Functioning and participation of young adults with ASD in higher education according to the ICF framework

Abstract

Because of a better understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in all stages of life and the improvement of support of students with ASD in primary and secondary education, an increasing number of students with ASD are accessing higher education. Previous research suggests that these students have fewer opportunities in higher education due to a number of functioning and participation problems. However, literature regarding students with ASD in higher education is rather scarce. This article presents an overview of recent studies in a literature review describing the functioning and participation problems of young adults with ASD. This literature review is complemented by focus groups with student mentors and interviews with students with ASD to connect the insights from the literature review to the context of higher education and to check whether all functioning and participation problems are covered by the existing literature. The review showed that little is known about the functioning and participation problems of students with ASD in higher education. However, knowledge about the full spectrum of problems can be the first step towards a better match between the individual problems and the offered reasonable accommodations to increase the participation chances and success rate of these students in higher education.

Keywords:

• ASD
• functioning
• participation
• higher education
• literature review
• focus groups
• interviews

Acknowledgements

This review was performed as part of a research project on reasonable accommodations in higher education.