Viewpoints on how students with autism can best navigate university

Abstract

Background: Despite recognition of the challenges faced by students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) there is limited understanding of the barriers and facilitators to participation in major life areas, such as being a university student.

Aim/Objective: This research aimed to examine viewpoints on what affects the success of Australian university students with ASD.

Material and Method: Q-methodology was used to describe the viewpoints of university students with ASD, their parents and their mentors, on success at university for students with ASD. A total of 57 participants completed the Q-sort.

Results/Findings: Three viewpoints emerged; Individualised Support, Contextual Support and Social Support.

Conclusions: This study highlighted that supports need to be individualized to the barriers and facilitators faced by Australian students with ASD. Supports also need to be contextualized to the built and social environments of universities.

Significance: This study supports the premise that environmental interventions can be effective in facilitating participation in major life areas, such as university education. Peer mentoring for students with ASD may have utility for this group, but should be extended to include social, emotional and psychological support.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism
• Education
• Q-methodology
• University

Acknowledgments

This work would be impossible without students with ASD, their parents and peer mentors, and we are grateful for their involvement. We would also like to acknowledge the Autism Association of Western Australia and Autism West for their ongoing support. We would like to acknowledge Dr Jasmine McDonald and Ms Theresa Kidd for their assistance with recruitment for this study and for their development of the Curtin Specialist Mentoring Program (http://life.curtin.edu.au/health-and-wellbeing/autism-related-conditions-peer-mentoring.htm) that provides support for university students with ASD and opportunities for neurotypical students to gain experience as a mentor. This work was supported by the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC) [project number 3.032RS], established and supported under the Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centres Program. The authors would like to also acknowledge the contribution of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship in supporting this research. Finally, we would like to thank the Autism CRC’s reference group for all of their support and invaluable advice in this research.

Disclosure statement

Sven Bölte discloses no financial or conflict of interest related to this article. Sven Bölte discloses that he has in the last 5 years acted as an author, consultant or lecturer for Shire, Medice, Roche, Eli Lilly, Prima Psychiatry, GLGroup, System Analytic, Ability Partner, Kompetento, Expo Medica, and Prophase. He receives royalties for text books and diagnostic tools from Huber/Hogrefe, Kohlhammer and UTB.

All authors declare that they have no potential or competing conflicts of interest.