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Autism and Accommodations in Higher Education: Insights from the Autism Community

  • S.I. : College experiences for students with ASD
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Abstract

This article builds on the growing body of research on higher education for autistic students by soliciting input from autistic adults on their higher education experiences and suggestions on making these experiences more ‘autism-friendly’. Sixty-six individuals participated in a national exploratory survey and thirty-one participated in follow-up, online focus groups. The article reviews the accommodations individuals received and the accommodations they would have liked to receive. Concrete strategies are provided for institutes of higher education to address the social and sensory needs of autistic students, areas many participants reported being neglected in their academic experience, such as mentors and a neurodiverse space. These suggestions are intended to complement traditional academic accommodations to improve the outcomes of autistic students.

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Notes

  1. Note on language: I use the term ‘autistic student’ rather than the phrase ‘student with autism’ to reflect the preference of autistic self-advocates and the neurodiversity movement, which rejects use of person first language because, for this community, autism is seen as central to identity formation and the latter phrasing seems to suggest the need to remind people that autistic people are, in fact, people (Kapp 2013; Silberman 2015). Further, I have written this article in a way that is understandable and accessible to a wide variety of stakeholders interested in this conversation and, thus, have attempted to avoid overly complex language and jargon where possible.

  2. For a fairly comprehensive list of these programs please visit the CollegeAutismSpectrum.com site at: http://www.collegeautismspectrum.com/collegeprograms.html

  3. An article with the results of the employment section of the data is in Disability Studies Quarterly.

  4. Neurodiversity is the notion that autism is a natural variant of human neurological manifestation that should be neither cured nor fixed. This approach is critical to the perspectives of autistic self-advocates and aligns with the larger disability rights movement (Kapp 2013; Silberman 2015).

  5. This is certainly not an autism-specific desire. In fact, a 2007 report by researchers at James Madison University found that undergraduate students in general are dissatisfied with general education requirements and would prefer more freedom and control over the direction of their studies (Harmes and Miller 2007).

  6. This data was collected but not include due to space constraints. However, it is available upon request.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Sierra Weiss in distributing the survey information and with coding the resultant date. Additionally, I would like to thank Julia Bascom for her input on the survey questions as well as Dr. Shan Mukhtar for her comments and feedback on the survey questions and design as well as an early version of this article.

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  1. Center for the Study of Human Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Jennifer C. Sarrett

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As the sole author, JCS is responsible for all aspects of the current article, from conception to implementation, analysis, and article construction.

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Correspondence to Jennifer C. Sarrett.

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Jennifer C. Sarrett declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of Emory University, whose Institutional Review Board approved the current study on April 8, 2016 and assigned the study the identification code of IRB #00087911. Thus, the study is in compliance with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Sarrett, J.C. Autism and Accommodations in Higher Education: Insights from the Autism Community. J Autism Dev Disord 48, 679–693 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3353-4

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