“A System That Wasn't Really Optimized for Me”: Factors Influencing Autistic University Students' Access to Information

Authors

Abstract

Background: More autistic adults pursue higher education each year, but rates of mental health conditions and graduation rates suggest that they are not being adequately supported. In this qualitative study, we report on factors that influence how autistic university students learn about the resources and opportunities available to help students succeed in higher education. Methods: We interviewed 14 autistic students at a public university in the United States as part of a larger project to understand the campus climate for autistic students. Participants were interviewed either in groups or individually via Zoom, or asynchronously over email. We used reflexive thematic analysis to identify patterns of meaning across the data set and provide a theoretically informed interpretation of autistic university students' access to information about resources and opportunities. Results: We constructed two themes related to the difficulties autistic students face in accessing information. The first theme was Challenges Navigating the Interactions Required to Access Information. This theme positions participants' accounts of difficulty accessing socially mediated information within a reciprocal framework. The second theme was University Expectations Limit Information Access. This theme explains how university expectations, practices, and policies that were not designed with autistic students in mind can serve as a barrier to information access. Conclusions: Our participants' experiences highlighted how access to information about the resources and opportunities that could support their success can impact not only their academic and interpersonal experiences but also their sense of belonging to their university community. By better understanding the multiple, interacting factors that influence autistic university students' access to information—and subsequently, resources and opportunities—we can move toward informed, structural changes in higher education that will provide more equitable access to autistic people. Community brief Why is this an important issue? More autistic people go to university every year, but many struggle, and universities are still learning how to support autistic students. Many universities have resources for students, but these are only helpful if you know about them and how to access them. What was the purpose of this study? We wanted to understand autistic students' experiences at a particular university and to give recommendations to the university on how to better support their students. After we interviewed autistic students, we noticed that all of them had trouble accessing information about resources and opportunities that could have supported them. We wanted to learn about what influences autistic students' access to information about resources and opportunities in university settings. What did the researchers do? We interviewed 14 autistic students at a university in the United States. We asked them questions about their academic and social experiences, about the support they received or did not receive, and about how to better support autistic students. A team of autistic and non-autistic researchers read participants' responses and looked for common themes across the interviews. What were the results of the study? We found that autistic university students' access to information about resources and opportunities was influenced by multiple factors. For example, students often have to talk to someone to learn about a resource or get help, and this was hard for many participants. We also found that the way that universities share information is not designed with autistic people in mind. For example, many universities share information about resources at crowded events. It can also be difficult to get information about disability-related resources. Participants recommended that universities share information in low sensory environments, help autistic students connect with each other, and make it easier to learn about and access disability-related resources. What do these findings add to what was already known? Most research on this topic has been about how autistic university students find information in university libraries. We were interested in how autistic students access information in many different situations. This study suggests steps we can take to make information more accessible for autistic students, which could help students connect to resources they need. What are potential weaknesses in the study? One weakness is that most of the autistic university students we interviewed were White and from highly educated family backgrounds. We also only interviewed people who were current students or had recently graduated. Because we did not speak with many autistic students of color, autistic students who were the first in their family to attend university, or with autistic students who left university before graduating, our recommendations may only be helpful to some autistic students. How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future? One goal of this study was to provide recommendations on how to better support autistic students at the university where the study was conducted. We hope that the recommendations will be helpful as university administrators and educators and autistic students work together to make universities more inclusive places.

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