Neurodiverse students

Why might it be of interest?

Going to University can be challenging for many of our young people and it can be especially so for neurodiverse young people.

It’s difficult to predict what will go well and what the challenges will be – they may not be what you expect at all.

The following is advice from a professional who supports neurodiverse students at their university and from a parent with direct experience.

This is advice from a parent of a disabled young person who offers study skills support as a volunteer to students in receipt of the Disabled Students and a couple of students with mental health needs in addition to being neurodiverse.

Although one or two students found it too much and dropped out this parent thinks that for them it was still a good thing to go to uni, because one of them did manage to move out of home (the other commuted), deal with some challenges, seek out support etc.  The focus here would be on what they did achieve, not what didn’t work out – because there were achievements to be proud of here.

Student accommodation

There’s plenty of opportunity for challenges around student accommodation!

A lot of accommodation has shared facilities so if that could be problematic you might ask about living in their own flat – at least for the first year.  This would be more expensive but could help ensure they stick with the course as dealing with accommodation issues as well as academic challenges can be overwhelming.

Contact the unis your young person is thinking of going to:

• is there is support in place for specific accommodation requests for disabled students
• ask the student disability service and the accommodation dept directly

Induction days

The uni may offer a lot of support including things like a week in summer when neurodivergent students come onto campus and get used to it.  Check this out and take advantage of anything on offer.

The number of neurodivergent students increases year on year as a result, which is great.

This is the experience of a parent of a neurodiverse young person

• Make yourself and your young person known to the Disability Services team.  It is useful to have a contact when you need help or support.
• When a young person goes to uni, given they are 18 they are regarded as an adult and therefore the uni will not deal with the parents on any matters unless there was an emergency.  If your young person agrees, get the uni to provide them with a Consent form in which they give permission for the parent to liaise with the uni or act on their behalf.
• If your young person is not great handling money, but at the same time they want some independence to try and manage themselves, get a joint bank account, tied to a sole account that you can use to support uni expenses.  This was the best piece of advice someone gave to me!  My young person and I opened up a Monzo account.  It is super easy to do.  We both have a sole account tied to a joint account together.  We get the uni finances paid into the joint account.  From there I transfer what they need to their sole account.  This way they have the money they need, but not all at the same time (my young person is not good with budgeting or managing money if it was all sitting there in one lump sum).  This has worked really well for us in that I am able to control the overall lump sum but they still have independence to manage the smaller sums as they need them.  (I know of a number of young neurodivergent people who have had the money paid directly to them and then spend it all in the first month or two – leaving themselves – and their parents in a big pickle)!
• Your young person is likely to have to get to grips with learning in a different way than they are used to.  The way the course is delivered will be very different than at school.  It will be less personal – going from small classes with tutors and students your young person knows to a large lecture hall with no connection to the lecturer and possibly to other students; extensive self study and self organising.
• If your young person struggles to work independently, then see if Disability Services will set them up with a ‘body double’ group.  They don’t need to be doing the same course but they arrange to meet at the library and support each other which can be helpful.
• Some of our neurodivergent young people are not massively social and uni can be hard and lonely.  I cannot recommend highly enough that they try to join a group.  At my young person’s uni they have an autism group (called the ’tism group’) and also a lovely board games group, as well as the usual societies and clubs.
• If your young person struggles with executive functions and the idea of being away and having to organise, plan, shop, cook etc is challenging, see if you can get any additional support for them in this regard.  It may be that the uni will help them double up with another student or mentor.
• If your young person is not on campus and they have a diagnosed disability, see if you can get a disabled person’s bus card.  Travelling can be expensive and this has been a huge cost saver for my young person.
• Managing the non-academic side of uni life can be really challenging – and it could be these difficulties that impact on their ability to manage the academics.  You may have to pay someone but help with cleaning, home organisation and personal organisation might make all the difference.
• My young person failed their first year – studying a degree that included all their top subjects from school.  Not because they were lazy or didn’t work.  They decided to switch courses to a course that I didn’t think was a wise choice but on thinking about it I realised that the degree at the end is not what is important to my young person – it’s about the process.
• I didn’t allow them to feel that they had ‘failed’ the first year.  Of course, academically they didn’t achieve what they had hoped for – but we looked at what they had achieved – they stuck it out for the whole year and it was tough – that’s not failure.

And finally have no expectations.  For us the things we thought would be ok ended up being very challenging and the things we thought would be really tough for them they coped with OK.  Uni is tough for any young person being away for the first time and depending on your young person’s personality and learning style, uni can be very hard.