Disability and Equity in Higher Education Accessibility

Dreaming of College Versus Going to College: Expectations and Enrollment Among Autistic Students

“…For one thing, college students who are on the autism spectrum are more likely to drop out than other students-including those with other types of dis/abilities (Newman et al, 2011). Among the reasons that students on the spectrum may find collegiate environments hard to navigate is that they are disproportionately affected by nonacademic stressors, including the "sensory overload" associated with communal living as well as the need for sophisticated organizational, time management, and interpersonal skills (Van Hees et al, 2015), which can exacerbate academic challenges (Alphin et al, 2017;Anderson & Butt, 2017;McLeod et al, 2019;Van Hees et al, 2015). Complicating matters, universities are often ill-prepared to provide the types of nonacademic accommodations that benefit students on the spectrum (Accardo et al, 2019), and many parents and service coordinators report feeling unprepared to help students navigate the accommodation process and to provide guidance regarding students' physical and mental health concerns (Kim et al, 2020;Elias et al, 2019).To respond to the call, scholars have investigated evidence-based practices and predictors for postsecondary education readiness for autistic students.…”