When you meet with a student, explain the course requirements and ask the student to clarify any special needs. Students are usually their own best advocates, and they know the techniques and adaptations that best suit their needs. Remember that students with disabilities are students first, persons with disabilities second. It is natural for people who are not disabled to feel hesitant or uneasy when meeting people with disabilities for the first time. But people with disabilities are neither more nor less emotionally fragile than people without disabilities.
People often have questions about appropriate terminology.
Words and phrases that are not recommended include wheelchair-bound, confined to a wheelchair, victim, afflicted, crippled, and invalid. Professors and students can also deal constructively with nonvisible disabilities such as a learning disability or a mild to moderate sensory deficit. It is reasonable to ask a student to document the nature and severity of a nonvisible disability. Students with dyslexia, for example, have a perceptual deficit that scrambles sequences of letters or numbers. Discuss with the student how the learning disability manifests itself and how the student has handled it in the past.