“A system that wasn’t really optimized for me:” Factors influencing autistic college students’ access to information

More autistic adults pursue higher education each year, but rates of mental health conditions and graduation rates suggest they are not being adequately supported. In this qualitative study, we report on factors that influence how autistic college students learn about the resources and opportunities available to help students succeed in higher education. We interviewed 14 autistic students at a public university in the United States as part of a larger project to understand the campus climate for autistic students. Participants were interviewed either in groups or individually via Zoom, or asynchronously over email. We used Reflexive Thematic Analysis to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset and provide a theoretically informed interpretation of autistic college students’ access to information about resources and opportunities. We constructed two themes related to the difficulties autistic students face in accessing information. The first theme was Challenges Navigating the Interactions Required to Access Information. This theme positions participants’ accounts of difficulty accessing socially mediated information within a reciprocal framework. The second theme was University Expectations Limit Information Access. This theme explains how university expectations, practices, and policies that were not designed with autistic students in mind can serve as a barrier to information access. Our participants’ experiences highlighted how access to information about the resources and opportunities that could support their success can impact not only their academic and interpersonal experiences, but also their sense of belonging to their university community. By better understanding the multiple, interacting factors that influence autistic college students’ access to information—and subsequently, resources and opportunities—we can move towards informed, structural changes in higher education that will provide more equitable access to autistic people.