Improving the college experience for students on the autism spectrum

1) Reduced dependency on the telephone and, if possible, on in-person consultations for bureaucratic purposes. There is no technological reason why monitoring an e-mail or IM account in real time should be any more difficult for a competent staffperson than monitoring a telephone and a physical desk in real time. (If it increases the volume of incoming requests to the point where one staffer can't handle them, this reflects a demand for an additional staffperson, not a need to bottleneck the communication.) I would have had an easier time making use of my school's campus services if I didn't have to use the telephone or take a hike to get attention from them.

2) This.

3) If complicated forms are necessary for whatever reason, attach a diagram or a glossary or something explaining what each field in the form is for.

4) Encourage the distribution of written materials to accompany spoken lectures. I have enough audio processing trouble that I was often lost save for the out-of-context bullet points on my teachers' slides, or if it was a small class so I could ask for things repeated, I wasted everyone's time asking for repetitions of sentences that I would have been happy to just read on a handout.

Make it acceptable to skip a good portion of classes. Yes, some attendance at some classes may be important, but there are many cases when we just zone out and get absolutely nothing out of class (this is especially important for foreign language, although my university has been kind enough to give me a foreign language requirement exemption), even though we would do perfectly well (and learn even more efficiently) if everything was just distributed outside of class.

Some of the accommodations are not especially helpful - tape-recording lectures, for example, means that you often have to listen to the entire thing again and use up even more time, when in reality, we could learn the material in a fraction of the time (at a time when we are alert - the problem is that it's hard to predict periods of alertness and periods of unalertness, and their periods vary from day to day) if we were given written access to the material at a time when we were alert.

My problem may be more related to ADD, but I have both, and there is said to be a large comorbidity between Asperger's and ADD.

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Also - more class discussion over class forums and less class discussion in class. Also, a school-wide online forum (or mailing list, or at least one for particular majors) would REALLY help for making connections (I know that some schools, like Wellesley, have school-wide forums, and other schools, like Caltech, have house-wide mailing lists). I have no friends here, and part of the reason for this is because there's simply no online way for me to approach anonymous people in my major or school. This is especially relevant when you have the social skills to only be friends with, say, 0.01% of the population, and are trying to find ways to identify that small percent. Also, people with social anxiety also partake better in forums, and it would make it easier for us to meet those with social anxiety.

Basically, make as much content online as is practically possible. That is the single-most important thing, IMO.

Modernizing classroom instruction as well (more emphasis on interactive simulations when available, rather than on blackboard). I've made a list of them here: http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=470676

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Also, some system to control variance in GPAs. A lot of us have higher GPA variances than others. The problem with this, though, is that an isolated 0.0 could totally destroy our GPAs (a 0.0 does far more damage than a 1.7, even though there is really little difference between the two), even though we may otherwise have very strong grades. And autistics are probably more likely to get these isolated 0.0s due to issues that arised in one quarter, or communication breakdown between student and professor.

If communication with the instructor is expected in order to do well in the class or to get a good grade in the class allow as much as possible that communication to occur online. Also communicate that emailing the instructor outside of the class period is expected.

Provide opportunities to test out of classes or sections of classes and make sure that such opportunities are stated on the syllabus.

Not only having handouts for lecture notes but also having the handouts available online. If attendance is mandatory have it available by the day before, if it is not mandatory then wait until after the class period is over to post it.

Provide social activities that are geared toward such people. High functioning Autistic people really are sometimes social, but extremely differently so. Boardgames such as settlers of Catan or other German style games are good as they give social events with a minimal amount of uncomfortable interactions, if that makes sense (Apples to Apples and other such social board games are not good).

I think one should distinguish between making the college experience easier (less group work, fewer spoken communication requirements) and helping autism spectrum students progress towards high social function. It is possible that the former will inhibit the latter. I hope you will find a balance between the two... it would be very sad if autism spectrum students left the comfort zone of college daycare and were unprepared to be harshly thrust into social reality where the boss really wants you to be a team player.

I don't know if this has anything to do with autism (I'm not autistic), but I would like for schools to allow students to focus on one subject at a time. Instead of four semesters where they have to simultaneously study language, math, science, and history, have one semester devoted exclusively to each of those.