Faculty Experience With College Students With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

This article reports the findings of a qualitative inquiry involving two focus groups made up of experienced faculty who met to discuss academic concerns faced by college students with autism spectrum disorders, including Asperger’s disorder. Analysis of group meeting transcripts indicated that student concerns fell into categories related to difficulties with theory of mind and understanding audience, weak central coherence in cognitive processing, and struggles with executive function. Classroom teaching implications are summarized and related strategies are presented.

Keywords

autism autism spectrum disorders college students teaching

Contemporary colleges have the mission to attract, educate, and retain diverse learners. To meet this goal, it is necessary to understand both the nature of varied student profiles and the educational practices that promise to maximize success for all. Underperformance, achieving at a level below which could be reasonably expected based on intelligence, and past performance can be a sign of learning disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), socioeconomic stresses, or psychological disorders. One such category of disorders, which has recently garnered greater public awareness, is the autism spectrum. Students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are completing secondary education and entering colleges and universities at increasing rates due to a myriad of factors, including heightened awareness of learning differences at all levels of development, better identification and diagnostic processes, improved individual learning plans, and more effective special education practices (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012; Muller, 2004; U.S. Department of Education, 2000; Vanbergeijk, Klin, & Volkmar, 2008; Wenzel & Rowley, 2010; White, Ollendick, & Bray, 2011; Wolf, Brown, & Bork, 2009).

As ASD diagnosis has shifted to include more high functioning cases (Frith, 2008), individuals who would not have considered higher education in earlier years are entering colleges now. However, attaining a college education is a formidable challenge for many individuals with disabilities, who enroll in postsecondary institutions at a rate close to that of the general population but earn fewer credits and degrees. According to a National longitudinal study by the U.S. Department of Education, 47% of young adults with autism had enrolled in a postsecondary institution within 6 years of graduating from high school and 35% of that group had earned a degree. By comparison, the completion rate of a postsecondary degree after 6 years was 38% for all individuals with disabilities and 51% for the general population (Sanford et al., 2011).

The graduation gap for individuals with ASD reflects a complex interplay of individual, institutional, and social factors, and ongoing work in genetics, neuropsychology, public policy, education, and other fields can contribute to closing this gap. From an educational perspective, a first step in addressing the postsecondary achievement of students with ASD is to understand how these students currently fare at colleges and universities. Better understanding of how students on the spectrum perform in college can lead to more effective postsecondary approaches so that these students may meet their educational goals. The purpose of the present study is to answer how students with ASD fare academically from the perspective of faculty at a small New England liberal arts college. Specifically, this study uses focus groups to identify faculty viewpoints on the strengths, weaknesses, and teaching strategies for students with ASD.

ASDs

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev.; DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000), ASDs are neurological conditions characterized by impairment in social, communication, and behavioral domains (APA, 2000). They are spectrum disorders, meaning that “ASDs affect each person in different ways, and can range from very mild to severe” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012).

The primary distinction between autism and Asperger’s has been severity, with autism as the more impairing condition. In the DSM-5, due in May 2013, the separate terms for these disorders are likely to be replaced by a single spectrum diagnosis (Frith, 2008; Sanders, 2009) with severity marked in three-tiers from Level 1 (“requiring support”) to Level 3 (“requiring very substantial support”; APA, 2010). In keeping with proposed DSM changes, the single term ASDs, will be used in this article, referring to Asperger’s disorder and ASDs.

Theoretical Perspectives

To capture and create a deeper understanding of the ASDs, researchers have developed models to make sense of numerous observations about the disorder. Influential theories include Mindblindness/Empathizing theory, Weak Central Coherence, and Executive Dysfunction (Frith, 2008; Lyons & Fitzgerald, 2004; Volkmar, Paul, Klin, & Cohen, 2005). While these models are tools for understanding ASDs, they refer to cognitive and emotional characteristics that are present in everyone. Because it is not necessary to have an ASD to have a trait described below, these models may provide insight on a wide range of learners, not just those with ASDs.

Mindblindness: Empathizing

“Empathizing involves two major elements: 1) the ability to attribute mental states to the self and others as a natural way to understand agents, and 2) having an emotional reaction that is appropriate to the other person’s mental state” (Baron-Cohen, Knickmeyer, & Belmonte, 2005, p. 819). Empathy and the awareness that others possess other perspectives than one’s own progresses developmentally, starting as early as infancy. Mindblindness refers to a lack of perspective of other people’s thinking and mental states, and an inability to respond appropriately.

Research has shown that individuals with ASDs have impaired empathy, which leads to the conceptual framework of autism as a disorder that includes the inability to have “normal reciprocal social relationships” (Baron-Cohen et al., 2005, p. 631). Significant variations in empathy can be seen in the general population as well, and it is expressed in theories of emotional intelligence and personality. Awkward or strained peer relations would be a primary challenge for students whose empathy is impaired. Classes emphasizing small group work and discussion may be especially difficult for students with ASDs as they highlight interpersonal skills; critical thinking tasks related to identifying bias and multiple perspectives may also be difficult as they require imagining the mind set of others.

Weak Central Coherence

The Weak Central Coherence theory of autism suggests that the disorder comes from a cognitive style that diverges from the “big picture” way of perceiving, making sense of, and remembering, toward a more detail-centered way of processing. In this model, individuals with ASDs do not process overarching ideas but instead accumulate knowledge in a piece-meal way (Happe, 2005). From this perspective, the disorder can be seen as an extreme version of normal variations in preference for bottom-up versus top-down processing. Weak central coherence explains some of the strengths associated with spectrum disorders, namely, that individuals with these diagnoses can be highly accomplished at tasks requiring focus and facility with detail (Happe, 2005).

The weak central coherence perspective suggests that college students with ASDs, and other bottom-up processors, would have difficulty with subjects, assignments, and instructor expectations that are heavily dependent on top-down, or conceptual, processing. Activities requiring inference, synthesis, determination of significance, and argument, for example, would be challenging as each of these is based on big ideas. On the other hand, students with ASDs may excel at activities requiring accumulation of fact or data, analysis of pieces, and accuracy with detail. This research project investigates whether students with these profiles actually fit the pattern implied by the theory.

Executive Functions

Executive functions are higher order mental abilities governing the capacity to start, stop, and persist at cognitive, emotional, and behavioral goals. A student who must complete a class assignment needs to plan, or envision when and how to get the things done and predict and locate the necessary materials. The student must activate or find a way to get started, monitor progress, and notice when things have gotten off track, either conceptually or in terms of attention; finally, the student must successfully shift back to goal-directed work, in this case, completion of the assignment at hand. All of these functions are critical to work completion, but none is about the content of the assignment per se; they are executive functions or generalized cognitive abilities that allow a person to delay reward and engage in goal-directed behavior.

Executive functions are impaired in students with ASDs and other psychological disorders from ADHD to depression. ASDs are associated with a particular pattern of executive function challenges. Individuals with ASDs have difficulty in areas related to mental flexibility, including conceptual shifting, which refers to noticing when the main idea or favored strategy has changed, and attentional shifting, which refers to successfully moving one’s focus as needed (Ozonoff, Pennington, & Rogers, 1991).

How would these difficulties affect performance in a college classroom? If one has difficulty shifting, academic transitions become a challenge, including: transitions from one idea to the next in a reading, from one activity to the next in class, from one paragraph to the next in a paper, and from one day to the next in a weekly schedule. When these shifts are not made, students may become confused or fall behind the pace of the course.

Postsecondary Academics

The defining characteristic of ASDs, as per the DSM-IV-TR, is a qualitative impairment in social interaction and or communication, which may be accompanied by repetitive, stereotypic patterns in behavior, interests, and activities (APA, 2000). Theories of autism go deeper by synthesizing research findings into conceptual frameworks. Taken together, the implications of these theories create an image of potential academic challenges for the college student with ASDs.

Literature regarding the concerns faced by college students with autism is growing. The vast majority of postsecondary ASD literature addresses the social side of student life, including residence life, roommate relations, independent living, self-care, and dating. These areas are important because they are the foundation for adjustment in college and they can be impaired by ASD (Freedman, 2010; Wolf et al., 2009). Only a minority of the literature is dedicated to how symptoms manifest in classrooms, which are also social in nature.

Among the academic difficulties documented among college and adult samples with ASD are difficulty understanding the big picture, difficulty with long-range planning and organization of materials and time, and difficulty navigating group work and other social aspects of the classroom (Wolf et al., 2009). Adults with high functioning autism have been found to write lower quality and shorter expository pieces than a comparison group who were matched for verbal IQ (H. M. Brown & Klein, 2011), and children and adolescents with autism have been found to decode text very well but struggle understanding it (O’Connor & Klein, 2004; Randi, Newman, & Grigorinko, 2010). Problems with executive functioning, including time management, have been noted for or college students with ASD (Perner, 2007; Roberts, 2010), but greater systematic inquiry is needed to understand the impact of executive functioning deficits on academic functioning (T. E. Brown, 2008).

While a few colleges offer programs for college students with autism and more colleges are offering training to faculty and staff, the numbers are still relatively small (CBS News Staff, 2012). A review of publications regarding the transition between high school and college assessed institutional areas of difficulty in serving students with autism, which included inconsistent identification and service delivery to students on the spectrum, large class sizes, and limited contact between tutors and students (Adreon & Durocher, 2007). Presently, services offered to postsecondary students with ASD are sparse but growing as postsecondary institutions make steps toward serving this subset of students.

Method

This project complements inferences one can make from theories, by identifying faculty viewpoints on the strengths, weaknesses, and teaching strategies for students with ASD. The following research questions were investigated using focus group methodology:

Research Question 1: What are faculty observations of the academic strengths and weaknesses of college students with ASD?

Research Question 2: What are faculty observations of the critical thinking abilities and challenges exhibited by college students with ASD?

Research Question 3: Which instructional practices have faculty found effective for students with ASD?

This design of this study was guided by Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research (4th edition) written by Richard A. Krueger and Mary Anne Casey (2009). This comprehensive, accessible volume for researchers includes guidelines, considerations, and specific how-to information regarding focus group methodology. In the present study, participant recruitment and selection, question development, focus group procedures, and data analysis followed recommended guidelines to ensure systematic inquiry and analysis. Following is a description of how the study was conducted.

Participants

Faculty views are important for at least two major reasons. First, faculty members have experiential knowledge of student behavior in academic courses. They can provide firsthand observation because they see students engaging in coursework two to three times a week for 3 months or more in a typical semester. Second, faculty are the immediate arbiters of academic success and failure, as such, they have direct knowledge of student patterns in meeting or not meeting curricular and educational objectives.

Two focus groups were conducted to gather faculty perceptions of strengths, weaknesses, and teaching strategies for students with ASDs. Focus group faculty were chosen from a small New England college which specializes in serving students with conditions that can impair learning, such as dyslexia, ADHD, and ASDs. Because the overall education program is designed for individuals with the above conditions, accommodations are considered built-in to the system. Applicants provide documented diagnoses, most often in the form of a detailed report prepared by an independent neuro-psychologist, physician, or psycho-educational tester. According to enrollment records, the student body is made up primarily of students with attention and language processing disorders, but over the past 5 years the number of students with ASDs has increased to about 10% to 15% of the student population.

Each focus group was composed of individuals teaching full-time at the college. Interested full-time instructors were recruited by email and asked to complete a questionnaire requesting the following: general college teaching experience, experience teaching students with ASDs, and information about how they knew of their students’ diagnoses. Eligible respondents taught courses for the majority of their recent employment, defined as two thirds or more of the workload in classroom teaching for the preceding academic year, and they reported teaching one or more students who had been identified as having an ASD. Most instructors learned about their students’ diagnoses either directly from the student or from the students’ academic advisors.

Eighteen eligible participants were divided in two groups, one of 5 and the other of 13. Every effort was made to balance the groups, but scheduling yielded an uneven split. The group of 13 was larger than the recommended 5 to 10 for this methodology (Krueger, 2002, p. 68); however, the researchers opted to proceed with the larger group in an effort to garner more opinions on the topic. Participants averaged 18 years of experience teaching at the postsecondary level, and covered a wide range of disciplines including world languages, natural and social sciences, arts, and humanities. Eight participants taught English composition courses.

Focus Group Questions

The research questions for this study outline three areas of investigation: faculty perception of general strengths and weaknesses of students with ASD, critical thinking abilities and challenges, and effective instructional strategies. These areas were covered in nine questions posed to each focus group (see the appendix). Questions contained one idea each, avoided jargon, and followed the logical progression from issues to solutions. While these questions are not a published instrument, they were reviewed by the Institutional Review Board and the Research Committee of the institution to ensure their fairness to participants. Two and a half hours was allotted for discussing the nine questions, and participants were remunerated with a gift card at completion.

Procedure

Each focus group met for one 2.5-hr session. Talking points were prepared for the introduction to each meeting. These introductions allowed the researchers to collect signed consent forms and explain the purpose of the study. Time was also taken to go over operational definitions so each participant would have a clear understanding of what the symptoms of the disorders were. Ground rules for group discussion were presented. Questions and cues were written and used with both groups; 30 min of discussion was allotted for each major area of investigation.

Following the recommendations in Krueger (2002) and Krueger and Casey (2009), the setting and time of day were chosen to be comfortable and to minimize the possibility of interruption, participants were greeted informally, and the moderator was familiar to the participants. One researcher moderated the focus group discussions, while the other observed and took notes. In addition to asking the prerecorded questions, the moderator occasionally asked for more elaboration from a participant or summarized a thread of conversation before moving on. To minimize bias, the moderator remained verbally neutral and avoided value statements such as, “good point,” or “nicely said.” The observer digitally recorded the proceedings, monitored time to ensure completion of the questions, and kept a brief log of participant contributions.

Analysis

Both group meetings were audio recorded and transcribed. Analysis occurred in three stages: independently reading and identifying words and ideas to advance, comparing notes to find points of overlap and disagreement, and formulating themes.

First, each researcher read the transcripts several times and kept a list of the following: words and ideas that arose frequently (i.e., three or more times in the focus groups), intense expressions from participants when relaying their experiences, and highly specific observations of the behavior of students with ASD as described by participants. By contrast, statements and terms mentioned once or twice, unanimated expressions, and nonspecific, generalized observations were dropped from the analysis.

At the second stage, researchers made a combined list of emergent words and ideas. Items appearing on both lists were considered valid results and were included. Items that appeared on just one list were reanalyzed. If evidence of frequency, intensity, and/or specificity was apparent in the transcript, then they were included in the combined list. A statistical measure of interrater reliability was not performed and this would be an improvement in future studies of this kind.

The final step in analysis was to categorize the combined list of results into themes. It is important to note that thematic analysis did not alter the ideas of participants but put them in a framework to be discussed. Themes that emerged are presented in the results section.

Results

In a discussion-based environment, two focus groups of college faculty provided observations and insight based on their experiences in teaching students with ASD. Results are presented in three broad categories: academic difficulties, academic strengths, and promising instructional approaches. Occasional quotations from focus group members are included for descriptive purposes.

Academic Difficulties

Faculty discussed areas of academic challenge for students with ASD. Their observations and insights regarding academic challenges clustered in three categories: social skills deficits that manifest in the classroom, critical thinking challenges related to understanding audience and generalizing from specifics, and apparent anxiety that can interfere with learning.

Social understanding/social behavior

Instructors commented that students with ASDs appear to miss the nonverbal social cues of their teacher and peers at times. They may not notice when a discussion subject has changed, when it is time to turn off their computers, or when and how to contribute to a group activity. Missed social cues can lead to behavior that violates norms, and focus group respondents provided many observations of such behavior.

Students with ASDs are reported to not follow conventional physical boundaries, instead coming too close or not close enough to those with whom they are interacting. They may not follow discussion boundaries, by talking for too long, not long enough, or they may cut off others before they are finished; and their eye contact can be minimal or even unnoticeable.

Instructors noted difficulties due to lack of social understanding or unusual behaviors. Once participant said, “I had a student who didn’t want to work with any of his classmates, and the student was on the spectrum and he sort of justified the fact that he didn’t want to work with them he said well I’m smarter than they are.” In this case, the student’s justification violated etiquette for talking about one’s peers. Group work can move slowly and frustration can build in individuals with ASDs as well as in their neurotypical peers. Several respondents mentioned that students with ASDs often prefer individual work to group work and that their peers may avoid working with them.

Critical thinking

Focus group participants were asked a series of questions probing their knowledge about the manifestation of critical thinking in students with ASDs. They generated several challenges that arise in this group.

Audience recognition was the most frequently cited deficit. Respondents noted that students with ASDs show a lack of awareness of the mind set of others, be they readers, discussion participants, or characters in books. In the words of one instructor reflecting on the challenge inherent in writing assignments, “When we talk about writing we frequently ask students to think about the needs of their audience . . . and the audience is not always the person sitting in front of them or their teacher. It becomes a challenge to think about anyone other than themselves.” In another example, a respondent recounted guiding a student to include more rationale and procedural information in his lab report. The student was reluctant to do so because the teacher “already knew” what the experiment was all about. In this case, he did not imagine or write for an audience who did not share his background knowledge.

Respondents named audience recognition as an issue in social exchanges as well, citing behaviors such as saying too much, saying too little, or discoursing on tangential topics, all of which can arise when one is unaware of the needs and dispositions of others.

This study found that thinking on a big picture, conceptual level is an area of challenge for students with ASDs. Several respondents noted that students with this profile apprehend, generate, and collect details, but have trouble understanding or articulating a concept that binds them together. When discussing the challenge he faced, one respondent said, “They see the parts but not the whole.” Other respondents termed this an inability to “generalize” from specifics or difficulty with “abstract” thinking.

Discussion of the opposite pattern emerged as well, with some respondents observing that students with ASDs will often offer generalizations without specifics or elaboration. When asked, “Can you say more about this?” the response from the student is “I already said it.”

Focus group participants described the thinking of students with ASDs as being “black & white” and inflexible. Students with ASDs were seen to demonstrate a need to be “right” and to know what the “right” answer is, and respondents related this disposition to a low tolerance of ambiguity and receptivity to nuance. Other participants remarked on the cognitive inflexibility of students with ASDs, voicing that individuals with this profile do not readily make conceptual transitions, change their minds, shift their attention, or expand their focus from a narrow band of interest.

In summary, college instructors see students with ASDs as having notable difficulty with the following thinking tasks: audience awareness, integrating parts into a whole, elaborating ideas, and dealing with ambiguity and change.

Anxiety

The last category emerging as a key area of challenge for college students with ASDs is managing anxiety so that it does not overtake teaching and learning processes. In the words of one respondent,

Another consideration that’s really important in working with these students is teaching them to manage anxiety. Because in many cases what will happen is they will start to get anxious and then it spirals. Once it starts to spiral it is really difficult to get the student out of that spiral, and back to a place where they can think about course work.

This comment suggests that behavior-indicating anxiety is visible, that it can intensify, and that it can impair the student’s ability to engage in the work of the class.

Instructors commented that social, participatory classroom activities like small group work, labs, and discussions appear to increase anxiety in some students with ASDs. When students’ anxiety level is high, instructors observed more perseveration, rigidity, and withdrawal. Seemingly anxious students may respond by disengaging, turning toward their computers, or just leaving the room. It is unclear how participants interpreted behavior as anxious, and this point was not probed. Participants discussed the value of teaching students with ASDs how to navigate the classroom environment by pushing them out of their comfort zone, but agreed that this can cause a student to “shut down,” thereby curtailing the learning process.

Academic Strengths Associated With ASDs

Faculty members were asked to reflect on the traits of individuals with ASDs, that are associated with academic success in college. In comparatively brief discussion of this topic, three categories of strength emerged: passionate interests, the desire to acquire accurate knowledge, and adherence to rules. Although this section is shorter than the others, it is included because the ideas meet the analytic criteria explained in the methods section.

Passionate interests

Frequently respondents said that students with ASDs often have an abiding interest, like trains, horses, or the American Revolution, about which they know a great deal. Within a specific interest area, a student with ASDs can be distinctly passionate and knowledgeable; in writing and speaking about the subject, he or she can inform and compel others. In the words of a participant,

When you are discussing s topic that is of passionate interest of a student on the spectrum, (he/she) can go into quite a bit of depth and be very articulate about that topic, and know more than anybody in the class.

Another participant invoked the idea of expertise among students with ASD,

They are expert in a subject or two or three that they deeply care about and study and are familiar with . . . sometimes it’s good to let them write about that subject, where they feel great confidence and are perhaps an expert.

Faculty remarked that having a strong interest can be an academic strength when it enhances the motivation of the individual to practice skills such as, research, reading, and writing. Having a narrow, passionate interest can also be a strength when it overlaps with course content or becomes the basis of a graded assignment, although this type of match-up may be less likely to occur at the earlier general education level of college. Finally, the expertise and zeal associated with a strong interest can help students socially by elevating them as credible authorities and engaging others.

Desire to be right

Participants perceive that some students with ASDs have a stronger than average need to feel correct, which can lead to learning the “right” answers, seeking clarification, and attending to detail within course material. In the early stages of study for academic subjects requiring rote learning and familiarization with a large base of detail, having the desire to be accurate can be an asset. In the words of a participant,

This isn’t just spectrum students. It’s just that I happen to see it more with the spectrum students. I’ve seen that they tend to have higher anxiety levels about being right and wrong . . . it is important to appear to be right in front of the peers.

Instructors discussed the need of some college students with ASDs to acquire large quantities of information. One instructor called this the “banking model” of learning, and remarked that a profile within this diagnostic category is driven to collect or gather knowledge, in this case, facts or concepts, given by a text book, professor, or other credible authority.

Adherence to rules

Diligence in rule-following is a final area of strength that instructors associated with learners with ASDs, as illustrated in the quotation, “I’ve noticed students being super rule based.” Examples of following conventions include coming to class and appointments on time or early, completing work, and following lab procedures and other directions closely. If a concrete structure is provided, then these students appear inclined to follow it, which is a strength inasmuch as it poises them to learn in the course.

Promising Instructional Approaches

Focus group participants were selected for their experience working with learners with ASDs; therefore, it was hypothesized that they could provide experience-based insight about effective teaching practices. In discussion about what “works,” faculty responses clustered in two areas: providing structure and attending to the emotional climate.

Provide structure

Many responses fell under the category of structure. In a positive comment about the value of the classroom for students with ASD, one participant said, “They love classrooms because they are so structured. They would much rather be in your classroom than in the cafeteria. Because all of the social interactions are very defined.”

Respondents noted that ambiguity and change are particularly difficult for this group, so it helps when classroom procedures, assignments, and expectations are clear and follow a predictable pattern. Among concrete suggestions offered were sharpening the clarity of directions and questions, following routines, previewing what is to come, especially upcoming changes, and directly stating the format of the course rather than expecting it to be intuited. One participant said that working with this population has made him more precise in asking questions and more directive about the nature of the response being sought. Overall, discussion strongly supported the idea that making the course expectations as clear and predictable as possible was helpful.

Another aspect of a supportive structure is building opportunities into a course for students to exercise their strengths and to follow their interests. For example, if a student were to be significantly challenged by operating within a group, allow him or her the opportunity to complete some projects individually or with the instructor. If a student is good at collecting research, find a way to include class activities that let him or her exercise those strengths. Participants from across disciplines seemed to agree that creating avenues within the course for students to pursue their passions is important because it promotes engagement.

Attend to the emotional climate

A recurring theme in the focus group discussions was the stress and overload that seem to happen more often, readily, and visibly in students with ASDs compared with their peers. Instructors linked apparent high anxiety to “shutting down” and said that minimizing anxiety is a must for this population. Suggestions include noticing behaviors of heightened anxiety, and when possible reducing the triggers for anxiety. Instructors can also allow or encourage breaks when stress arises and be judicious about pushing a student to do something that might cause discomfort.

The importance of having one-on-one nonthreatening discussions with students as a means for providing direct feedback and support was mentioned numerous times in the focus groups. Instructors emphasized that using a nonjudgmental approach is especially helpful for this subset of students whose atypical behavior has made them targets for misunderstanding, avoidance, ridicule, or worse. A participant observed that some students with ASDs seem to respond better to instructors than peers. Students may prefer working ideas through with instructors to working on them with peers as the social roles and boundaries are more clearly defined and comfortable. An understanding teacher can provide safety and dependability in the social setting of the classroom.

Instructors reported that discussing individual differences in experience, expression, and learning styles at the onset of a course can reinforce positive self-concepts for all and help to smooth social relations by creating a climate of respect.

Discussion

Connection to Theories of Autism

Themes raised by instructors were often consistent with the three general perspectives on ASDs; theory of mind, weak central coherence, and executive functions. The overlap suggests that theory and experience are aligned and this speaks to accuracy in a field that forges ahead at a fast pace.

Findings from the focus group echoed the “Theory of Mind” perspective listed earlier in the article, which suggests that students with ASDs may have difficulty understanding and relating to the points of view of others, including authors and characters. Respondents observed that students experience “Theory of Mind” deficits in real time social situations as well. Whether they have an ASD or not, when students have difficulty understanding the mind set of an audience, they are in a poor position to communicate effectively as they have little idea of what their peers and readers need, want, or do not want to hear. The ensuing social difficulties can be significant as the student may be misunderstood and subtly chastised while peers or the instructor may feel unheard or unrecognized.

A second model for understanding ASDs, weak central coherence, leads to the proposition that individuals with this diagnosis will have difficulty with critical thinking tasks associated with conceptual, big-picture understanding; the experiences of this focus group study suggests that this is accurate. Deficits in conceptual thinking present a significant challenge in college where students must think abstractly and use mental shortcuts to keep up with a high volume of material. For example, in psychology, understanding the major schools of thought helps one sort, categorize, remember, and evaluate a wide range of material presented in a course. Without the aid of an overriding context, it would be difficult to manage the higher volumes of reading and rapid coverage of ideas that is typical in college classes.

The Executive Functions perspective, which is the third conceptual model considered in this article, asserts that individuals with ASDs have difficulty shifting from one concept to another and from one focus to another (Semrud-Clikeman, Walkowiak, Wilkinson, & Butcher, 2010). Deficits in cognitive flexibility can pose unique challenges in college, where routines and expectations may be more fragmented than they are at a secondary school level. College schedules are irregular, with intervals of class interspersed with large segments of unscheduled time; academic departments and individual faculty members hold different and sometimes conflicting expectations for student performance; and social norms vary across contexts within a single institution. Successfully navigating the diverse environments encountered daily at a college requires mentally shifting one’s approach numerous times, and this is more challenging for individuals who cannot shift easily.

Faculty respondents frequently mentioned anxiety as a significant classroom problem for students with ASDs, noting that anxiety occurs visibly in this group and can be an obstacle to learning. While the affective aspects of ASDs do not fall within the scope of theories presented, this study found that faculty believe anxiety is a key area of difficulty in the classroom for college students with ASDs. While the faculty participants recruited for this study are not experts in the field of autism, their perceptions align with a great deal of literature showing the high co-occurrence of clinical levels of anxiety with ASD (Mayes, Calhoun, Murray, & Zahid, 2011; van Steensel, Bogels, & Perrin, 2011).

Promising Instructional Approaches

This study sought instructor perspectives on effective teaching practices for students with ASDs. Responses clustered in two categories, providing structure and reducing anxiety. Participants expressed that incorporating structure and predictability is an effective approach for students with ASDs and offered strategies that directly address areas of difficulty for this group. For instance, previewing and using routines reduces confusion and helps learners transition from one topic to the next by giving time and notice that a different focal point is coming. Using concrete language and unambiguous questions can help students who are less adept at abstract thinking, and stating behavioral expectations explicitly can reduce social errors and indiscretions thereby increasing positive social experiences for all.

Focus group analysis suggested that minimizing anxiety-provoking situations is another key approach for faculty working with students with ASDs. Triggers for nervousness vary across individuals, so effective teaching starts with identifying situations and tasks that are likely to cause stress in general or for a particular learner, developing awareness of the emotional state of students, and noticing agitation while it is still low.

The approaches for college students found in this study align with recommendations for noticing and intervening at the onset of agitation, termed the rumbling stage, in children with autism (Myles, 2003) and with recommendations for reducing sensory stimuli that appear to cause agitation (Ashburner, Ziviani, & Rodger, 2008). Other recommendations for managing anxiety that did not arise in the focus groups include screening and treating individuals with ASD for anxiety disorders, implementing cognitive behavioral therapy, and teaching social skills (Mayes et al., 2011; Moree & Thompson, 2010, Myles, 2003). While anxiety diagnosis and treatment, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, must happen in a clinical setting, instructors can develop greater awareness of the affective dimension of class and thereby be in a better position to keep all students engaged.

While these focus group results pertain specifically to instructor experiences with learners with ASDs, the conceptual underpinning provides heuristics that may be broadly helpful. Instructors can best provide appropriate challenge and support when they quickly identify that a student is having difficulty with reciprocal social relations, “big-picture” thinking, engaging in organized, goal-directed behavior, or managing anxiety, regardless of the presence or absence of a disorder. In addition, the principles of providing structure and minimizing anxiety may benefit typical students who struggle in these areas for other reasons.

Limitations

This study begins to address a gap in knowledge about the higher education of students with ASDs, but it has limitations. Like other focus group studies, the findings are not immediately generalizable due to the small size and self-selected, homogeneous participant sample. All participants taught at a small 2-year college with a niche mission to educate students with learning differences, therefore, their experience with students with ASDs may be qualitatively different than that of instructors at larger, traditional colleges and universities. The retrospective study asked instructors to remember the behaviors of students in current and former classes, which introduces the possibility of biased, incomplete, and fallible memories on the part of participants. Finally, the focus group design itself, due to tacit social pressures that come with expressing oneself publicly, may have yielded themes and consensus that would not emerge in anonymous response methods.

The small sample size and qualitative method limit the reach of this study; however, it illustrates an emerging phenomenon and adds to the basis for future research on the learning needs of college students with ASDs. In addition, the theoretical framework for understanding ASDs may provide useful insight about human variation in the general population.

Conclusion

College students with ASDs, who can be cognitively capable or even gifted, still face significant challenges, specifically in classroom social interaction, critical thinking, and cognitive flexibility. Creating an inclusive learning environment that is perceived as safe yet challenging by all students is a far-reaching hope and a critical goal for institutions accountable for educating the wide variety of students who graduate from high school and are admitted to college. Continued research and ongoing education about learning differences like ASDs will aid many, from those directly affected to those making remote but influential policy decisions. Students, faculty, families, advisors, disability officers, and other professionals in higher education must understand the scope of challenges as well as strategies for success as they make important and increasingly expensive decisions about higher education.

Footnotes

Appendix: Focus Group Questions

(Scripted transitions are in bold.)

“The first questions are about how you see students with Asperger’s Disorder (AD) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) functioning in your course.”

What can get in the way of students with Asperger’s disorder and ASDs meeting your course objectives?

Prompts: “consider social issues,” “consider academic issues”

What general traits make students with AD and ASD suited for success in your course?

“Since critical thinking and intellectual development are key goals of the academic side of college, a couple of questions ask specifically how students with AD and ASD seem to function in these areas.”

Can you make any generalizations about the kinds of intellectual or critical thinking activities that this group is good at?

What intellectual or critical thinking demands challenge this group? How would you characterize the challenges?

Have you found ways to work with these challenges? Please describe them.

“The last few questions are about your experience of what has worked for these students.”

What kinds of in-class teaching and learning activities work best for these students?

What features of assignment and course design seem to best address the challenges of this group?

How do you balance support and challenge regarding the social aspects of the class for students with AD and ASD?

What other considerations are important for optimizing learning for students with AD and ASD?

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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