Autism Spectrum Disorder, The Silent Challenge

And how colleges and universities are helping aid students facing it

Ohio University Campus

By Matt Lawson

Imagine a college student arriving on campus for the first time. After years of hard work, and having earned a coveted spot at a university they selected for themselves, their arrival can feel like a breath of fresh air. Finally, they have escaped from the confinements of high school and are able to personally and mentally feel free to make their own decisions regarding their classes, along with the ability to live independently at long last.

However, for a select few, including myself, those feelings and freedoms do not come automatically and are often complicated by more stressful thoughts. My first time arriving on the campus of Ohio University was filled with social anxiety, panic attacks, and a sense of confinement. I often feared that if I messed up when talking to my friends — by simply saying the wrong word or laughing at the wrong time — that I would be judged. I also had certain behaviors and practices that I would repeat to comfort my mind and physically relax my tense body. For example, I often would pace back and forth in rooms, or shake objects vigorously in my hands — which ironically could make me stand out in exactly the ways I wished to avoid.

During my first year at college, I was essentially traversing my way from one panic attack to the next and felt like I was constantly drowning in water. Sometimes, it felt like I was R.J. MacReady in the classic horror movie “The Thing,” a man consumed by self-doubt about everyone in his surroundings, never knowing who his friends or enemies are. This was all due to the fact that I have autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a condition that affects the way people interact with others, sometimes causing them to worry about minor and insignificant matters.

While people tend to think of autism as a condition whose symptoms can be controlled, it is hard to understand the difficulties and challenges that those with autism can experience unless someone has been in their shoes. When people with ASD are young and transitioning through major milestones in their lives, their stresses can be at their most acute, and therefore foreign to others. Individuals who have ASD can express how they personally feel about a new transition in ways that science and psychology still have a hard time understanding.

A person who is diagnosed with ASD is someone who falls under the definition that is described in the National Institute of Mental Health, which is described as “a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave.” We cannot truly understand what these individuals go through without them expressing their inner thoughts to us. In a college environment where there are a lot of complex situations that are continuously evolving, and requiring adaptation, it can prove to be especially difficult for those with ASD to navigate these changes because they tend to find routine and consistency comforting. 

Before there were programs to support college students who have ASD, these individuals did not really have the opportunities they needed to succeed and had to adapt to a neurotypical lifestyle, which they would naturally have a hard time fitting into without any formal assistance. Marshall University in West Virginia decided to change this in 2002 by implementing a program for students with ASD that included mentorship assistance, job readiness, mental-health counseling, and many other forms of support.

Autism support programs have since grown and expanded at colleges across the United States and around the world. Ohio University has implemented its own autism support program called ASPeCT, or the Autism Spectrum Peer Coaching Team. The overall goal of this program is to “provide an additional layer of individualized support for students throughout their transition through college.” This program specifically works to help students who have autism on five main components that help them “develop the skills and strategies necessary to succeed in college” — self-advocacy, social skills, resiliency, study and organizational skills, and technology. 

To understand the ways in which the ASPeCT program succeeds in helping those with ASD, it is important for us to understand the way the influential psychiatric diagnostic manual, the DSM-5-TR, describes autism and other conditions that people with ASD can simultaneously be diagnosed with. The official diagnostic criteria for ASD is extremely complicated, requiring individuals to show a certain number of behaviors from a long checklist, but not necessarily the same exact symptoms as other individuals classified as having ASD. But all people with ASD, to receive the diagnosis, must be determined to have “Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction.” These deficits can fall under three distinct subcategories which can involve “social-emotional reciprocity, nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, and developing, maintaining and understanding relationships.” 

At Ohio University, an essential component of ASPeCT is a mentoring program that pairs students who have ASD with upperclassmen who help instill in them the various social and organizational skills necessary to success in college and the larger professional world. Some of the students who serve as mentors in the program are neurotypical, whereas others may have ASD themselves and be previous recipients of ASPeCT’s coaching services. (The author of this article falls into the latter category.) To help prepare coaches for this work, ASPeCT created a coaching manual that explains many of the basics of the condition for mentors who don’t have autism themselves. When grasping the important factors and comorbidities that are displayed with ASD, there are some primary points that are important to take note of, in order to describe the condition to those who are not intimately familiar with it.

For example, the coaching manual first establishes that “There is currently no known cause of autism, and the disorder manifests in different ways.” The manual also describes how “Although generalities can be made about the ‘average’ person with Autism Spectrum Disorder, it is imperative to remember that autism exists on a spectrum,” which means there can be great diversity among people with the diagnosis. These points go to show how the ASPeCT program is committed to making sure that their coaches understand that the popular tropes that people develop about those who have ASD — such as that they are unintelligent or unsocial — do not necessarily describe everyone who identifies as having autism.

After understanding the complexities that truly come with ASD and seeing how each individual with the diagnosis will be unique, we see how the ASPeCT program faces an extremely difficult challenge assisting those with ASD and offering them the best opportunities to succeed. And, in fact, it might actually be impossible for the ASPeCT program to succeed in helping every single student with ASD at Ohio University succeed — just like no college student’s success is guaranteed.

Nonetheless, the individuals employed in the ASPeCT program work hard to ensure that all students with ASD have opportunities to succeed without feeling that they are forced to mindlessly conform to their surroundings without being understood or encouraged to lead their lives the way they wish to. My own success as a student at Ohio University attests to this. Because in my years here as an undergraduate, I have not only learned to thrive academically, but socially as well — from my first semester feeling like I was a captive in a bad science-fiction movie, I gradually learned to put myself at ease in the company of other people, and accumulated a group of friends who accepted me and whom I now consider my truest family. Much of this growth I can attribute to the confidence I acquired from being the recipient of ASPeCT’s coaching — and that is a gift I am now trying to pass on to another student with ASD, by serving as a coach myself. 

Few students on campus are probably even aware that Ohio University’s ASPeCT program even exists. If they have heard of it, they may still be unaware of how profoundly it impacts students with ASD and campus as a whole. Even though ASD has a relatively low prevalence rate around the world, the number of people being diagnosed with the condition has increased every single year. Programs such as ASPeCT are critically important, yet have not received the recognition they deserve. It is important for us to understand and realize when a person may have ASD and even if they feel neurodivergent and help them realize that there are opportunities for them to receive any form of assistance they may need. ASPeCT helps ensure that they are never alone when living with their conditions and the effects it has on them mentally.

So whenever you see a freshman who seems to be acting unusual or neurodivergent, remember there may be a person inside who just wants to feel connected to someone or something on Ohio University’s campus — and they just need a little bit of help to do so.

Wanna chat? Email Matt at ml300519@ohio.edu, or follow him on Instagram at @lawson3060