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Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

reason.com

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Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#171

Post by qazxcvbnmlp »

swatcoder wrote: post #117
hibikir wrote: post #58

I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that would ace everything anyway, and the kind that, for a variety of reasons, lacked the regulation abilities to manage the school setting well, with the slow classes and such. A lot of very smart people just failed academically, because the system didn't work for the…

> people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway Of course, that applies to everybody who achieves a stable career at all. Exceedingly few people (if anyone) are competent and capable at everything, even when you're just talking about basic skills that are handy for common, everyday work. Your doctor may be a incorrigibly terrible driver, your bus driver may pass out at the sight of bl…

Well put.

> A lot of modern, aspiring-middle-class and online culture

Theres also a pernicious way of identifying with the struggle. Instead of I have trouble focusing in certain situations, so maybe I should find ways to spend my time (careers, hobbies) that work well with that. We instead go to 'I have ADHD' and my 'job' should make special accommodations for me.

Regardless of whether a job should or should not make accommodations. It's not a very helpful construct to think they should. It removes agency from the person experiencing the struggle. Which in turn puts them farther from finding a place that they would fit in well.

For the vast majority of behaviors (ADHD, attachment issues, autism, etc) they exist on a continuum and are adaptive/helpful in certain situations. By pathologizing them, we(society) loose touch for what they mean in our life. It also makes discourse hard because the (this is causing me to truly not be able to function) gets mixed in with the (this is a way that my brain behaves, but I can mostly live a life).

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#172

Post by donbox »

iwontberude wrote: post #138
margalabargala wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "cheating" is loaded with a lot of values and judgement that I think makes it inappropriate to use the way you did. There's a point where it's not immoral to leverage systems available to you to land yourself in a better situation. Avoiding increasingly-overcrowded housing situations is I think one of them. If Stanford's standards for these housing waivers are sufficiently broad that 38% of their students qu…

[flagged]

please... enough with the lazy stereotypes

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#173

Post by abbadadda »

smcg wrote: post #156

I went to an elite school. I had undiagnosed depression and ADHD and I almost failed out. I don't think I needed more time on tests but I definitely needed medication and counseling. The counseling resources available at the time were not adequate and medication was difficult to get.

Same. I was on academic probation freshman year. Managed to recover and graduate. But I didn’t get diagnosed with ADHD/ASD until I was 38.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#174

Post by sokoloff »

lostmsu wrote: post #73
hibikir wrote: post #58

I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that would ace everything anyway, and the kind that, for a variety of reasons, lacked the regulation abilities to manage the school setting well, with the slow classes and such. A lot of very smart people just failed academically, because the system didn't work for the…

> The percentages of workers that are neurodivergent is much higher than usual Is it much though? 38%? I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies. > there's a big cadre or neurodivergent people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway Alternatively, it just became popular to label others or oneself that way. And tech elites have nothing better to do in free time. Also…

> I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies.

Were you a solo founder of 5 companies? I literally cannot fathom that you worked at 5 even very modest-sized tech companies and never experienced a colleague with some level of what we’d call neurodivergent.

I can’t validate that the rate is 38%, but I find it hard to believe it’s under 5% and if it’s 5%, you’d be hard-pressed to avoid crossing paths across 5 companies and 15 years.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#175

Post by footy »

teknopaul wrote: post #142
jfindper wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example of a malicious explanation would be: people are lying about having a disability to get some sort of benefits they don’t need, likely at the expense of someone who does need those benefits.

What they get is amphetamines, legally. 38% of stanford kids taking or selling drugs, legally, because they are rich kids: and the poor kids get jail time for buying it off them. Go USA. Wierd that no-one on this thread seems aware of it. There are two standard treatments for adhd: met & dexies midnight runners.

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Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#176

Post by rdtsc »

The fact that this shows higher numbers than the community college kids ("...have far lower rates of disabled students...") is interesting too. Yeah, one can argue that Stanford maybe is just so accommodating that it just serves as a great attractor for people with disability. I somehow doubt that.

I wouldn't be surprised that this is part of some coaching program too. It seems too random for folks to just "stumble" on a hack. There are few of these outfits which advertise that they can "get your kid accepted into colleges" if you buy their services.

> But the current language of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) allows students to get expansive accommodations with little more than a doctor's note.

If we take honesty out of the equation, what's the downside for not declaring a disability, if it's not that hard to get a note from a doctor? You get better housing, and more time on tests. I am surprised the number is not higher, actually like 75% or something.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#177

Post by rendang »

ekropotin wrote: post #143
SoftTalker wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the gym I go to, there are a lot of college-age kids. I overhear them talking about getting on Ritalin or Adderall to help them study. Not because they really need it, it's just seen as a "performance hack" to get an advantage. They talk about what doctor they went to and how easy it was to get a prescription.

I read somewhere that Adderall does not improve cognitive function in people without ADHD and in some cases can even decrease it.

Have you ever taken a decent dose of an amphetamine? It isn't going to make you smarter but it will almost certainly boost your energy and ability to get stuff done.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#178

Post by dkarl »

jph00 wrote: post #147

Amongst groups for extremely gifted kids I’ve seen, well over half are neurodivergent. It’s a well understood issue in gifted kids psychology. When these kids are accommodated appropriately they ace their classes, and when not, they fail out entirely, even at the most basic levels of education. So the statistics mentioned in the article are not necessarily inconsistent with what we’d expect, since Stanford is a highl…

My current employer had me answer the question of whether I'm "disabled." I've never answered "yes" to this question since I've never been diagnosed with any form of neurodivergence, though therapists have suggested that there's a good chance I'd be diagnosed if I saw a specialist. But this time I noticed that my employer's definition of "disabled" included not only neurodivergence but also depression, which I do have a diagnosis for. So... now I'm disabled.

I have no idea what use the label is when it's so broadly defined. It doesn't give my employer any information that would help them support me in any way. Fingers crossed there is some benefit to it.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#179

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

beambot wrote: post #157
jph00 wrote: post #147

Amongst groups for extremely gifted kids I’ve seen, well over half are neurodivergent. It’s a well understood issue in gifted kids psychology. When these kids are accommodated appropriately they ace their classes, and when not, they fail out entirely, even at the most basic levels of education. So the statistics mentioned in the article are not necessarily inconsistent with what we’d expect, since Stanford is a highl…

Just curious: If non-neurodivergent children are given the same accomodations (which are?) do they significantly outperform their peers too? For example: it's well known that 1-on-1 instruction time correlates to better academic outcomes. (I'm not an educator; I have no idea.)

Similarly getting extra time on a test sure as heck would have improved my scores in many cases.

Re: Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?

#180

Post by dragonwriter »

woodruffw wrote: post #158
swiftcoder wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such an obviously unreasonable claim on a website called “Reason” makes me wonder what they are actually trying to achieve there. Libertarianism, it would seem

> Libertarianism, it would seem In some peculiar, perverted sense, given that evaluating claims of disability requires breaching students' medical privacy. You wouldn't normally expect libertarians to so overtly be okay with invasions of personal privacy.

That’s probably because Reason’s libertarian goal is not to get claims of disability evaluated. The goal is to get the government mandate for disability accommodations eliminated, which eliminates any benefit of making the claims and therefore any reason to evaluate the claims.
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