DSA - What support did you get 4 Autism & ADHD. Disability Student Allowance

Hi, can you specify what support you got from Disability Student Allowance? How many hours a week support, plus standard and unusual support you got? Did you get taxi & how often?

Many thanks

Reply 1

leotodd

Original post by LearnLots

Hi, can you specify what support you got from Disability Student Allowance? How many hours a week support, plus standard and unusual support you got? Did you get taxi & how often?

Many thanks

hi! I have autism, anxiety, spld etc. Also a physical disability. The DSA funded support is pretty good in my opinion, they provide a lot of software to assist learning such as booost (time management) and note taking software amongst lots of others, in regard to autism. They also provide things such as a printer, mouse, keyboard and laptop (with a £200 contribution for the laptop, this may be written off/paid by your university if you're low income). There's also specialist support available, generally mentoring and study skills tutoring, I think you're funded for 1 hour for each week of your course, but you can move sessions around as you please. As far as the taxi allowance, I believe this may only be available if you live off campus and have a physical disability, but ask your assessor!

I was surprised at just how much software I got on account of my autism, they have something for everything!

Please feel free to reach out if you have any more questions :smile:

Reply 2

LearnLots

Thanks loads LeoTodd, the information about your disability and the support is very helpful. Would you mind specifying what software you were given due to your autism. I didn’t realise there was a range available. Thanks :0)

Reply 3

Jess_Lomas

Hi I'm autistic and also have severe anxiety and depression but the stuff for mental health is included in autism but you get more for the autism
So I got 2 hour mental health specalist each week (I think this is the only exclusive to anxiety and depression)
I also got 2 hour ASD mentoring per week which is like study skills and coping with change (Normally you only get 1 but might get two for ADHD and ASD)
Then apart from software they asked about adjustments which you get more of from the uni but there are some like extra time etc that you are supposed to get from DDSS because of the funding (the adjustments you need for exams or presentations etc.)
I was also given a printer for free and £186 for ink and paper but they pack this back rather than giving this to you. (I was eligable for a laptop but didn't need one)
- I got glean which allows you to record the lectures and make notes whilst recording, adding slides, edit them and many more
I was also sent a free microphone with this because of how large the lecture theatres are
- I also got Scholarly which you put in an article and then it summarises it for you and seperates the categories
- I also got global tasks which is an organised to do list online programme but you can hade tasks and edit it in cool other ways so really useful
- I also got pro study which collects all the different articles for different projects and organises them and then does the referencing for you
- I also got writing helper which structures the essay and explains what question words mean as well as telling you if you have any plagarism in it and making sure all the targets are done
- I also got grammarly premium which helps with the tone of the writing which was really helpful
- I also got claro read which adds tints to the screen etc and reads out all the text as well as being able to speak to it and it will type for you and it also has other PDF features
- I also got brain in hand which is a app designed for autistic people for routine and having a set bank of solutions when things go wrong
Honestly the DSA team are amazing and provide so much support

(edited 11 months ago)

Reply 4

bubblinbee84

Hi all I am about to do my second degree but this time I’m diagnosed with mental health diagnosis and adhd. Reading your responses and I’m so glad they are really supportive as this is one of my worries for when I start in sept!

Reply 5

leotodd

Original post by LearnLots

Sorry! didn't see this. I got software that allows you to take notes with your voice, lecture recording software, time management app (boost), something called glean, brain in hand (which is like a mood diary), speechify, Grammarly and a few others that I can't remember! It's good to have an idea of what helps you because they'll ask if you find any software useful currently and generally give you access to that.