Improving Autistic Students' Experiences in Higher Education: Developing a Community Framework for Individual Autistic Student and Autistic Community Flourishing

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

About the autistic author marker

Janse van Rensburg, M. G. & Liang, B. (2023). Improving Autistic Students' Experiences in Higher Education: Developing a Community Framework for Individual Autistic Student and Autistic Community Flourishing. Autism in Adulthood, 7(2), 141-154. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2022.0079

Publication date: 10 Apr 2023 Added to AutiHub: 5 Sep 2026 Type: Article Article language: English

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
2
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 2 (50.0%)

Abstract

As the fastest growing cohort of disabled student populations, autistic students are often let down by inherently ableist institutions of higher education (HE). Traditionally, institutions of HE have sought to support autistic students through an individualized approach, placing the responsibility on the autistic student to seek out and advocate for academic and nonacademic support. However, there remain opportunities for the broader community to foster autistic individual and community well-being. This conceptual analysis evaluates the current environment and approaches in HE for supporting autistic academic success and well-being and describes a community framework based on a collective combined effort that invites individual autistic students and autistic community flourishing. It contributes an alternative approach to supporting autistic students, making autistic individual and community well-being the responsibility of peers, support staff, instructors and faculty, and the institution, identifying a need to restructure institutions into ones that work to promote autistic culture and provide autonomous supports and accommodations. Community brief What is the problem? Right now, there are a lot of different ways in which institutions of Higher Education (HE; i.e., colleges and universities) do and do not support autistic students. There are opportunities for peers, instructors and faculty, support staff, and institutions to get involved in supporting autistic students. However, institutions of HE do not have a clear framework to make the wellbeing of autistic students a community responsibility. What is the purpose of this article? The purpose of this article is to evaluate the current ways in which institutions of HE support the academic success and wellbeing of autistic students and to describe a framework for a collective effort to promote individual autistic student and community flourishing. What did the evaluation find? Our evaluation demonstrates that non-acceptance of autism, stigma, and oppression may impact an autistic students' experiences, making the transition to HE, academic success, and wellbeing more difficult. Traditional approaches to supporting autistic students, including formal academic supports, informal academic supports, and non-academic supports, may not be accessible to all autistic students. What framework do the authors propose? Our framework uses a critical understanding of learning and autism, valuing autistic experience. The goal is to support autistic academic success and wellbeing and to reduce the need for autistic students to mask, change, or seek out support to ‘fit in’ to HE. The framework centers individual autistic students and the autistic community, placing the responsibility of academic success and student wellbeing on the larger HE collective. Peers, instructors and faculty, support staff, and institutions are shown as having influence on the academic success and wellbeing of autistic students. These key players can promote autistic culture by being open to autistic students' decisions around disclosure; applying a Universal Design for Learning (UDL); recognizing neurodiversity as an important diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative; offering and engaging in neurodiversity trainings; developing and enhancing disability cultural centers; and featuring autistic culture in the academe; autistic culture can be promoted. Furthermore, they can support autistic student agency by honouring autistic students' autonomy, building comprehensive and connected services; normalizing academic accommodations; and offering non-academic supports. How can this framework help autistic adults now or in the future? The authors hope that this article helps to create a system-wide change through a collective, combined effort to promote individual autistic student and autistic community flourishing in HE.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 12 Sep 2026 07:09.

Cited references
86
With a DOI
70
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
16
17 / 86 (19.8%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
5 / 86 (5.8%)
References with detected author names
81 / 86 (94.2%)
Without detected author names
5
Without a structured title
5
Without a stable identifier
15
References with raw author names still to review
5
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
234
From DOI or external metadata
234
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
5
103 / 234 (44.0%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 131 / 234 (56.0%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
30 / 234 (12.8%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 30 / 103 (29.1%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 24 / 214 (11.2%).
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