by Gina Vanacore and Michelle Castillo
Estimates reported by groups like NACADA, an association focused on academic advising, the global community, show that the number of students with autism spectrum disorders who graduate from high school increases every year. Predictions say that number will only increase moving forward, meaning more and more of them will seek to continue their education at higher education institutions. However, when it comes to degree completion, relatively few of these students will persist through graduation. Researchers who studied these students’ experiences have found that the greatest impediment to their collegiate success is not academic challenges, but rather feelings of loneliness or depression. What steps can campuses in general and housing departments specifically take to promote success for students with ASD?
Many higher education institutions in the United States offer programs specifically focused on the success of students with ASD. Many of these initiatives, often operated out of the student disability office, are related to managing their transition to college, helping them find employment, enabling peer coaching, or providing academic support. A scarce number of the institutions, though, utilize the transformative possibilities that living on campus can have for all students, including marginalized students who express the need and desire to master social skills.
Among the exceptions is Cal State East Bay in Hayward and its College Link Program, which includes a residential component that allows coaches to meet with students in the residence halls to help develop independent living skills such as self-care, socializing, and planning for safety drills. At Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Access Plus program supplements academic support for students with ASD in a number of ways, including additional training for the residential advisors who are assigned to those living spaces. In addition, according to its website, it offers support to keep residential rooms “organized and clean, developing and maintaining schedules to ensure attendance at classes, and prompting to ensure appropriate personal hygiene” as well as “assistance in planning weekend activities on campus and in the community to ensure that these students have as typical a college experience as possible.” Even more thorough is the Spectrum Living Learning Community at Texas A&M University in College Station. The community’s website states that the community’s goals include providing students with ASD “the opportunity to participate in engaging activities and events, excel academically by sharing knowledge and experiences, and build a social skill set, and all while developing connections with peers and resources across campus.” Students living in the community may be individuals with autism or those who have an interest in ASD.
Residence halls can provide unique opportunities to assist students with ASD in making the transition to campus life and persisting through graduation by focusing on social interactions, activities of daily living, and healthy, mature interpersonal relationships. However, they are also evidence that one program rarely can meet all the students’ needs. One successful strategy to serve a neurodivergent student population is to be familiar with existing support systems and identify ways to fill gaps, as well as identifying members of the university or community who are qualified to deliver the appropriate or needed services. Once they have been identified, collaboration can clarify who does what so that services and interdisciplinary work can be coordinated.
Such is the basis for the Collaborative Action for the Neurodiverse (CAN) program at the University of North Texas in Denton, which is a residentially based program that acts as the university’s central force in integrating the services and opportunities offered to ASD students. The program – which helps students with conditions such as autism, dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder – welcomed its first stand-alone housing cohort this year. Students can select the opportunity from the housing website as they apply for housing, or they may be referred to it by a number of campus departments. Collaborators that work with neurodivergent individuals include formal programs focused on ASD such as The Kristen Farmer Autism Center or the UNT Engage Project, a grant-funded partnership between the university and the Texas Workforce Commission to provide services that support neurodivergent students. Academic partners include the School of Health and Public Service, particularly the Department of Behavior Analysis and the Department of Rehabilitation and Health Services. Student services partnerships include those with the Office of Disability Access, Counseling and Testing Services, Dining Services, and Student Activities.
Students who join the CAN program are partnered with an undergraduate peer mentor whose role is to help them navigate the university system. The mentors are given training modules that help them develop the necessary skills to assist a student with ASD. Peer mentors have helped students find buildings on campus, eaten meals with them in the dining halls, shown them their favorite spots off campus, and offered advice when needed. In addition to the undergraduate peer mentor, participants can receive one-on-one support from a graduate peer mentor, a graduate student in the Department of Behavior Analysis supervised and trained by board-certified behavior analysts. If the student chooses to have a graduate peer mentor, the CAN team helps them identify, develop, and achieve goals that are meaningful to them, allowing them to be an active collaborator in the process. The CAN program takes a person-centered approach in that the participants themselves identify and determine their own goals. If a student identifies a goal that does not fall within the scope of the program, they are referred to a collaborating department.
Along with peer mentoring, students are offered group counseling through Counseling and Testing Services. These sessions are intended as an inclusive and safe space for students to talk about their successes and struggles with a licensed counselor and others who may share similar experiences. UNT Housing and Residence Life has also formed a partnership with the dining services department, which provides accommodating employment to CAN students, who can also receive on-the-job skills training from graduate peer mentors.
One of the most important features of these programs is the emphasis on disclosure and self-advocacy. Students with ASD need to be able to determine for themselves how, when, and to whom they disclose information. Using inclusive language, teaching them the importance of self-advocacy, being their ally during difficult conversations, and providing them with spaces that allow them to be their authentic selves are strategies that allow students with ASD to speak for themselves, to be active in the decision-making process, and to feel in charge of their own lives.
Students with ASD may also need special accommodations for housing that provides a workable combination of privacy and socialization. Sharing a space with others in a double- or triple-occupancy room would not provide them with enough privacy, and a single room can create an unhealthy level of isolation, but an apartment-style room would allow them to have access to both a private bedroom and shared communal spaces.
A greater understanding of ASD students and their needs is continually being developed through organizations such as the College Autism Network, which hosts the College Autism Summit (formerly known as the College Inclusion Summit), and the Think Tank at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Students with ASD learn a great deal in these programs about social interactions, independent living, and collaboration, and these learning experiences can be extended into residence halls, which hold enormous learning potential for all students. By marrying the lessons learned by housing and student affairs professionals with best practices established by those who focus on working toward access and equity for ASD students, the residential environment can be even more successful in enhancing success for these students.
Gina M. Vanacore, Ph.D., is the executive director of housing and residence life at the University of North Texas. Michelle Castillo is the graduate coordinator for inclusivity initiatives at the University of North Texas.
