This page contains guidance documents from Disability Services for any staff working with disabled students.

Contents:

1. SGADISA Banner code

2. Working with autistic students

3. Working with students with mental health conditions

4. General guidance

1. SGADISA Banner code

• SGADISA is a form in Banner on which adjustments to learning and teaching can be recored.  
• SGADISA does not replace Support Summary Sheets.  But combined with the Argos reporting tool, it allows Schools to download up-to-date, consistently worded and consistently recommended reasonable adjustments for each disabled student. 
• A shorter version of the Support Summary Sheet has been developed to align with SGADISA.
• SGADISA launched in March 2022 and will be used for the 2022-23 intake of students in the first instance.  Please continue to check Support Summary Sheets for students in all other year groups.

Guidance documents for SGADISA

1. Guidance on SGADISA codes
2. List of SGADISA codes
3. SGADISA codes mapped for hybrid learning
4. SGADISA overview presentation

The following Sway presentation explains what SGADISA is and how it used

2. Working with autistic students

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition. It is associated with differences in communication, social interaction, information processing, and sensory processing.

The guidance documents in this section provide advice for working with autistic students and identify how you can adapt practice to accommodate their needs.

Top tips 

• Top tips for working with autistic students (PDF): short tips to help you to teach and support autistic students
• Autism: the postives (PDF): understanding, embracing and celebrating different ways of thinking
• Effective communication between autistic and non autistic people (Word)

Support available at Leeds

• Support for autistic students information sheet (Word): a summary of the support available to autistic students at the University

Supporting autistic students in their studies

• Supporting autistic students undertaking fieldwork (Word)
• Supporting autistic students undertaking group work (Word)
• Supporting autistic students undertaking lab work (Word)
• Supporting someone in autistic meltdown (Word): advice on supporting an autistic student experiencing stress, anxiety and overload

Diagnosis and resources

• Screening and diagnosis information sheet (Word): more about the process of screening and diagnosis for adults who believe they may be autistic
• Autism resouces and links (Word): a series of external links and resources to learn more about autism

Useful links

• An overview of the autistic experience (PDF)
• Guidance on adjustments to vivas for autistic students (PDF)
• Common sensory issues and potential solutions (PDF)

3. Working with students with mental health conditions

Approximately 4% of all university students are diagnosed with a long-term mental health condition. Students may have diagnoses such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, or an eating disorder.

The pressures of student life and being away from home may exacerbate existing mental health difficulties.  For example, deadlines and exam stress, learning in new ways, finding your way around, being in crowded places, loss of support networks, changing GP, or moving from child to adult mental health services.  International students may not be able to get the medication and treatment they received in their home country.

Students who take medication may also have side-effects of medication to cope with.  For example sleep problems, memory problems, headaches and nausea.

Students may struggle with attendance and meeting deadlines for a variety of reasons. Supporting a sense of belonging and a compassionate curriculum can particularly help students with long term mental health conditions.

It can help reduce stigma if there is a culture of being open about mental health difficulties, such as information being displayed and shared about where to go for support, and mental health being discussed as part of regular student interactions.  Students with long-term mental health conditions can get support with their mental health from the Student Counselling and Wellbeing Service.

There are a number of ways in which you can adjust teaching to help students with long-term mental health conditions to participate effectively.:

• Upload all lecture notes and other teaching materials to the virtual learning environment (VLE) in advance of lectures.  This means students can familiarise themselves with the content which helps reduce anxiety.
• Use lecture capture or record lectures so that students can re-watch content
• Avoid unexpectedly asking students to speak in front of others or read aloud
• Allow students to leave or take a break if they are experiencing panic or anxiety; consider a seat near the door for those students who might need it
• Offer spaced-out deadlines and avoid short deadlines
• Arrange additional meetings with their personal tutor and check in about their mental health and wellbeing
• If you know of a student who has a long-term mental health condition but has not contacted Disability Services, encourage them to contact us
   

4. General guidance

• Reasonable adjustments and competence standards (Word)
• Commonly recommended reasonable adjustments (Word)