19422
Embracing Neurodiversity in Higher Education: Creating an Inclusive College Campus for Neurodiverse Students
Neurodiversity is an emergent philosophy that postulates neurological differences like autism are more than disabilities. Neurodiversity advocates believe that brain differences are a natural part of human diversity and that neurological diversity is essential for our continued success as a species. The recent increase in autism awareness means more students will enter college with the knowledge they are neurodiverse. We believe educators have an obligation to accommodate this population and an opportunity for growth by doing so.
Objectives:
We are devising and implementing a program to create a welcoming environment for neurodiverse students, faculty, and staff. We hope to benefit from expansion of the diversity of our population, and provide our neurotypical students with concepts of neurodiversity that will benefit them beyond graduation.
Methods:
We organized a neurodiversity group composed of faculty, alumni, administrators, and staff from Residence Life and Counseling Center. Several members are neurodiverse themselves. To our knowledge, this is one of the first university groups in the country to include people and resources across campus to ensure a multi-faceted approach to creating an inclusive campus. We also facilitated a student neurodiversity group and hosted several awareness events on campus.
A core component of our program is to provide online resources to students and faculty. We developed a “Hidden Rules” presentation that was designed to be shown at the beginning of the semester with the intention of making implicit social rules in seminars more explicit. We wanted to provide neurodiverse students, who may be less able to recognize the implicit rules of a small seminar, with detailed directives to ensure success in these classes. Topics for suggestions included seating arrangements, technology use and how to respectfully enter a discussion. We evaluated this presentation in four seminar classes ranging from a first-year seminar to a graduate-level course.
We developed a weekly neurodiversity course, plus a weekend course, and have more offerings in the works. Our present course covers topics such as: a definition of neurodiversity, neurodiversity in educational and workplace settings, advocacy, neurodiversity and the law, co-occurring conditions, impact on relationships, social cognition and neuroplasticity.
Results:
Students provided positive feedback regarding the “Hidden Rules” seminar. Most students had not had a similar previous presentation. In general, students found the presentation relevant, helpful and would recommend it for other students (Table 1). Our neurodiversity classes also received positive student evaluations (Table 2). Once started, the students picked up the neurodiversity and carried the student group forward into the current academic year. Interest in the program is building as we move through our second year as evidenced by a student group that is three times the size of last year’s group and growing.
Conclusions:
The quantitative and qualitative feedback about our online materials and new course has been positive. The available data provide a strong foundation to build upon as we consider how to expand our efforts to increase awareness about the college experiences of neurodiverse individuals.