written and vice versa.

Dyscalculia is a disorder analogous to dyslexia. In this case, someone has an arithmetic disorder with regard to recording, processing and reproducing calculations.

According to the WHO, the above-mentioned impairments are listed under the code ICD 10 (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems). According to this, neither dyslexia nor dyscalculia can be attributed to a lack of intelligence. In most cases, dyslexics are even highly gifted, as was Albert Einstein.