College is not designed for people with developmental and learning disabilities. They don't structure school work in a way that would work for us. Don't believe me? Just ask one of your professors and get back to me.
(Side note: I remember a teacher in the beginning of this semester tell me "people like you shouldn't be allowed to go to school" after I told them about my Dyslexia, ADHD was undiagnosed at the time).
Just because college is not designed for people with learning disabilities doesn't mean we can't adapt and make our own way of doing things. For example math is difficult for me for many reasons, I like my professor but he just goes way too fast. He starts one problem then he's skipping ahead so I'm probably the only one in class but I take detailed notes, ask him questions, go over my corrections with him and borrow the textbook at the library.
There's also coping mechanisms that we all are guilty of and that we aren't aware of until someone points them out. For me that's always doing tests, exams, essays etc backwards. I write my name and flip to the last page automatically which confuses and interests people. If I don't do that though I can't concentrate because I'm not doing it the way my brain wants and needs me to do it.
I have trouble with remembering things, I'm a mess with all of the alarms, event reminders, hand written notes on the table, on my little chalk board on the refrigerator, my personal planner and I STILL forget what appointments I have, if I payed the bills, what classes I have, assignments due etc. I'm guessing that's where executive function comes in (I don't grasp the concept of it so that might be wrong.)
Planning ahead works well for this and so does overdoing the reminders thing. If I have an appointment I put sticky notes on my computer desk. Why? Because I'm looking at it ALL day.
I'm not going to even talk about organization because, no. ( I couldn't organize anything to save my life.)
Being adaptable is the best power that learning and developmental disabilities teach you, sadly it's because you're different and you have to catch up with the rest. We seem to be, in general, behind neurotypicals because, well, they are typical. There's nothing wrong with being different and it's taken me half of my life to figure that out.
College (and work for that matter) may not be adaptable to us but we can be adaptable to it.
