Best Universities for Autistic DD with social anxiety. Looking for flexibility

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Posting for traffic. DD has autism but is very bright academically. She struggled a lot in high school but has flown in her A levels as she is attending an online college. She would like to study psychology and work with autistic children in some capacity. Has recently started to make progress in socialising more but is extremely daunted at the prospect of having to attend classes. Are there any Uni’s that have the flexibility to attend classes in person or online, or any that are particularly supportive for those who are neurodivergent?

Absolutely this. I was about to write the exact same thing.

I would highly recommend her getting a job that’s customer facing btw, sounds counter intuitive but working in McDonald’s really helped my dd learn to cope in life, it’s structured, manager at her branch was excellent with nd staff (had several) and they have different shifts available to suit individual needs. She worked breakfast and lunch, saved loads for university too

The Open University?

My DD is younger than yours (Y11) but sounds very similar as she also has autism and social anxiety. She does most school online now and is coping much better than when she had to go in-person and we are hoping to continue online provision post-16. Thinking ahead my fears have always been like you that she wouldn't cope with transitioning to university. I have looked into things like a foundation course or HND/HNC at a local college which could get her used to "classroom" type environments while still living at home and without such high stakes, if that is an option? I think they can be transferred to be part of a degree if you go to university later.

I worry all the time about how my DD will manage to ever get a job but I hope she will gain more confidence with age and small steps.

Popping on to say about the page on Facebook - I'd look at Unis close to home - so if she needs to step away / commute etc then that's an option -
also maybe smaller campus Unis so it's not as overwhelming - if you'd like to PM
me happy to share our thoughts in detail as we've looked at this closely x

I'm a lecturer - not in Psychology - and I think your best options are the Open U or taking a year or two out to work on her anxiety in social situations. Lectures are being recorded, yes, but attendance will still be expected in some form. She will likely be expected to participate in a research project during her final year. It is unlikely that a university would deem not attending any in person elements at all as a reasonable adjustment.

I wonder whether attending something low stakes like a hobby class weekly might help her get back into the rhythm of being taught in person in a group?

I have a degree with the Open University and as other people have already said it is a great option to study from home, so from an academic perspective it is a good choice. It is quite isolating though, so unless your daughter was doing something like working or volunteering as well she risks staying too closely in her comfort zone rather than slowly expanding herself socially.

Would she be happy going to seminars, which tend to be much smaller groups than lectures, if she attended a standard university? I could see attending lectures online working as an adjustment if she could manage in person for seminars and small group work. She could maybe work up to attending lectures in person after a while by sitting at the back by a door so she could easily leave if she felt overwhelmed. If you think she could cope with that then she might be ready to give university a go, if not then she might be better taking an extra year out.

As a secondary school teacher with lots of experience of teaching autistic children, I would say your daughter doesn’t sound university ready and I would hold off on plans for another year or potentially longer. It’s great that she has been able to do her A levels successfully while being online and that it’s a platform that suits her. However, it will be a huge shift between that comfortable and safe environment where she’s at home and never has to be out of her comfort zone, to university where suddenly she has to be around loads of people she doesn’t know every single day. It’s an intense and discombobulating experience for a NT child - for a ND child who hasn’t coped with school, it’s going to be absolutely overwhelming. No amount of support provided at any university is going to bridge that gap.

I would strongly recommend a gap year. Many autistic children I have taught have gone down this route to build their confidence before university and it’s done them the world of good. Setting up a few internships alongside part time jobs has allowed them to develop their people and professional skills, widen their social circles, and get a better understanding of what they might like to do career-wise, all while having the safety and familiarity of home to retreat to at the end of the day. Many of them ended up going to university to study something entirely different to what they had originally planned, and others decided not to go at all and instead got jobs.

Universities have got a lot better in recent years with providing pastoral and learning support to more vulnerable students, but it’s still nothing like the level of wrap around care you get in a school environment. You also have to bear in mind that as your child is over 18, the university will not keep you updated if they have concerns. You have to be confident that your daughter would be able to ask for help and advocate for herself because the level of staff contact is not comparable to school and lecturers are likely to not notice as quickly as a teacher would that your daughter is struggling. Your daughter doesn’t sound ready to do this for herself and so I would be very cautious. I don’t want to be scaremongering, but there are too many suicides of young people at universities in the UK due to poor pastoral support and a lack of parental communication. As such, you have to be 100% confident that your daughter would access the help available to her off her own back before you send her away.

I would also, kindly, encourage her to think outside of the psychology/autism pathway. Literally every autistic girl I’ve taught has wanted to do psychology at university and help people like them as a career, and obviously working with very vulnerable people who need a lot of patience, support and understanding is not really something someone who struggles with social interaction is going to excel at. You need to help her to be realistic about what she will be comfortable doing as a job and what will suit her - and at the moment being autistic is her defining experience and the only lens through which she sees the world, so of course that’s all she can think about for a career. However, you need to be supporting her to broaden her horizons to give her the best chance of meaningful employment in the future.

If financially possible, take a year out, do some volunteering (with the autistic children she’s keen to work with) and then think about local unis or the OU
And at the same think long and hard about whether this dream is actually achievable. Sometimes goals need to be adjusted.

Fantastic post, @EnidSpyton.

Thank you all so much, I and my DD have lots to think and talk about! There is absolutely no rush for her, she is an only child and myself and DH both in employment. I just want what is best for her. She has started to go out socially with a small group of friends and is coming in in leaps and bounds. I have also thought the perhaps she needs to think outside of psychology and if she takes a year out then she would have chance to explore this. Also I thought she could do some short courses to explore what’s out there. But I truly appreciate all the responses U have had.

I think it is reasonable to question the parents focus of priorities here. If DD is set up by the parents as a virtual student of psychology it would just be deferring the need to develop social skills and confidence in real life.

You have got to realise that in the line of work we are talking about DD would, in just few years time, be facing some very difficult situations. For example talking down an angry parents on her own in the duty room, eying the panick button and wondering what to say next. These are the day to day realities of this area of work.

I worked as a Social worker in mental health for many years and for the training you had to demonstrate readiness, in work experience and academically, before they would accept you.

Definitely recommend deferring an doing a bit of relevant voluntary work and gradually building confidence before committing to professional training or a psychology degree.

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Does she play an instrument? Or sing? Could she, with support, join a choir?

Does she play any sport?

One thing that might be lovely is volunteering at a large garden (RHS or National Trust type of thing). Gets her outside and collaborating in a project - but mostly engaged alone on an absorbing task.

Sailing, again - highly absorbing and whether alone or in a group requires concentration on the task in hand. Look for your local water sports centre.

In order to get the most from university when she eventually goes, she really should be encouraged to explore experiences. There’s so much more to life than the purely academic, and it’s those other experiences that build the flexible mind that can really use what we learn in the classroom.

This makes a lot of sense. I'll be referring to this while helping my own ND DD. Thank you!

We were in a similar situation, my son is in his first year and absolutely flying. Does your daughter take any medication? Anti depressants have really helped. I would recommend a small, campus uni relatively close to home. Feel free to PM me OP.

Yep, medication transformed my dd. She’s in our (very) local redbrick. Easy to walk or catch bus. Although she’s still not keen on buses.

She wouldn’t have coped in another city.

I find it interesting that a poster says uni’s are better at providing pastoral support. When I posted on the lecturers thread, it said on my DD’s learning support plan, that her tutor should make contact every week ( he hasn’t) and l was absolutely shot down. They were vile.

Yep, I read that thread too, I wondered if they worked at DS's uni.
DS's uni has been horrible with support.
I would say ask the uni very specific questions about how they support, what happens if things go wrong etc.
DS chose a smaller uni over an RG as he felt they would be more supportive. This has turned out not to be the case, they have no interest in dealing with his (not that uncommon) disability, it's actually been jaw droppingly bad. He's having an awful time, it's now affecting his mental health and his studies. I wish I could shout from the rooftops which uni this is, but don't want to out him.

Thanks @NorWouldTilly .

To the posters talking about pastoral support at university, I absolutely would agree - it is often very poor compared to what you get at school.

I stand by my statement that they have got better in recent years in terms of providing support plans and giving staff better training - this has become much more widespread after the outbreaks of suicide at a couple of universities a few years ago - but it is still much less effective than most parents realise and worlds away from what you get used to in most secondary schools.

I always make this very clear to our parents when our children with support plans and other needs go on to university. The university has no obligation and often no right to contact you regarding your child's wellbeing or academic performance, because your child is an adult and is considered to have capacity and confidentiality over their own private medical or academic information. You can't call up the welfare office and demand to speak to someone about your child and what support is being provided to them - your child has to have given their explicit consent for their information to be shared, and if they haven't, then the uni can't tell you anything. You are powerless in a way you are not in a school environment. There are lots of cases where parents don't realise their child is failing, parents don't realise their child hasn't left their room or attended lectures in days, and so on.

You also have to be very aware that most lecturers are not interested in pastoral care and do not get to know their students on any kind of personal level. You cannot rely on a tutor to notice your child is struggling and to advocate for them to get help. Many university lecturers are also not trained to teach (you don't have to be - you just need a PhD) - and have very little understanding of SEN and differentiated teaching methods.

Some lecturers are fantastic and caring - but the majority just want to teach and do their research. They don't want to get involved with students' wellbeing and they will actively make themselves unavailable, pushing everything to the welfare departments, which are often chronically understaffed.

So, absolutely do ask as many questions as you can of the welfare department. But for a young person who has been too socially anxious to attend school, a university environment is not a place where they're going to get the kind of nurturing, wrap-around support they would need to access their education. Universities are too large and courses are too large to provide this kind of service, which is why many students with needs do struggle and end up dropping out.

There is a huge discrepancy in pastoral care between secondary and further education and I believe it is something that we need to do more work on as a sector. There are more and more students with SEN and SEMH coming through the education system now and HE just hasn't caught up.

I wouldn't ever expect to be dealing with DS's uni, he's an adult and he's been managing his disability since he was young. He's never had mental health issues before and is quite outgoing, but he's now quite depressed. As a last resort I did speak to the uni, but even with his permission they refused to engage.
I've just been totally shocked at lack of even the most basic kindness, some of his treatment is bordering on discrimination. He's not the only one, but students are afraid to take things further.

I'm an academic. It's not practical for us to provide extensive pastoral care. We aren't trained for it and have far too many students to do it well. At the moment I teach 900+ students. Teaching is only 40% of my contract so pastoral care would mean I have 0 time for lecture prep, marking etc. We do have a dedicated team for tutoring and wellbeing which helps and those people are trained properly but they are stretched with so many students experiencing anxiety in the post-covid cohorts.

I would recommend the Open university, I studied with them as a result of chronic illness and it was a very positive experience.They are very supportive of disabled students. She could take up hobbies or voluntary work to help develop her confidence and people skills.

Which should be offered to all disabled students and staff

100%

She's thinking about an undergraduate degree in psychology, not applying to for a clinical job in frontline mental health services!
OP says her dd wants to work with autistic children in some capacity .
Studying psychology doesn't mean she's aiming to be a clinical psychologist or even work in mental health. There are many avenues she can consider. Or she may change her mind and use her degree in a completely different field.
For some another gap year might be helpful but for some, pursuing academic study via a non-bricks and mortar route is best. Doing OU might be this young woman's pathway. If it is, she might then be able to cope with volunteering or part time work to gain experience and confidence along the way.
And if she still wants to work with autistic children there are many ways she can do this.

No, it's not practical for academics to provide pastoral care to huge cohorts of students, but this is where changes need to be brought in at HE.

Pastoral care is an inherent part of teaching in primary and secondary teaching, because there is a recognition that students can't do their best academically if they're not looked after emotionally.

At university, however, pastoral care is totally stripped away from the role of teaching staff, and a system of individual care that young people have experienced since the age of 5 is gone overnight, leaving them to fend for themselves.

It's a total cliff-edge.

For those students who have been on the SEN or SEMH register in their schools, used to 1-1 support, daily check-ins, heavily differentiated teaching, flexible deadlines and so on - it makes the transition to university incredibly difficult and many of them don't cope at all. I do wonder sometimes we have gone too far in secondaries when it comes to supporting students, as it's really not a realistic preparation for the world outside school.

There does need to be more of a bridge for vulnerable students to carry them from the world of secondary to that of university - but we also need to have wider conversations about who university is for and whether it's an environment that can be made suitable for everyone. There are only so many adjustments that can be made, after all.