Listening to students: The experiences of
disabled students of learning at university

There has been a growing international interest in supporting the learning of disabled students in HE, stimulated in part by legislation in the 1990s in Australia, United Kingdom and US. However, the voices of the students themselves have hardly been heard, beyond the anecdotal (Fuller, Healey, Bradley and Hall, 2004, Studies in Higher Education). This paper explores the barriers to learning faced by disabled students in HE. It draws on selected findings from three surveys together covering over 800 students. It includes some initial findings from the first ever survey to contrast the experience of a large sample of disabled and non-disabled students studying in the same institution.

Most interest in investigating the learning needs of disabled students in higher education institutions and the way they can be supported comes from staff in the disability advisory services and sometimes staff in learning and teaching centres (Stefani and Matthews, 2002, International Journal for Academic Development). It is unusual for this work to be led, as in the studies reported here, by a group of academic staff. Higher education institutions are beginning to recognise that these issues 'cannot remain closed within a student services arena but must become part of the mainstream learning and teaching debate' (Adams and Brown, 2000, 8, Pathways 4 Conference, Canberra). The paper concludes that categorising students as 'disabled' is problematic as they have an overlapping continuum of needs with those of non-disabled students. The implications this has for developing inclusive teaching and learning communities in HE are discussed.