“Listening with Your Heart”: Autism Support Program Faculty Experiences in Teaching Autistic College Students

Abstract

Background:

As more autistic college students enroll in higher education, the need for capable faculty to support their learning experiences rises. Although well intentioned, many educators are not always the most adept in supporting their autistic learners. This descriptive phenomenological reflective lifeworld research seeks to understand the essence of autism-specific college support program faculty experiences in teaching autistic college students.

Methods:

This study entailed conducting interviews with four full-time faculty, two staff who teach part-time, and eight other administrators or staff at a community college boasting an autism-specific college support program. Additionally, the author drew on observing a classroom session, program information session, and the campus via a tour, as well as course syllabi, to provide a fuller picture. Dahlberg and colleagues’ data analysis methods provided a mechanism for interpreting the information.

Results:

Four themes helped describe the essence of faculty experiences in teaching their autistic learners: unfamiliarity, flexibility, disruption, and optimism. Whereas faculty may, at first, lack familiarity with autism, they draw on that desire for further knowledge to directly learn from their students, creating opportunities for trust building. They also welcome feedback from students and fellow staff alike to engage in flexible teaching techniques. Adaptability and willingness to learn help them navigate difficult course experiences. These experiences ultimately enhance faculty members’ confidence to teach autistic learners and translate inclusive teaching measures to their courses writ large.

Conclusion:

This study unveils the many aspects of faculty members’ experiences in interacting with autistic students, particularly within the unique landscape of a college with an autism-specific college support program that highlights neurodiversity. Importantly, this study contributes new knowledge about how faculty draw on their resources, knowledge, and past teaching experiences to shape their iterative approaches to working with autistic students.

Community Brief

Why is this an important issue?

Autistic college students are increasingly enrolling in higher education institutions, yet many of the faculty and staff who work with them are unaware of, and unprepared to, support their classroom experiences. This issue contributes to faculty sometimes misunderstanding autistic students and missing opportunities to build more inclusive classrooms.

What was the purpose of the study?

My aim was to find out what faculty experience in working with autistic learners, and how they adapt their teaching approaches.

What did the researcher do?

This study was set in a community college, with an autism-specific college support program that works toward college and career skills for its neurodivergent learners. I conducted interviews with four full-time faculty teaching in this program, two additional part-time faculty who are college staff, and two additional staff members. I also observed a class session and program information session, toured the campus, and reviewed all current course syllabi to understand faculty members’ evolving experiences in supporting autistic learners.

What were the results of the study?

I found that faculty felt a mix of emotions and adopted various teaching approaches, when working with autistic college students. For instance, faculty often entered from a place of unfamiliarity, though they sought knowledge from colleagues and additional resources to enhance their understanding of, and comfort to teach, autistic learners. This context helped them in navigating moments when students acted in a disruptive manner. Many faculty relied on past course experiences, and interactions with autistic learners, to inform their feelings of optimism in teaching future students.

What do these findings add to what was already known?

To date, while there have been a handful of studies focused on faculty members’ engagement with autistic learners, few have concentrated on settings within an autism-specific college support program. Study findings show how faculty working in these environments committed to neurodiversity, incorporated inclusive and transferable teaching techniques, while also growing in their comfort and confidence to work with autistic learners.

What are the potential weaknesses of the study?

As I engaged only with faculty members teaching in, and staff familiar with, the autism-specific college support program, I did not necessarily gather perspective from individuals with less context on neurodiversity. In the end, the campus and participants selected for this study may not be representative of most college campuses without such autism acceptance.

How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future?

Study findings will give perspective into how faculty members can more inclusively serve autistic learners, ultimately benefitting the academic experiences of future generations of autistic students entering college.

Background

Closely connected to autistic college students’ experiences, faculty hold a pivotal role in cultivating a strengths-based and equitable atmosphere,¹ and some actively aim to increase autism acceptance and support across campus.² Yet faculty often remain unprepared to serve autistic college students,³ even with emerging research on serving students’ needs and skills.^4,5 Continued inattention to properly preparing faculty to work with autistic college students holds ramifications in inhibiting not only students’ persistence, but also faculty members’ own awareness and acceptance of autism.⁶ This descriptive phenomenological reflective lifeworld research study seeks to address the following research question: What is the essence of autism-specific college support program (ASP) faculty experiences in teaching autistic college students?

To properly orient our understandings around faculty in serving autistic college students, requires placing our gaze across three spaces in existent literature: How faculty each perceive, support, and face challenges around teaching this burgeoning student community.

How faculty perceive autistic students

Rooted in ableist philosophies that pervade society, many faculty harbor negative sentiments of autism, as course syllabi content indicates.⁷ False and distorted beliefs of autistic college students as disorganized, disrespectful, and overbearing⁸ inhibit opportunities to understand their unique academic strengths.⁹ Commonly, faculty learn about autism through their campus disability service offices (DSOs),¹⁰ autism information sessions,¹¹ or students’ disclosure of their disabilities.^1,12 Yet some faculty are more familiar with autism than their counterparts because of holding personal connections with autistic people^1,12 or being autistic themselves, thus shaping how they view their professional practice.^13,14

Nonetheless, minimal familiarity with autism means many faculty fail to offer resources to aid students’ experiences. For instance, most faculty in Zeedyk and colleagues’ study¹² lacked syllabi statements about accommodations and services that could serve them. Scholars like Francis and colleagues¹⁵ and Nachman,³ among others, have called for instituting autism awareness trainings on campuses to elevate faculty members’ familiarity in serving autistic people. Their ultimate implementation, however, represents an opportunity for growth.

How faculty support autistic students

The emergence of faculty development around autism signals a trend, even if slow and inconsistent, around educators who seek to grow in their support of autistic learners.³ Many characteristics define faculty who are inclusive of autistic college students: exhibiting an ethic of care,¹ providing opportunities for interest exploration during course projects,¹⁶ offering assignment variety,⁸ honoring their strengths,¹⁷ and lending informational or instrumental support.¹⁸ When faculty demonstrate presence in autistic students’ lives, whether in terms of affording academic support¹⁹ or ideas on how to engage socially on campus,²⁰ they create a positive impact.

Also importantly, faculty who invest in learning about what motivates autistic students may influence these learners to pursue special interests. Often, autistic college students hold a strong curiosity in particular subjects, which can bolster their confidence and determination to strengthen their research and writing skills.¹⁶ These same skills could also support students as they pursue their dream jobs, viewing these characteristics as strengths.²¹ Given that many autistic students tend to share how their K–12 years are times when they learn about their strengths,⁹ the importance of leveraging those strengths in their postsecondary education years heightens.

How faculty face challenges in teaching autistic students

Even with an understanding of autism, difficulties and conflicts emerge in classrooms. Faculty work to balance the needs of serving autistic students while maintaining course standards.²² Classroom challenges extend to the disruption that surfaces through how some autistic characteristics, deemed socially unacceptable, present themselves. Most literature has focused on outbursts of frustration in K–12 spaces.^23,24 When instances of disruption erupt, faculty may hold negative biases against autistic students.²⁵ Frustration materializes when faculty, who adopt ableist attitudes, are bothered by students shouting comments during lectures²⁶ or going on tangents.²⁷ Uncertainty of what to do prompts concern, as one sentiment from an educator participant in Ravet²⁸ illustrates a more universal point: “how do I teach them?…. it’s terrifying.” Fear of what could surface in the classroom, and feeling indecisive, reverberates among educators,^29,30 and reproduces harm in viewing anything not normative as problematic.

Methods

With an interest in understanding the natural world and how people make meaning of experiences, Dahlberg and colleagues’ descriptive phenomenological reflective lifeworld research³¹ is fitting for this inquiry, which uncovers how ASP faculty explain their experiences in teaching autistic college students. This approach calls for being open-minded in examining the phenomena, or main concept.³² In this study, the essence of being a faculty member in teaching autistic learners is the focus. Merleau-Ponty and Bannan³³ describe an essence as “our effective engagement in the world which must be understood and conceptualized.” Here I aim to make sense of how faculty participants relay their lived experiences. Descriptive phenomenological reflective lifeworld imparts that researchers remain flexible to the meanings, or interpretations, that participants share.³² This methodological approach prompts researchers to engage in bridling, or embracing an unguarded attitude that entails reflecting on their connections to the phenomena and continually reassessing that stance over the course of the study.^1,34

What this meant for me is that I entered the study with both an understanding of participants’ professional roles (as an educator and college employee) and the community for which they are working with (i.e., autistic students), as I am myself autistic. I honored how this methodology leans into openness and flexibility in how participants make sense of the phenomena,³² consistently reflecting on my own interpretations of faculty members’ approaches with autistic students, from study inception to article writing.

As a note, this paper stems from a larger study I conducted on autistic community college students’ experiences and has, to date, manifested into articles centered on topics including students’ self-advocacy³⁵ and students’ identity development.³⁶ For this article, I was interested in exploring teaching-related issues, a counterpoint to the student-centered work that did not account for those participants’ valuable perspectives.

Study site

I conducted this research at “Blue Moon Community College (BMCC),” which possesses elevated autism awareness based on its ASP.³⁷ “Captains of Autism in Community College (CACC)” offers courses, mentorship, and events for autistic college students. At the time of data collection, CACC boasted two full-time staff, two part-time staff, and mentors, all to serve nearly 150 students. CACC’s presence on campus reflects the college’s increasing emphasis on neurodiversity. The rarity of autism programs based on community college campuses,³⁷ combined with CACC’s thorough offerings and longevity, makes CACC a rare program that other ASPs model.

Each semester, CACC boasts multiple courses that students at different stages of their academic journeys complete and can earn credits that serve their degrees. Whereas some CACC courses are geared to specifically address key issues in the autism community, such as self-advocacy difficulties, others are adapted versions of courses offered across BMCC more broadly, such as wellness and communication. Over the years, CACC has enlisted BMCC faculty to channel their expertise into teaching CACC versions of these courses, making modifications to meet autistic students’ needs. Espousing Universal Design, CACC ensures that faculty recognize and employ inclusive teaching strategies.

Data collection and participants

To recruit participants for my larger study, I asked Elizabeth (CACC program director; pseudonyms used throughout) to connect me with faculty, staff, and administrators familiar with its programming. Within this article that spotlights faculty experiences, I involved four full-time faculty, two staff who teach part-time, and two additional staff. Although the study findings focus almost exclusively on four faculty, involving additional voices within the bounds of this inquiry helps to contextualize their experiences in working with autistic college students, especially for participants who rely on CACC when seeking help. I also recognize that many participants lack representativeness due to their higher levels of familiarity and engagement with autistic students, though they demonstrate themselves to be role models.

I conducted semistructured interviews with eight participants (see Table 1), as well as observed one CACC classroom session, one CACC information session, toured the campus with a BMCC staff member, and analyzed all current CACC course syllabi. As Vagle states, phenomenology entails drawing on various forms of memoing.³⁸ In this case, I relied on reflective memos to process the notes associated with the observations and interviews I conducted, alongside existential memos that carried my intense feelings associated with seeing myself in multiple roles (educator and autistic person). The University of Wisconsin-Madison IRB approved this study, including the human subjects protocol, and served as the IRB of record. I received approval from the study site as well (the real institution name is masked to protect participants).

Table 1.

Participant Information

Name	Campus roles	Connection to CACC program
Craig	Administrator, faculty	Works with CACC staff; teaches CACC courses
Ellen	Faculty	Teaches CACC courses
Elizabeth	Faculty, administrator	Directs CACC program
Grace	Faculty	Teaches CACC courses
Jake	Faculty	Teaches CACC courses
Laura	Staff	Handles conduct cases involving CACC students
Taylor	Staff	Manages CACC program
Wonder	Faculty	Teaches CACC courses

CACC, Captains of Autism in Community College.

Data analysis

I employed Dahlberg and colleagues’ data analysis methods¹ to make sense of the content I curated. The first phase encompasses reading transcripts to ascertain the main content at hand. For instance, one excerpt focused on an educator’s process of trial and error in their teaching techniques and gleaning new perspectives from their autistic students. Emotional coding (e.g., “unsure”) and in vivo coding (e.g., “I’m always learning something”) afforded me the opportunity to ascertain the feelings associated with what participants shared, as well as elevate participants’ lived experiences.³⁹ Here I could honor the intent of descriptive phenomenological reflective lifeworld research, as I positioned the essence of “unfamiliarity” against specific illustrations of this notion by virtue of quotes.³² I continually clumped meaning units into clusters.³¹ For instance, I connected excerpts of participant interviews that touched on topics like faculty adjusting their teaching approaches and feeling more confident with further engagement with autistic college students. This process of tethering similar sets of excerpts allowed me to form what is called a constituent, or a component reflective of the phenomena. Here I viewed one consistent of teaching autistic college students as feeling optimistic in engaging with autistic learners through further lived experiences. Sets of constituents, or parts, later formed the four main themes that described the essence of the phenomenon of faculty experiences in teaching autistic college students.

As descriptive phenomenological reflective lifeworld research benefits from utilizing multiple methods,³¹ I not only engaged in this analytical process of assembling meaning units into constituents with interviews, but also with observation notes and document analysis. Interrogating the essence of faculty experiences via texts required me to continually search for and question the meaning across contexts.³² For instance, whereas I could read participant Grace’s course syllabus and interview her to determine what her priorities entailed, I had to determine if those same actions manifested during the observation of that class. I positioned the whole story against its smaller components and vice versa, reflecting Dahlberg and colleagues’ approach.³¹

Trustworthiness and credibility

I employed several strategies to advance the study’s trustworthiness. Through incorporating multiple methods and perspectives, I triangulated the data (i.e., drawing on multiple data sources to more extensively understand the phenomena⁴⁰) and reached saturation (i.e., gathering enough data so that if one were to gather more data, it would feel redundant⁴¹). I assembled a rich audit trail through attentive documentation and field notes and reflected on my interpretations of participant interactions, observations, and materials. These processes enhanced the study’s dependability, confirmability, transferability, credibility, and authenticity.⁴² Per Munhall’s criteria for examining phenomenological rigor,⁴³ I achieved most objectives, including representativeness (involving participants holding distinct roles), revelations (the study topic’s novelty), relevance (connectivity to human science), raised consciousness (appreciation for new perspectives), and readability (findings are presented in a readable manner). In sum, the study’s trustworthiness was enhanced through curating comprehensive, rich data from various data sources, as well as documenting my methodological decisions, processes, notes, and reflections across time.

Limitations and delimitations

Three primary factors played into the study’s limitations. In relying on snowball sampling from the ASP’s director, the participant pool may have been significantly narrowed and limited to people who were generally believed to promote autism acceptance on campus. Second, my lack of prolonged engagement at the site—2 weeks in person—meant my observation period felt brief. To set boundaries and ensure I covered a reasonable scope, I intentionally only examined one institution with an exceptional ASP. Third, I recognize that my interpretations are associated with a campus and program featuring a high level of autism acceptance and visibility, an anomaly within the overall landscape of higher education.

Positionality

Throughout the study, I explored my positionality, a boon that empowered me to situate my personal and professional roles as an autistic educator who traversed community college against participants who hold variable autism content expertise and teaching experience. What proved most difficult was to bridle the knowledge and interpretations I entered the study with. In this sense, I worked to “not make definite what it is indefinite.”³¹ Case in point, I had prior understanding of faculty members’ hesitancy in teaching autistic college students based on my familiarity with prior scholarship.³ That said, I adopted a spirit of open-mindedness in how participants might perceive the world, a sentiment they also exhibited in interviews. Essentially, I worked to avoid self-fulfilling prophecies (e.g., thinking faculty tend to avoid working more closely with students whose presentations of autism are considered more socially unacceptable) through employing a few techniques. For one, I held conversations with faculty and staff colleagues, both embedded within and outside of the world of autism, to obtain perspectives. Additionally, before participant interviews, I memoed my ongoing tension of the many responsibilities that faculty hold to support autistic students. By the time I engaged in data collection, I arrived at a place of self-patience and sincerity in embracing whatever ideas and stories faculty participants would share, whether positive, ableist, or ignorant. I also demonstrated transparency with my participants. They knew why I was engaging in this line of research and the biases I carry with me as an autistic educator. These approaches allowed for honoring my priorities and subjectivities while still centering participants’ experiences.

Findings

Four key themes surfaced in understanding the essence of faculty experiences in teaching autistic college students. Faculty, arriving in a spot of unfamiliarity with the specific needs of their autistic learners, built trust with their students. Later, in welcoming feedback from students, fellow faculty, and CACC staff, faculty demonstrated flexibility in how they run their courses. Managing course challenges, stemming from disruption, required faculty to engage with colleagues for support and draw on new experiences to serve students’ needs. Ultimately, faculty experienced optimism in drawing on their work with autistic college students that may support all learners.

Unfamiliarity: Working to build trust

Foundational in developing a fruitful classroom experience involved faculty showing themselves as trustworthy and designing spaces welcoming self-expression. Although these approaches hold utility in any classroom setting, they are especially useful when working with autistic individuals, who have been long exploited, dismissed, or trivialized.^44–46 Faculty entered autistic spaces with unfamiliarity, though approached developing courses with inclusive teaching techniques.

CACC enlisted faculty across the college with specific disciplinary expertise, including communication and wellness, to teach a version of their standard classes, with all autistic learners. Faculty shared their initial sense of hesitancy, even trepidation, in working with exclusively autistic college students, much of it grounded in their own evolving autism knowledge. These feelings materialized in the first essence of teaching autistic college students: unfamiliarity. “I was terrified the first time I went into the autism classroom,” Jake (faculty) remarked. “All autistic students, and I’m going, ‘wow, okay, this is going to be interesting,’” he said. Although some CACC faculty had interacted with autistic students in the past, entering a classroom where everyone was autistic prompted faculty to face their unfamiliarity headfirst. Wonder (faculty), herself recruited by Jake, acknowledged her inexperience with this community, but “jumped in and said, ‘yes.’” In recognizing their unfamiliarity with autism, CACC faculty worked to expand their horizons, and ultimately led to their students feeling more at ease with them.

Faculty who demonstrated transparency created an avenue for students to see them as human and not invincible. In turn, faculty who showed their autistic students that they were unfamiliar with some of the qualities associated with autism, though willing to learn, helped build trust. Grace (faculty) said she

consistently acknowledge[s] and remind[s] them I’m not autistic, so I am in this ADHD space, but I’m not autistic… and I’m not trying to tell them how they should be… so I think keeping that authenticity and honesty creates enough space that I’ve had students come and talk to me about things.

Similarly, Jake recognized how he wants his students to see him as “human and flawed, and I’m not some God up there” teaching. Trust formed from faculty who exhibited humility and sought self-growth, thus channeling unfamiliarity into awareness and acceptance. Following my observation of Grace’s class session, I saw a line of students assemble after class, so they could relay questions or issues. Also key to building trust: not dismissing autistic students. Although occasionally students’ long tangents could disrupt class flow, Ellen provided space for their self-expression, realizing they are often “ignored [and] shunted off to the side.” When autistic people felt respected, as Ellen shared, they were more open to learn and engage.

Faculty did not assume that their own ways of learning would help students grasp content. Numerous examples illustrate these measures in motion. Craig (campus staff and faculty) saw the value of explicit instruction and dividing big projects into smaller, concrete tasks, especially important for autistic students.⁴⁷ Ellen (faculty) showcased the value of “listening with your heart… the intention is to really give them our full attention and not to listen with an agenda.” Jake , recognizing how autistic people sometimes need additional time to process their thoughts, did not instantly respond to students who had opinions or answers right away. He worked to “give them time to process the information and let them slowly formulate their ideas… you get a lot more students actually talking.” In essence, faculty demonstrated an ongoing process of learning about autism, turning unfamiliarity into greater comfort with autism, and making adaptations to their courses to cultivate a trusting environment.

Flexibility: Welcoming feedback from additional perspectives

Faculty, in their process of owning their unfamiliarity with autism to support their own development and adjust aspects of their courses, gradually embraced another key essence of teaching autistic learners: embracing flexibility in their teaching. Although faculty reported being adaptable in general, they realized they had even more of a responsibility to form classrooms where students could showcase their interests and feel more invested in their learning. Through forming classrooms built on shared learning, input, and guidelines, faculty supported autistic college students’ opportunities for participation and showcasing their interests. Faculty like Ellen directly asked for student feedback, “so that they know that it’s not just me… we all contribute to [the course] and we all affect each other.” Meanwhile, Wonder openly invited students to collectively figure out course guidelines. She integrated “digital breaks” and “movement breaks” to give students space to look at their devices or walk around, inviting them to determine how long the break should be.

Faculty shared how, when feeling uncertain of how to reconcile unfamiliar classroom situations, they turned to fellow educators and college staff. Here, we can see how faculty carried the idea of flexibility into realizing that they alone were not responsible for supporting autistic college students’ classroom experience. In fact, turning to other college personnel and welcoming their feedback elevated faculty members’ sense of control and confidence. Wonder, for one, drew on Jake’s expertise in orchestrating classroom activities amongst autistic students. In this process of figuring out her own approaches to developing class structure, she created original activities that worked to incorporate “more real-life discussions,” as opposed to relying on a textbook. Unexpectedly, this led to conversations surrounding dating and relationships, as many male-identifying students expressed in class that they had long been told that they poorly interacted with female-identifying peers. “I think the biggest thing for me was to lead from [an] initial discussion of self-acceptance,” she recalled. In realizing how students embraced discussing more serious topics, like self-acceptance and romantic relationships, Wonder redesigned the curriculum and expressed feeling more adept.

Ultimately, most faculty referred to Elizabeth and Taylor (program manager) for advice on unexpected scenarios emerging with autistic college students. “They’re very good at intervening ahead of time and that’s something that I’m becoming more aware of,” Grace said. Welcoming feedback from others, and adapting their approaches along the way, honored the second essence of flexibility.

Disruption: Managing course challenges

Internalizing a sense of flexibility supported faculty in teaching autistic college students across many curricular-centered situations, although many experienced challenges in working with autistic students who created disruption in their classrooms. Faculty expressed feeling troubled by unexpected situations, notably when autistic students became overwhelmed or rattled; in turn, students threw off the curricular plan for the day. Faculty had to draw on their adaptability and willingness to consult others to manage disruption.

Students’ pre-college experiences often informed how potentially unruly traits manifested in courses. Ellen realized how many autistic students previously engaged in social skills trainings that were traumatic, resulting in them occasionally engaging in reactive ways. Grace has seen firsthand how students who feel overwhelmed can throw off the entire session, including feeling overwhelmed themselves. “When someone gets upset, everybody freaks out a little bit,” she said. While she takes a gentle approach—encouraging students who seem more agitated or exhausted to step outside the classroom or put headphones on—not all adopted her suggestions. Wonder shared that taking proactive measures to minimize students’ anxiety was a priority. “If they cannot find something online, it’s going to hinder their learning and their comfort and trust in you to find things,” she said. Accordingly, she aimed to make her online portions of courses more accessible to not overwhelm them with too many options or buttons. Faculty approached disruption with preemptive strategies that eased students’ experiences and, in tandem, assuaged their own anxieties.

Sometimes, for as adeptly trained as more experienced CACC faculty are in working with autistic students, situations emerged that disrupted the class plan. For instance, sometimes students go on tangents with their class contributions. “The train starts rolling down the track… it gets a full head of steam [and] it’s really hard to rail the student back in again,” Jake said. While these topics could generate engagement among fellow students, other times peers rolled their eyes, laughed, or became frustrated, as Jake shared. Peers’ lack of empathy, at times, created challenges for faculty who work to build common understanding.

During my campus visit, I witnessed the ramifications of one classroom challenge. While I sat in the CACC office, Grace emerged from Elizabeth’s and Taylor’s office, having shared with Elizabeth about a series of misinterpretations by students that unfolded in class. Grace, visibly upset and frustrated over the situation, shared with me later that week that the conflict had been resolved. This misunderstanding, which I saw unfold in real time, illustrated how disruption occasionally rattled faculty in their confidence in teaching autistic college students.

Occasionally classroom issues escalated to a point requiring Laura, manager of the student conduct office, to become involved. Often, disciplinary actions are unnecessary; instead, faculty and Laura talked through situations that lacked straightforward answers (e.g., feeling intimidated by disruptive students). Laura recalled how some faculty struggled with students who cannot self-regulate, with the educators labeling it as “‘I was threatened,’ but really it’s ‘I feel scared.’” Consequently, she encouraged faculty to think through what is actually happening during a situation, no matter their emotions, and to work with her to reconcile situations. Through individual conversations and campus trainings, Laura worked to increase faculty adeptness in addressing challenging classroom circumstances or even simple “‘I don’t know what to do now’” moments. Disruption, which can often be abated through further professional experiences, adaptations, and consultations, served as a core essence in teaching autistic college students.

Optimism: Experiencing teaching takeaways

Facilitating a course is no easy feat, though all CACC instructors recognized the value of teaching autistic students, gaining new skillsets, and finding transferability in their pedagogy.

CACC instructors continually reflected on how, while their mission was to teach their students, often their students taught them, too. Faculty expressed an essential part of teaching autistic college students, often through further experience with them: feeling a sense of optimism that carried with them as they approached teaching writ large.

Connecting with autistic students has also afforded invaluable rewards. Wonder recalled how one student demonstrated empathy in such an impactful way that it brought her to tears. Wonder mentioned how during one class she shared with her students that she would need to cancel the following class session due to taking care of her sick dog. One of the students, who had long seemed distant—staring at her computer, never raising her hand—removed her headphones and raised her hand. For Wonder, this represented a significant moment.

[The student] says, ‘I can’t… I don’t have a dog, but I can imagine how sad you must be. May I give you a hug?’ I mean, I still like get emotional even thinking about it because she was here, she was for three weeks. I was like, ‘what?’ You know, how do I reach the student? And all of a sudden she gives me this gift. And I said, ‘you know what, I would really love that. That would be really great.’ And she just got up in the middle of class, came up and just embraced me…

Jake has also valued the thoughtfulness behind students’ contributions, articulated in the research papers they produce, noting that some of the best papers he has graded were produced by autistic students. Supporting students, both in their academics and lives more generally, provided much fulfillment. As Grace put it, “I like being part of an effort to empower these students.”

Through teaching in CACC, instructors translated some successful measures to other courses. Ellen said one activity, engaging students in mindful listening, proved so beneficial that she incorporated it into her other classes’ curriculum. Craig mentioned how the students “might’ve taught me more about Universal Design [UD, sic] than I ever learned in any workshop that I ever took,” prompting him to practice UD broadly. Similarly, Wonder appreciated the chance to “stretch” her teaching skills. “I learn more from them than I ever actually teach them… it challenges me as an instructor to teach them in a way that’s really effective,” she added. Faculty, open to change and embracing their iterative journey as learners themselves, felt optimistic in teaching additional autistic learners.

Discussion

The essence of faculty experiences in teaching autistic college students can be defined by four main ideas: embracing their unfamiliarity with autism to work to build trust; leaning into flexible teaching techniques via welcoming feedback from other individuals; recognizing how disruption led them to manage course challenges in unique ways; and feeling optimism through their experience with autistic learners, thus extending techniques to students writ large. Internally, faculty experienced a mix of emotions—uncertainty, tension, and pride, among many others—in teaching autistic college students. These strong feelings, and moments of reconciliation, also manifested in adopting teaching techniques that benefitted their autism-centered classrooms and enhanced their capabilities as educators overall. In positioning this study’s themes against three predominant spheres of literature about faculty engagement with autism—perceptions, supports, and facing obstacles—some common notions surfaced.

This study illuminated a unique case: showcasing faculty connected to an autism program on a campus that boasts a higher level of awareness and acceptance than what represents a common collegiate situation. Yet these faculty members’ starting point in working with autistic learners often stemmed from a place of ignorance about autism, not unlike their counterparts at other colleges.^3,12

Instructors who felt the gumption to lay bare their ignorance about disability are often the ones who exhibit the greatest willingness to grow. Grace’s example, in which she acknowledged to her students that she needed to learn further about autism, showed sincerity without placing an undue burden on the autistic community for being solely responsible for their self-development. Here was the first essence—unfamiliarity—in action. Grace’s approach counters many faculty who place the load on disabled people to teach them about disability, albeit sometimes in positive and supportive roles as teaching partners.⁴⁸ Similarly, Ellen acknowledged how autistic people have long suffered from contempt,⁴⁶ and that sentiment extended to academic settings. Here, CACC enveloped its faculty and students in an affirmative, if not incongruent setting, where autism takes center stage and fosters more empathy in one another.

Mutual learning about autism can serve all, such as educational events on supporting disabled students benefiting faculty and the wider campus.^49,50 Although BMCC threaded professional development across the college, not everyone will teach entire courses of autistic students like CACC faculty. Having at least a baseline of autism knowledge can prove effective in dispelling common myths, such as autistic individuals’ disinterest in social relationships.⁵¹ Once in the classroom with autistic learners, faculty continually iterated their teaching strategies to meet the vast disparities in how students’ characteristics, strengths, and struggles surfaced, showing how the second essence of flexibility fostered rewards.

Faculty participants in this study demonstrated some of the tenets of Universal Design for Instruction, such as the principles of equitable use (Wonder figuring out break formats with her students), community of learners (multiple faculty creating spaces for small-group discussions), and tolerance for error (Grace exhibiting how she, too, makes mistakes).⁵² In both practice and scholarship, UDI promises the implementation of teaching strategies that are intentionally designed for diverse learners and can benefit all.⁵³

Akin to prior literature, this study shows how even open-minded and reliable figures in autistic students’ lives, like faculty, face challenges when overwhelming classroom circumstances emerge.^54,55 Autistic students who go on tangents can bother other people, neurodivergent or not,^56,57 whereas others may find themselves violating student conduct codes due to contradicting common norms.⁵⁸ While faculty aim to design comfortable spaces, even the most adept educators in autistic spaces cannot entirely prevent some situations from unfolding and can feel intimidated by the chaos. What CACC promoted, and many faculty instituted, however, is de-escalation, a transferable teaching technique that faculty can use with other learners, such as those with PTSD.⁵⁹

Faculty participants valued working with autistic learners and indicated that they drew from those experiences to elevate their teaching game across many spaces. In the end, the fourth essence of optimism showcases that the excitement of learning from autistic students can benefit everyone. Whereas some participants like Craig intentionally named the versatility of Universal Design practices, others like Grace shared how she needed to explain the reasoning behind and execution of assignments more explicitly. In this manner, autistic learners exposed faculty to how their practices could shape the entire vibe of the classroom experiences and benefit them as more purposeful educators.

Implications for research

Whereas this study spotlighted faculty who have direct engagement with many autistic college students in an ASP, the vast majority will not instruct in this format. The question then arises of what attitudes might faculty more broadly hold of autistic college students? Although a handful of studies have aimed to study this engagement,^60,61 these examples are neither nationwide nor longitudinal to track changes over time. Incorporating such approaches requires expanding the scale of studies and faculty participation over multiple years. Nonetheless, methodologically, these approaches would strengthen rigor and yield profound perspective. Scholars may also entertain conducting studies at a disciplinary level to uncover nuanced differences in how faculty teach autistic college students according to expectations associated with their field. For instance, might hands-on activities in laboratory settings be more conducive to learning for autistic students? This question and others may guide scholars to disentangle the differences that exist based on field.

Implications for practice

The prevalence of disruption involving autistic college students calls for more work in determining what colleges can orchestrate to better prepare faculty and provide campus resources to autistic students in distress. Identifying the commonly difficult and disruptive challenges that occur in courses—also extending to students with psychiatric conditions, anxiety, and those who may become easily triggered or overwhelmed—could illuminate more systematic changes to engage in more proactive, not reactive, measures. As scholars have called for,^2,4 administrators and faculty development offices must instill mandatory, recurring trainings to orient professors on how to engage with autistic learners, and conversations should more explicitly center around disruption.

In tandem, within peer mentorship groups, faculty can exchange experiences and gain feedback on how to effectively and thoughtfully teach autistic students, as illustrated by the useful conversations held by participants Jake and Wonder. Peer mentorship has long been used as a method for faculty supporting one another in their teaching.^62,63 Extending that notion to establishing a program that positions excellent examples of faculty who have worked with autistic students—individuals exhibiting characteristics of patience and thoughtfulness, much like participants in Austin and Peña’s¹ study—could prove effective. In that sense, a cycle starts of more experienced faculty cultivating autism acceptance—a trend that must be more widespread across college campuses⁶—in those who are more junior in working with autistic learners.

Conclusion

Autistic college students increasingly abound on college campuses,⁶⁴ and that influx requires faculty to leverage the opportunity to enhance their own preparedness to serve their autistic learners and, quite possibly, diverse learners more broadly. This study uncovers faculty experiences in working with autistic college students and how educators seek to enhance students’ classroom experiences. Its contributions are in showing the multitude of interactions and factors faculty must account for in their work with autistic learners. This study reinforces the value of four processes: building trust with students even in the face of unfamiliarity with autism; showing openness to feedback and adaptability in one’s teaching approaches; staying centered when encountering disruption; and finding takeaways in each new experience. These transferable elements can also guide how faculty view their engagement with additional distinct campus communities and, perhaps above all else, as Ellen exemplified, “listening with your heart.”

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the college and participants associated with their study for their extensive insight and contributions, as well as Dr. Xueli Wang for her continued support of this work.

Authorship Confirmation Statement

The author was responsible for the conceptualization, development, data collection, data analysis, and writing of the study and this article. The article has been submitted solely to Autism in Adulthood.

Language Statement

The author honors the particular language used by participants, though otherwise adopts identify-first language.

Author Disclosure Statement

The author reports no conflict(s) of interest to declare.

Funding Information

This work was supported by the National Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition Paul P. Fidler Research Grant; the University of Wisconsin-Madison Phi Kappa Phi chapter's Zillman Summer Travel Research Grant; and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Funding in the Graduate School Student Research Grant.

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