Thriving in Labs & Practicals

Labs, practicals and clinics are the heartbeat of Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Nursing and some Biosciences courses. These spaces are sensory rich and fast paced, which can be challenging for neurodivergent students. This guide aims to provide ideas and strategies to help you move from simply coping to fully engaging and showcasing your expertise.

Important: This guide suggests items or aids that can help in lab and practical environments. When introducing equipment into lab environments always check with academics or lab staff well in advance to ensure these items can be used in the specific lab environment. Explaining that the item or aid is required to ensure participation might help the department work out a way for you to be able to use it safely.

Anxiety often stems from the unknown. Use these tools to build a mental map before you arrive:

• Visual Walkthroughs: Ask for photos or a short video of the lab layout if you haven't been there before.
• Equipment Familiarisation: Use digital guides to see the instruments you will use.
• Energy Budgeting: Review the lab manual in a quiet space 24 hours in advance so you aren't processing instructions and sensory input simultaneously.

Managing multiple steps can be taxing. Offload the mental work to physical aids:

• Checklist Overlays: Use a transparent coloured overlay on your printed lab manual to track steps without losing your place.
• Time Awareness: Set silent vibrating timers on a smartwatch to alert you when to move to the next stage of an experiment.
• Step-by-Step Breakdown: Rewrite complex multi stage instructions into shorter, numbered bullet points before the session.

The goal is filtering, not isolation. High fidelity earplugs like Loop or Flare Calmer reduce the "spike" of sudden noises while keeping speech audible.

For high sensory environments, slim profile electronic earmuffs can block loud equipment noise.

Fluorescent lighting can cause significant visual fatigue. Consider FL-41 tinted glasses, which filter the specific wavelengths that cause photophobia.

The Visual Reset: When changing gloves, wash your hands and cup your palms over your eyes for 30 seconds to allow your visual cortex to reset in total darkness.

Group work is a professional skill. Be proactive about your role:

• The Navigator: If physical handling is overwhelming, offer to be the one who reads the protocol and records the data.
• The Detail Specialist: If you excel at fine motor tasks, focus on the dissection or pipette work.
• Communication: Use a script to set expectations: "I use these earplugs to filter noise so I can hear your instructions better".

Arrange a meeting with disability advisers and academic staff to draw up practical adjustments and strategies for lab and practical activities. This ensures the department understands your specific needs, such as preferred bench positioning in low traffic areas. If you feel able to, calmly assert your right to a place in this important teaching activity and remind the department of their duty to make it accessible to you.

The Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA) provides grants for equipment and specialist human support you can use to develop strategies for lab and practicals participation. This might include funding for sensory aids but could also fund software and specialist support that helps to ensure you are working as efficiently as possible in other study activities, to help you to keep the additional energy that might be required for practical and lab sessions. Check your eligibility at GOV.UK.

If overwhelmed, use any sensory breaks agreed in your reasonable adjustments or study plan, or use the "Glove Change" technique where you can step back and say, "I need to change my gloves." This provides a 2 minute window to breathe and recalibrate without needing to explain your internal state.

High focus sessions are exhausting. Plan for 30 minutes of silence or "safe audio" immediately after the lab. A sensory diet of crunchy food can help regulate your system through bone conduction.