Recommendations for supervisors in special situations

Students may have various forms of illnesses, disabilities or learning difficulties that affect the ability to study. Some of them could be permanent, others temporary. Nevertheless, studies and guidance at the university should be accessible and equal. As supervisors, the more we’re familiar with the students’ various starting points and how to take into account aspects related to accessibility, the less the need for different kinds of individual arrangements. By understanding the student’s situation, we can discuss with the student how it affects the studies and work out appropriate pedagogical alternatives and solutions in advance, which at the same time prevents problems piling up.   

University students are usually well aware of their own situation, especially if they have already been studying for a while. Thus, asking the student what they think would be the best way to support their learning is usually a good place to start. Challenges related to studying and learning are directly linked to the functionality of the learning environment, accessibility and the pedagogical solutions in the study plan. As a supervisor, you can try to influence these as we strive for as accessible and equal studies as possible for all students. 

The following starting points are good to consider in all supervision situations when students have some form of illness, disability or learning challenge that affects the studies: 

• Discuss with the students about what performance methods in the courses that best support their learning and guide the students to find the most suitable ones. As far as possible, encourage students to choose different performance modes to develop their academic skills (e.g. teamwork skills). 

• Encourage the students to develop their own study skills and to utilise study methods that work for them. 

• Discuss what kind of pace of study is realistic and reasonable from the student's point of view, instead of just encouraging them to stay at the recommended pace. 

• If the student has an illness or a disability that requires information about courses and course materials beforehand (e.g. vision or hearing impairment), discuss upcoming studies with him or her well in advance. If necessary, the student can be referred to the Student Services accessibility liaisons or the education planner. 

• Feeling nervous is ordinary and normal: team work, discussions and especially speaking in front of other people make many students nervous. Feeling nervous or anxious is only a problem if it prevents the student from participating in courses that involve personal interaction or causes them to drop out of a course.
• Nervousness can be controlled by practising your interpersonal skills and public speaking. Improving your skills and experiencing feelings of accomplishment will reduce your nervousness to a tolerable level. It is entirely possible to learn to live with your feelings of nervousness. However, you should also keep in mind that it is not necessary to stop being nervous altogether. Reasonable levels of nervousness are actually beneficial as they help you to keep your focus on the task at hand.

Recommendations for supervision

• Pay attention to the student’s list of completed courses. If you notice that the student has not completed courses that require public speaking or team work, you can bring the matter up delicately and guide them to get help.
• It is a good idea for the student to gradually start participating in courses that involve team work, discussions and public speaking. Try to come up with ways for the student to slowly gain positive experiences of situations that make them nervous. Stepping out of your comfort zone is necessary to develop one’s social skills; however, if the situations are too challenging, the student may experience increased nervousness and become burdened.
• The student may choose a course that includes public speaking and start by agreeing on special arrangements for the course. As the student’s skills improve, the need for special arrangements is often reduced.
• If necessary, consult a study psychologist. If the student wants, you can organise a meeting with the study psychologist.

Support for students suffering from nervousness and anxiety

• The ERI courses offered by the Language Centre as alternatives to completing a foreign language course (English) and demonstrating second national language proficiency (Swedish).
• Oral communication classes offered by the Language Centre for students with stage fright
• Directing the student to a study psychologist: counselling in groups or individually
• Services provided by the FSHS
• Online discussions organised by student support organisation Nyyti 
• More information on nervousness and anxiety: Read more on feeling anxious: Nervousness as a part of life – A guide to students (FSHS) (In Finnish)

• ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is a developmental disorder that reduces one’s ability to function. It involves difficulties concerning attention and cognitive control. The difficulties may affect several areas of life, including studying. ADHD takes on many forms, and each student’s situation is unique.
• The symptoms of ADHD are often stronger if the environment contains a lot of distractive stimuli, the instructions are unclear or the person is required to work on a task for a long period of time.
• When working independently, the student may have difficulties with creating a study plan and following it, assessing how much time it takes to complete the tasks, completing tasks that require concentration or perseverance, or getting lost in the tasks that interest them.
• In addition to challenges, ADHD comes with strengths. For example, the student may be very creative, innovative, energetic and unafraid of new challenges.

Recommendations for supervision

• Go through the instructions and methods related to studying privately with the student.
• Ask the student what kind of learning materials and working methods support their learning. If there are several alternative methods of completion, help the student to choose the most suitable ones. For example, team work and discussions may make it easier for them to process information and learn things.
• Guide the student in using a time management tool, such as a timetable, a calendar, a notebook or the time management functions available in a mobile phone, in order to support their memory and planning.
• When preparing study plans, make sure your instructions are clear and provide them with feedback as they progress with the plan. Courses that are mandatory but less interesting to the student should be scheduled evenly over the academic year.
• Schedule a check-up session for updating the study plan at the end of each period or the academic year. Regular meetings create continuity to the planning and the student can modify the plan based on the feedback they receive.
• Consult a study psychologist. If necessary and if the student wishes it, you can organise a meeting with the study psychologist.

Support for students with ADHD

• Consulting a study psychologist: individual or group counselling
• Services provided by the FSHS 
• Online discussions organised by student support organisation Nyyti 
• Diverse learners’ association in Helsinki (in Finnish)
• The Finnish ADHD association (in Finnish)
• The ESOK accessibility project (in Finnish)

• The autism spectrum refers to people with a neurobiological development disorder. The disorder affects how people communicate, how they sense and experience the surrounding world, and how they interact with others.
• Both the symptoms and the limitations posed by the disorder are highly individual. The student may have trouble with starting and completing tasks or controlling their own activities, or they may be slow at processing things, have sensory defensiveness, fluctuations of attention, or problems with controlling their emotions. Teamwork may be difficult for them.
• On the other hand, the student may be good at noticing details and concentrating on things that they are particularly interested in. They might also have a good sense of justice.

Recommendations for supervision

When supervising the student’s planning, be precise and concrete. Be proactive. Go through the instructions and methods related to studying together with the student. Regular personal counselling and reviewing the study plan are good ways to support learning.

• Students may face many different types of challenges related to reading and writing. In Finnish or Swedish, the challenge is usually that the person reads slowly and/or they are prone to make mistakes when writing.
• Dyslexia tends to be more visible when using languages with a low letter-sound correspondence. In these cases, the person tends to make a lot of spelling mistakes and pronouncing and writing unfamiliar words may be difficult for them. This is why dyslexia is often visible as problems that arise when writing foreign languages, such as English.
• Some find it more difficult to remember new concepts and they may need more repetition to help with remembering.
• Dyslexic people may also have a narrow working memory, making it difficult to remember long instructions or follow a lecture while simultaneously making notes.

Recommendations for supervision

• When preparing the study plan, you should ensure that courses that require a lot of reading or writing are scheduled evenly over the course of the academic year, if possible. In some disciplines, this can be accomplished by scheduling practical courses (laboratory courses, field courses) evenly over different periods.
• You should talk to the student to establish what is a reasonable number of study credits for them to complete in certain time in order to avoid overburdening them. Some studies can be scheduled to be completed over summer, making the periods during the rest of the year less busy. It may be necessary to guide the student to apply for special arrangements, especially extra time to finish more demanding writing tasks.

Support for dyslexia

• Accessibility at the University of Helsinki libraries.Information on, for example, extended loan periods and audio books.
• The ERI courses offered by the Language Centre as alternatives to completing foreign language courses (English and Swedish).
• Directing the student to a study psychologist: counselling in groups or individually
• Diverse learners’ association in Helsinki (in Finnish)

Nearly everybody suffers from mental symptoms at some point in their life. Mental health is affected by various individual, social and societal factors, life situations and experiences. Factors such as prolonged stress or sleep disorders may temporarily reduce your ability to function.  Many psychological symptoms are temporary. Some stages of life will burden your mental health more than others, and it is perfectly normal to feel temporarily anxious in a difficult situation.

One in five male students and more than one third of all female students suffer from mental health problems. They show long-term psychological symptoms with serious negative effects on their life and ability to function, normally also including their studies. Identifying the problems early on and finding suitable help is essential. Recovery is often a long process.  However, living with mental illness can be as diverse and meaningful as any other life.

Thus, as a teacher, you may meet both students with only temporary symptoms and those with a long-term mental disorder.

Recommendations for supervision

• Excessive stress and burdening increase the likelihood of psychological symptoms. You should talk to the student to establish what is a reasonable amount of studies for them to complete within a certain time in order for them to stay healthy. Some studies can be scheduled to be completed over the summer, making the periods during the rest of the year less busy. Courses can also be prioritised. If the workload becomes unbearable, the student can drop out of the less important courses.
• You do not need to know the student’s diagnosis or whether they have one. You can talk to a student with mental health symptoms like you would to any other person. Even though you do not need to diagnose anyone or know their diagnosis, be aware of your own prejudices. Information on mental health problems may reduce prejudice and feelings of uncertainty.
• If you are worried about a student, it is a good idea to bring up your worries as early as possible. It is important to stay tactful and respect the student. For example, you can tell the student that you have been wondering how they are doing and then mention what you have observed (I have noticed you have dropped out of or failed some courses, you have seemed tired, etc.) Try not to make interpretations; stick to facts and only talk about your experiences. 
• If you feel you are nearing the limits of your skills as a supervisor, you can consult a study psychologist or refer the student to the psychologist or the FSHS. You can bring up the situation by mentioning that many students have benefited from meeting with a study psychologist and the FSHS services.
• If the student’s symptoms are severe and they need help immediately, call 112. 

Students may have various sensory disabilities and mobility restrictions that affect their equal opportunities to study. For them, the learning environments, e.g. spaces, equipment and practices create special challenges if they have not been given sufficient specific attention from an accessibility point of view. In the supervision of students with sensory disabilities or mobility restrictions, it is important to anticipate and strive to develop learning environments that are even more accessible. 

If you supervise a student who has a visual or hearing impairment or who needs mobility aids, it is important for him or her to receive information about courses and course materials in advance. In order to be able to organize accessible premises, the student's course choices must be known to the education planner in time, so that he or she can check the accessibility of the premises and the student's opportunity to participate equally in the teaching. Ordering audio books and other special material also requires several months if it is not in an available format. Thus, discuss with students in good time about the upcoming studies and, if necessary, refer to the Student Services accessibility liaisons or the education planner. 

If students’ ability to study has declined for health reasons, they can request that a student health meeting be organised through the Finnish Student Health Service (FSHS). Such meetings can also be proposed by University or FSHS staff, but the process can only begin with the student’s consent. 

In a student health meeting, the student discusses with representatives of the University and the FSHS the most appropriate support measures for the student’s fitness for study. Medical information will not be discussed at the meeting unless the student so wishes. 

For further information on the objectives of student health meetings and the circumstances in which they can be organised, see the FSHS website.

Participants in student health meetings and their duties 

For instructions on how students can initiate student health meetings and fill in the form, see the section on healthcare services for students in the Studies Service. After the student has agreed on a student health meeting with the FSHS, the student must submit a request to the University for participation in the meeting using a secure form. 

The request is submitted to the head of academic affairs at the student’s faculty. They are responsible for finding a suitable University representative for the meeting. The University must announce its representative participating in the meeting to the student and the FSHS within five working days of the form’s submission. Forms will not be processed between 19.6.-31.7. and 20.12.-6.1.

The University representative will be selected according to the student’s wishes, and they must be as familiar with the student’s circumstances as possible. Typically, the person participating in the meeting is, for example, a teacher, education coordinator, accessibility contact person or study psychologist. 

Representatives of the University participating in student health meetings

• Announce their participation and contact details to the FSHS contact person and student after receiving a request for participation in a student health meeting from the head of academic affairs
• Exclude the student’s name from any calendar entries for student health meetings
• If possible, meet the student before the student health meeting to survey the situation and, to follow up, one month after the meeting
• Consider solutions for, for example, support measures (e.g., individual arrangements, individual or group support provided by a study psychologist, modification of the personal study plan)
• Describe (if known) the forms of support the student has already received from the University and the forms of support still available. University representatives are not expected to comment on students’ health, but they can talk about, for example, the progress of their studies.
• Record nothing of the meeting, unless
  
  • Individual arrangements are collaboratively considered in the meeting, in which case the accessibility contact person can draw up a recommendation on such arrangements. The student will receive a copy of the recommendation. 
  • A study psychologist takes part in the student health meeting. They make entries on all meetings in a secure system, from which students will receive the entries on request.