Workshop for Autistic College Students

Post Reply New Topic

There's a diversity scholars program that I'd like to apply for when I start a PhD program next year. If you're chosen as a scholar you can give workshops to help minority students succeed in college. I was thinking I could pitch a workshop to help autistic students succeed in college. Specifically, my university is large, it requires a lot of walking and riding the bus (because parking is unreasonable), there are a ton of engineering students, medical/veterinary students, and international students. Does anyone have any suggestions for what might help? So far I was thinking:

-Suggestions for helping people stay included in study groups
-Suggestions for taking notes, especially in classes with 100+ students
-How and who to ask for help, in what situations
-How to deal with large crowds of people (sensory overload while walking, listening, looking for things)

What else? (And comments on what I've already listed are welcome)

*how to get academic help for classes, e.g. visit the TA/professor during office hours, email the TA but not annoyingly often, college tutoring services, etc
*how to communicate with professors to get research or related positions, many professors want undergrads in their lab, but they don't advertise, so students must ask

For the study group item, I would say that study groups are not for all people, so if someone tries study groups and finds those an ineffective way of learning, they should give up on study groups instead of sticking to them. When I started college, other students said study groups were useful, but I found them completely useless and much more effective to study and do homework on my own.

Btw, what kind of PhD program are you starting? Is it in education or psychology or neuroscience related to autism?
What are your research interests? I am researcher too (neuro), and want to connect with other researchers.

Those are really good ideas. I added them to my list. Yeah the study group thing is a big issue. I myself hate study groups, but I wouldn't have made it through a couple classes without them. And sometimes workgroups are mandatory. I've noticed that people who are autistic or just different often get pushed out of group projects or made so uncomfortable that they elect to drop out of the group.

I study critical autism theory, which is under sociology. I see autistic people as a minority social group. Right now I'm focusing on autistic people in the workplace-specifically how there are lots of autistic people successfully working who are passing as neurotypical, either because they haven't been "officially" diagnosed or because they don't want their status undermined by people misunderstanding what autism is and treating them differently once they know. I definitely understand why people wouldn't want others to know their personal business, but not disclosing also feeds into the problem of the "autism moms" and Autism Speakers who like to paint a bleak outlook for younger autistic people. And then since employers and co-workers don't know they are already working with capable autistic people, they don't stop to re-examine their own skewed ideas.

Shoot me a PM and I'll send you my email (and anyone else reading who would like to know more). I'm happy to collaborate, hear ideas, and include anyone interested in upcoming research. I give potential participants fully informed consent with information about my background, the literature I back my theories with, and my methods so no one has to worry that they are contributing to research that they might not agree with.

I think some workshop about how to give class presentation may be useful too.
I find that I know how to give presentations from my perspective, like I can communicate what I want others to know, but it doesn't always match well what most others want to know or how they can understand what I am communicating.
Some tips about how most people think and learn from presentations may be helpful for autistic students to plan their presentations, which will be inevitable in most majors at some point.