Accessible Educational Services (AES) approves accommodations for students based on an interactive on-going process with students in order to meet their individual needs. Students must request individual Letters of Accommodation to send to each course instructor to notify them of their approved accommodations. Below is detailed information and procedures associated with AES. If instructors have questions about facilitating accommodations within their courses, please contact AES at aes@iu.edu.
Accommodation Process
There are three steps in the accommodation process: Determine qualification, approve accommodations, and accommodation implementation. AES holds exclusive authority and responsibility for the first two steps (Qualification and Accommodation). The academic unit—usually the course instructor—is responsible for implementing approved accommodations. AES serves as an instructor resource during the implementation step.
Who are Persons with Disabilities?
A person with a disability legally defined as "any person who has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more of such person's major life activities," a person who "has a record of such an impairment," or a person treated as if he/she has a disability.(Rehabilitation Act of 1973)
Major life activities include walking, seeing, hearing, feeding one's self, working and learning. Often disabilities are grouped as Physical disorders (auditory, visual, orthopedic, chronic illnesses, or systemic neurological disorders), Learning disorders(dyslexia, ADHD, disorders of written expression, dysgraphia, autism spectrum disorder, etc.), and Emotional Disorders (affective disorders, thought disorders, behavioral reactions, etc). Some individuals may have multiple disorders or varying degrees of a disorder which means that accommodations vary from individual to individual which in turn means that the university must have documentation about each individual’s disability to determine how best to serve them. IU Indianapolis has designated Accessible Educational Services (AES) as the office to receive and evaluate documentation, determine the appropriate accommodations, and support academic units implementing those accommodations.