Supporting autistic students through university using a collaborative participatory research approach

Despite various academic and personal strengths, autistic university students are at high risk of dropping out of their studies, resulting in low employment rates and unfavourable job conditions for autistic individuals. Previous studies suggest a mismatch between the actual support needs of autistic students and the support available at university. To address this mismatch, unlike previous studies where autistic students served mainly as study participants, the proposed research includes autistic students and professionals working with autistic university students as equal partners throughout the research process. Unlike other studies, non-autistic students will also participate as research partners to examine the attitudes towards autistic students on campus. The participatory groups will develop two questionnaires to identify the support needs of autistic and non-autistic students. The questionnaires will then be administered to a wider population of autistic (n = +100) and non-autistic students (n = +100) which will inform future intervention support programmes for autistic university students.