Autism Goes To College
Autism Goes To College
EPISODE 42: What professors need to know - student voices on small classroom changes that really help
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The number of neurodivergent students in college keeps rising. Around 20% of college students have diagnosed or undiagnosed autism, ADHD, dyslexia or some other processing or neurological difference, according to expert estimates. But very few campuses provide faculty with training in how to meet the learning needs of these students in their classrooms. NeuroPrep, an online course for college instructors, fills that gap. We'll hear from the creators of the course and two professors who say even if you think you know, there's plenty to learn about how to serve all students. Best answer: Ask students what they need, be aware of invisible challenges, accommodate everyone in class with extra time, and adjust your teaching style as needed.
Now that I'm genuinely enjoying my social life at Hamilton, I'm more incentivized to actually be social.
SPEAKER_01Having autism isn't something that should prevent people from having a successful college experience. It takes work.
SPEAKER_04Join clubs, find groups, find your people, find ways to fit in, see a peer mentor, see somebody who can help you get involved on campus.
SPEAKER_05There are a lot of black children on the spectrum who are also dead. She's not the first one.
SPEAKER_08I researched all of the majors and then I eliminated the ones that sounded not interesting to me. So then I changed it to chemical engineering to work for chemistry. Then I took an environmental science class and I'm like, I think environmental issues are really important, and I'm really passionate about sustainability and stuff. So then I changed it to finally environmental engineering.
SPEAKER_00Especially in a college town like OutdoorDash. Like, just go out and get your food. It's good exercise.
SPEAKER_06Hey everyone! Thanks for joining us on this episode of Autism Goes to College. Podcast for students on the spectrum and for everyone who supports us. Navigating college is always a challenge. So here are the hacks, insights, and great ideas you've been looking for to make college work for you. Or a small group of self-advocates. We're all in college or recently graduated. And you can do this too.
SPEAKER_10Autism Goes to College began as a documentary film following five college students on the spectrum as they navigated college life. At the end of this episode, I'll give you some details about where you can see the film today. And it's all at our website, autismgoes to college.org. Every month we drop a new episode. Here's what's also new: there's a resource center on our website with dozens of outtakes of important stuff that didn't quite make it into the film. All of the podcast episodes and blogs from experts and from student advisors from the film. Thanks for listening. We do hope to hear from you.
SPEAKER_09Hello, thanks for listening to our podcast, Autism Goes to College. I'm Portia Jackson Preston, an associate professor of public health at California State University Fullerton. My research focuses on individual and multi-level approaches to wellness and stress as a driver of health inequity. I'm also an author of Hustle Flow and Let It Go, a Guide to Shamefree Wellness.
SPEAKER_03And I'm Gina Harmston. I'm a public health and wellness professor also at Cal State Fullerton, where I've been deeply involved in initiatives for faculty teaching and learning. We've both taken the NeuroPrep course, which is an online professional development course for college-level educators to enhance all of our abilities to guide success for students on the autism spectrum.
SPEAKER_09This is an important program that's filling a real gap. We're here with Catherine O'Brien, the host of Autism Goes to College Podcast, and I'm going to hand it over to her.
SPEAKER_10Thank you, Drs. Jackson Preston and Harmston. It's so good to have you on the podcast.
SPEAKER_09Thank you for having us.
SPEAKER_10Thank you. So Cal State Fullerton is a public university with a diverse and large student body in Southern California. So I'm sure that there are hopefully varied professional development opportunities for you as instructors. Why did you choose NeuroPrep?
SPEAKER_03So for me, I spent a lot of years actually working for our faculty development center in the specific area of teaching and learning. And this was an area we really lacked in all the years that I was with them. Something that faculty would ask me questions and I couldn't answer because it's not an area I know well enough. And so when the opportunity came to really learn and understand it better, that's I was like, I gotta, I gotta get in there, I gotta learn it, I gotta see what they have to say, what they can teach us, because it's something that if we can seek out those experts, that's where we're gonna get our best information. And so that's why I chose it.
SPEAKER_09I would say for me, it was twofold. I've definitely had students who had disclosed to me that they were either autistic on the spectrum, um ADHD. But for me, in recent years, I come to a realization that I actually had ADHD and then that I was also autistic. So it was kind of an opportunity to learn about my students and myself. And that's why I was really excited to take it.
SPEAKER_10Yes, I do think that there is a pool of professors out there who will share that experience of being late discovered and late diagnosed as awareness has increased and diagnostic criteria have evolved as well. Um, so thank you so much for bringing in that lived experience. What are some of the challenges that students and perhaps the faculty serving those students are encountering on campus because they are neurodivergent and access in college?
SPEAKER_03So I think from what I've seen is there's there is support, but the kind of support we're getting is not for both the students and faculty, it's not clear enough about what we can do, what we can say, what kind of dialogue we could be having. And that I think that is a huge challenge because when we get told that students need an accommodation, as a faculty member who I understand more, I want to be able to ask questions, but there's only so many things that I can ask without creating some kind of discomfort for the student or for other faculty. And so that's one of the biggest challenges I see. But I also know that there's so many beneficial things that can be done in teaching to help all students. And so many feel like if we have a student who has accommodations, we have to narrow in on that one student. And that's not the case. What it is is how do we create better learning opportunities, even if it's guided towards one student, it can benefit everybody in the classroom. And so trying to learn how to have the conversation, but also how to incorporate it to assist everybody in learning in a better way.
SPEAKER_10I'm smiling because universal design for learning has really been a theme on this season of Autism Goes to College. So I'm glad you brought up how this can really help everybody in the classroom.
SPEAKER_09Yes. So something I've encountered with my students is having students who have had bad experiences in the past with professors either not wanting to honor the DSS notification. Of course, I wouldn't ask any um details, but I just would write them to say, I received this, I'm here to support you. If you ever want to talk about this, let me know. And I just remember this one student like sending me this really long email back because she's like, I cannot believe that you actually are like offering to help me. Another thing I've noticed is that there's increasingly students who, you know, getting a diagnosis is political. You have to be able to afford it, you have to be able to risk the um, you know, ups and downs that might come with disclosure. And so I've had a lot of students who've said, I suspect that, but I'm not sure. And so I'm not able to get the accommodations. And what I've had to do personally is make the decision that I was going to take those accommodations. And like Dr. Harmson said, expand that to everyone, right? So that everyone's getting that benefit. And I just tell my students, like, don't worry about it. Let's just focus on the symptoms and addressing them. So I would just say there's a lack of a full awareness of what this actually means and clearing up the misconception that students aren't putting in any less effort. They're probably putting in 10 times more. And this is about being able to help them make that connection between their passion for learning and facilitating the process so that they can have successful learning experience.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, because as you say, the students that are least likely to access diagnosis are our first generation students, our students studying without documents, our students of color, our gender uh non-conforming students. And so really providing that universal support is very important for achieving educational equity. What were the biggest things that you learned from doing neuroprep as an educator?
SPEAKER_03For me, some of the things I partly reiterated, but also knew in terms of the kind of the thought process, like, oh, I hadn't thought about it that way, but I know I I heard about it, but how to do it better. Um, for me, it was that when we get a student who if they come with accommodations that we can know, okay, I need to do this or this to help them, it's still very vague. And knowing that there are phrases and questions that we can ask that aren't going to create a um a concern for their privacy or cross a boundary, but um in ways the questions can be more of how can I better support you? So you're not asking anything that's going to make them hopefully not make them uncomfortable. What the goal is to how can I better support you so that you can be a more successful student. So that was a big part for me is I can ask that question and knowing to have the right words to say them, but also knowing that there are so many students who won't say anything, there are so many who won't reach out for assistance or are afraid to or the stigma. And I learned it was really important to incorporate a lesson at the early parts of the semester for students to discuss learning styles and that it you may or may not realize that the way you think you learn best, it could be better in another way, and that that there might be a reason behind that. And when we can start that conversation as an open conversation, then when it gets brought in a little bit more like, oh, if you're noticing this, you might want to come talk to me so that I can help support you better, then those conversations can increase in a positive way and then have more of those private conversations of, hey, I'm noticing this in your learning. Whereas if they hadn't ever had that conversation started, they may never bring it up, they may never say anything. And so that was another part of with the course for me. It was like, oh, I can how do I bring it in early so that they're willing to have the conversation with me and then I can support them better and possibly help them finding the right kind of assistance on campus.
SPEAKER_09So there are three things that stand out for me that I learned. One was that um something like one in 20 of our students, I'm not sure I could be bad on the math, utilizes um these services in our campus. So the likelihood is that someone in your classroom needs this support. I think that's the main takeaway for me there. The second thing is I learned really great strategies for reassuring my students. If you can kind of understand where they're coming from, don't just look at the behavior. And I think that's what happens a lot of the time, especially if you think about how many people who might be faculty who don't even recognize the symptoms among faculty, then how are they going to treat that well again, you know, among students? So being able to look at the behavior and say, well, what is behind that anxiety? And if I can figure out what's driving that and I can address it, I might be able to reassure the student and say, you know, that's a really valid concern, and here's what we can do about it and kind of give them a plan. So I think neuroprep really helped with that. And then the last thing is I definitely was more aware of the fact that I see both of these conditions through a combined lens. So I sort of had to take it from a distance and really understand what it's like for someone to have just one of those conditions because I don't know.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. Um, that that's a tricky piece because I'm reasonably confident that autism and ADHD are separate simply because I know that I only have autism and I'm different from people that have both. Um who are yet again different from people who only have ADHD? And I don't think that we have enough information yet to fully appreciate those subtleties, but I'm relatively confident that they are there. Have there been strategies from Neuroprep that students have particularly been responsive to and really seem to resonate with them?
SPEAKER_03For me, the the biggest things that I've tried to be more thoughtful about is incorporating any kind of UDL and accessibility concepts. I was already doing a lot of that, but going back and reviewing everything in every class that I did to how do I make adjustments? Can I make them for an entire class? Do I need to do it for a lecture and see how it goes and ask for feedback? So that was a huge part of it, but and it has it's worked really well. Students have been able to tell me that there were certain things that, like, oh yeah, that made it like much easier because I noticed that there were things with like the colors or the types of the way the words were written, or even the way that I'm very active in class, meaning I move a lot, and that can also make some more uncomfortable with my activity level. And so knowing I I need to bring that down a little bit for some. My energy is very high, and that also is something that sometimes I need to bring it down a little because there's some that get a little bit overwhelmed at times, and so I've learned like I need to wrangle myself in a bit, and then finding ways to also consider others' energy levels, because a lot of what I like to incorporate are active engagement strategies, so they're getting up and they're moving and they're having conversations and they're interacting, and that can be fantastic and very uncomfortable, depending on what the student's needs are. And so being more aware now that I need to make sure that I'm having the pre-conversation of, hey, we're gonna be doing these things. Make sure you let me know if I need to make adjustments. And it doesn't have to be in front of the group, just come talk to me on the side. So those are some of the bigger things to make sure that I'm more aware to make them feel like they're not getting turned off or overwhelmed by how I have high energy all the time in my class, and that can be something that can be, again, great and hard for some.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, absolutely, because uh some students really benefit from the motor activation of doing stations, and other students might find the proximity to their peers overwhelming and need more sensory breaks on a day where that's the activity. And it's just about being aware and also developing the trust with your students where they feel able to tell you what those needs are. So I'm wondering what have been the challenges with broadening the awareness and bringing in some of the information on access for neurodivergent students on campus.
SPEAKER_03I found for my classes the biggest challenge is having is taking the time to build the trust at the beginning before certain conversations happen in the classroom. So I start the semester with every class trying to get them to understand that I'm there to support all of them. And that's in a variety of ways. And taking every class session to sprinkle in little bits here and there to then finally get to a point where we can have more conversations about how their way of being as a student, learning styles and teaching styles and all that are something that it's everyone has a benefit to the way that they learn, and that I want to try to support all of that, and that sometimes that's gonna take a little bit extra time. And so for me, the challenge is trying to be patient because I want to do it all at once, um, but also trying to make sure that I'm not missing something from my students, trying to read them. Part of it being I one of my classes is 125 students in a classroom, and I love that classroom, but it can cause a lot of difficulties for both students and for teaching situations to really be able to benefit the group as a whole. For me, the the the biggest with that is the challenge is just there's the numbers, and every semester trying to think about what that might look like and now having the neuroprep to really kind of go back to and zero into okay, what do I need to make sure I'm thinking about? What things do I need to talk about? How can I support a large group versus the groups that are only 35 or 40? It's a different way to look at a classroom and how I can support them.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, the matter of scaling can be very difficult in large lectures. Plus, you know, it is if a student wants to disappear, a lecture is a pretty good place to do it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, oh yeah, and that's one of the activities that I found works really great with my students and it gives me a really good feed at the beginning of the semester. They do an activity to meet it's the goal is to meet 16 people in class, which when you're have 125, that's a lot. But I don't require it. I uh I recommend they do it to meet people, but it what it does is it allows me to watch their behavior initially, and those who don't participate, I know that those are the ones that I really gotta be watching for how they might feel because I want the conversations to go towards things like discussions about the lectures and about what we're learning. And so if they're not going to participate in something initially because it's uncomfortable, it's overwhelming, then they're not gonna feel comfortable moving into the content material at some point.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, interesting. I think if I had been in your class as an undergraduate, I probably would have been like, can I skip this and maybe go to the bathroom right now and it won't affect my grade?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I do, and I have that happen sometimes. I try to use it as a a way for me to see uh what the student's interest is in participation. And even if they are participating, kind of what is their behavior about the participation? Are they part of the activity? And if the ones who, like you said, might kind of slide out for a minute and then come back. I'm trying to watch all of that in that first activity to give me a better feed on what I can continue to move forward with and which things I need to scale and change, because those are things for me that are really important to incorporate to get the students to participate and discuss and connect, but it might not make sense in every single class because of that group for that semester and also trying to find which activities tend to work better, but also building the comfort of the community of the class, the culture of the community of the class. Um, because I have had students who are like, I don't want to do any of these. They come tell me, I don't want to, I'm not okay. I'm like, that's okay, you don't have to. And then other ones who say, like, thank you for not pushing me, because I found that as I went through the semester, these are things I would have never participated in. But now that you gave me the option to choose when to I when I added myself, I got comfortable after a few sessions and finally feel like I can at least have a conversation with somebody next to me when usually I'd be quiet an entire semester because I didn't feel like I could use my voice in a safe way.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I think for some students, the added pressure of it feeling like an obligation can be enough that they're not able to use that learning opportunity effectively. Dr. Preston Jackson, with your combined lived experience as a neurodivergent professor and working with neurodivergent students, like how are you seeing the challenges and the barriers and facilitators around accessibility on campus?
SPEAKER_09If I can um touch on the previous uh a bit, I think that what was happening the past couple of years is I was a traditionally extroverted person who was readily unmasking to having to cope. And so I went from wondering, like, oh, why are my students being so shy to understanding the issues from their perspective. And what I've done increasingly is trying to use things like Mentimeter where people can type in and it can be anonymous. So that helps a lot. But I was thinking, I had this exercise one day, and I think I wanted them to meet five people, and they just all were like, we are not doing this. And I finally said, It's really okay if you just say hi, my name is. And they were like, Oh, so I think that we have to model what it is we're looking for and why. And then, like Gina said, offer alternatives if something doesn't work for someone because you asked a really good question about accessibility, and I might be going out on a limb here, but I feel like a lot of the things that we're doing in education really need to be questioned in terms of oh, this is the way that we've always done it, and this is what we think good pedagogy is, but this is where our world is heading, and are we preparing our students to be successful in that reality? So now I'm having conversations with people about if they are training paraprofessionals, people who are going to be going into professions where they would typically have to be very gregarious, we're having conversations about how do we support the needs of students who are neurodivergent and for whom that would be very uncomfortable. How do we help them to be successful? So I've had a lot of time to think about that with people across disciplines. And it's been a good conversation because what I'm realizing is that people really do want to learn about the needs of these students and they love their students. I mean, a lot of us really do love our students. And so it feels like people feel a little bad sometimes because they say, I don't really know what to do with that. And so I think there's a real opportunity to um take this moment and you know, because so much is shifting, think about what does it look like to realistically empower everyone? And um I personally try to look at things through the lens of inclusivity. So I'm really interested in how, like, how do having like multiple intersective identities on top of being neurodivergent, how would that impact your learning experience? So I think if we can just help people realize like we're all really unique and we have unique needs, so how do we reimagine what it looks like to take the education experience and make it something that is accessible for all? Universally designed. Right, right. And then you know, but but reimagine the entire campus. Right.
SPEAKER_10Outside of the classroom because universal design for learning is one thing, but universal design for living.
SPEAKER_09Exactly. And teaching people that so that they can so now say, okay, well, I'm entering this discipline, this profession, and I understand what my needs are and I'm empowered to know what to ask for. So exactly.
SPEAKER_10And I think that neuroprep can really help instructors who need some concrete tools.
SPEAKER_09I would say if it's okay for me to say one more thing, my hope is for people that take neuroprep, it would be just like my hope for a student in a class. I don't want my student to say, I learned that material and now I know it. I want them to say, I got an idea of how to think with that lens. And now it's a part of my skill set and it's something that I want to continue to do and apply to new things. So I'm hoping that everyone takes this as an opportunity to say, how can I continue this and how can I spread it to other people?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. One of the things that I want to add to what Portia was also saying, because I think you're absolutely right that we are we're looking at the idea of how do we change the classroom, but it's it's so much more than that. And so often we're looking for ways to get answers, but that I think is also an issue in itself is we don't know what we don't know. And so if we just assume, oh, well, I can take a course and learn all about it, we need people to be willing to learn, even if they think they already know, because we can better be inclusive of others, we can understand better, we can have more informed conversations, and that allows us to grow both our understanding for ourselves, but also our understanding for our community around us. And like we said, one course is not enough, but it's a start. And this is fantastic because we get to start here and then also applying, because it's one thing to hear, but it's another to apply. So you get to learn and then go do something with it and try it out and see what happens and get some feedback. And so I love that we're getting this opportunity to do that and to build upon the experiences from the course, but also in our classroom, and then hopefully build a community that we can have these conversations together to support each other to then also build from there.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. I mean, just like we develop um mindsets and tools of inquiry in our methods classes, this is a way to develop a tool of pedagogy for instructors. Thank you both so much for coming on the podcast again. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Really appreciate it. We'll now turn to the creators of the neuroprep program, Dr. Yazemin Balorian, the director of outreach at the Tarjan Center at UCLA, devoted to advancing self-determination, inclusion, and quality of life for people with disabilities and their families, and Dr. Sasha Zedike, associate professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Studies at Cal State Fullerton. These two created the NeuroPrep program. So, Drs Yaz and Sasha, can you explain what drove you to create the neuroprep curriculum?
SPEAKER_11Sure. Yaz and I have been working on this for nearly 10 years. So we started when we were in grad school actually, and we started by interviewing professors and students with autism, students with ADHD to sort of understand the needs, right? On campuses, student needs, faculty needs, um, misunderstandings, and things like that. We've done a lot of extensive dives into the literature and kept up with the literature over the years to really inform the development of our program.
SPEAKER_02We were working very closely with our mentor at the time, Dr. Jan Blatcher, who we continue to collaborate with. And really, she and Sasha were the ones who started the research in this area. I jumped on a little bit later as a newbie on campus, and we, you know, continued to work on those research studies and thought, you know, wow, there's really a need, as per the professors we spoke with for a training program like this.
SPEAKER_10What kinds of data were you finding and what were the insights from professors that were driving you to make this?
SPEAKER_11That's a really great question. I mean, a lot of professors just really want to understand and really want to be helpful and don't have the knowledge or the understanding of neurodiversity to do so. Um, and I think that's what a lot of what we found. But we also heard from the professors that we interviewed there's a lot of stigma that exists. There's a lot of stereotypes that people believe. We had professors tell us that their colleagues would question whether a student had a diagnosis because they didn't appear to be, you know, they had an indivisible disability, not a visible disability. And so, you know, because of that, we thought, well, we really do need to get this information out there so people can have a much better understanding. And we try to take a strength-based approach, focus on, you know, strategies, case studies to help people really think about how to best support these students.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. So with both those knowledge gaps and the strength-based approach in mind, how did you go about designing the neuroprep course?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think a lot of what we formed in terms of our content was based from the literature, but as well as our own studies. But we also formed an advisory committee, which was made up of college professors, neurodivergent students, and disability support staff who all contributed their input and experiences in developing this program. So we developed the content, we vetted it entirely with the advisory committee. They provided their feedback, and it was sort of an iterative process where we went back and forth to make sure that we're refining it based on their needs, their experiences, and what they wanted people to know, what they wanted professors to know.
SPEAKER_10And is the target audience for neuroprep really college professors, or is there a broader audience for this?
SPEAKER_11That's a great question. So our target audience when we developed the program was definitely faculty. However, we have had a great interest from staff on university campuses, and I've said, hey, you know, go ahead, take the course, and I think it's applicable. And I have gotten feedback, and you know, we've taken some data from staff who've taken the training who have found it to be very helpful. And one of our goals, I think, eventually is also to either create some additional modules or to make some adaptations for staff specifically.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, that makes a ton of sense thinking about areas where I personally struggled as an autistic undergraduate, the athletics department, residential life, and dining really could have used this information. What kind of feedback have you gotten on neuroprep from course participants?
SPEAKER_02Most of the feedback has been largely positive, and we're thankful for that. And it is in large part because of the input that we've received from our advisory committee. A lot of the changes that we made are things that people have directly commented on. So a lot of the neurodiversity affirming practices that we talk about, the strategies that we share, those are the things that we often get feedback that you know is really appreciated. Um, we, as Sasha mentioned, have heard from a lot of staff, a lot of people kind of outside of the direct audience of faculty and professors who really want more in a sense. So we just need to carve out some time to develop that, um, develop the additional content.
SPEAKER_10So is there a neuroprep 2.0 or an expanded um director's cut of neuroprep in the works? I would say yes.
SPEAKER_11We we are seeking funding for this 2.0. Um and we're analyzing data from a pilot study now, and we're presenting that at the International Society for Autism Research in a couple months. And then after that, I think we'll sit down and think about what the next steps are and what 2.0 would look like.
SPEAKER_10I'm looking forward to seeing you there then. I'll be presenting some data at INSAR as well. Thank you both so much for being here and for sharing about Neuroprip and the story that went into its creation. Thank you. Thanks for having us. And now, as promised, here are ways to see the documentary. The documentary film Autism Goes to College is currently available through many channels, but the easiest way to see it today is to rent it on Vimeo on Demand, which you can access from your Apple TV or most smart TVs by going on the Vimeo on Demand app. You can also find a direct link on our website at www.autismgoes to college.org. The film is also available for educational use and live and hybrid screening events. All the relevant info and links can be found on our website. Thank you so much for listening, following us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, and especially for adding your reviews on Apple Podcasts. Our show is specifically for students on the spectrum navigating college, and we really appreciate your support for Autism Goes to College. Thanks for listening.