Autism support at uni - any recommendations?

[toodizzyizzy]

We are looking at 2022 entry for my autistic daughter, she plans to study English and/or Linguistics.

Can anyone recommend any universities that offer good support for autism?

I am looking on individual sites, and to be honest I'm really disappointed with the lack of disability information on them.

Ideally she needs to be within 2 hours travelling distance from Manchester.

I've just finished at De Montfort and was diagnosed with autism in the middle of the course - I'll be honest, the autism team tried - but they were still heavily set up for the stereotypical "male" presentation of autism with minecraft sessions and sessions on how to understand consent and sex at university - which was a bit beyond what I needed as a mature student with two kids (therefore I'd already managed the sex thing).

In terms of general support though- my department were fucking amazing, and the mental health services within the university were brilliant. Ironically covid also probably helped a lot as one of the things I found hardest was starting the course and just how bloody loud some areas of campus was (apparently you can't advertise anything without a banging dance track playing in the background) - and that quietened down a lot once the pandemic hit, and was still fairly muted for the final year as well.

I found generally the key was to find the quietest study area (which was NOT the library which was like a fucking 6th form common room lots of the time) and the eternal wonder of noise cancelling headphones - once I'd nailed down the spots on campus I liked to hang out in between lectures, things were a lot easier.

@motogirl This is very sad to hear, those poor students. Was this all recently? My autistic DD may be considering Warwick and going by the website, the support for students with ASC looks good so I’m hoping Warwick have recently got their act together on this front…

Have you looked at Sheffield? Not too far from Manchester. My dd has auditory processing issues and investigated when SEN provisions they have and was quite impressed. She's been offered a place at Durham which is her first choice and also says that seems to be good.

Another vote for Durham. My friend's grandson has been well supported there.

My autistic DS dropped out of UEA, he didn’t get much support.
In my experience/opinion there is a big gap that needs to be fixed with the DSA system, both my DS applied and we’re awarded DSA, including supposed mentoring and support, the flaw is that the students have to arrange the support once they arrive at university, which requires communications skills that made my DS very uncomfortable. Student support were very unhelpful, hence DS ended up with no support.
with reflection I also think he also chose the wrong course and the course was too large, 300 students per year and some lectures had 100s of people. DS never built a relationship with any of his tutors so in the end he just stopped going. Next time (we hope he may try again) he will join a smaller sized course where he will hopefully build relationships with tutors.

Bangor has excellent student support, has quiet halls and a peer mentoring system. always scored highly on student satisfaction and well-being surveys. Also much less overwhelming as a place to live than a big city.

This thread is a goldmine of information- thank you op

Pre covid I worked as student support for the Disability and Dyslexia Unit at Worcester University. Support for students on the autism spectrum was excellent then and, as far as I know, that's still the case. Great to see so many universities offering good student support on this thread.

@Writingworries It absolutely is, I really appreciate everyone's posts. The disparity is stark. It's all the more difficult as we can't get to any open days, so this really is a goldmine of info!

@The

@ThePomegranateClause I have Worcester in mind for my dyslexic son. I've heard many good things about their dyslexia support, so great to know that the autism support too is excellent.

I'm so behind in replies, thanks everyone who has posted. It makes me sad to hear of the students who were not given a fair chance of succeeding. These young people will have battled through every stage of their education already and it's appalling that such vulnerable students have been left to navigate the transition to university unsupported.

Just to add that The Open University can be an excellent opportunity for students that may benefit from distance learning. They are still at the mercy of DSA support though.

As this thread is still live I thought I’d update a little, yes the package of support is put together by DSA but the Uni in r case has done face to face assessment with both DC

We met the recently appointed Autism support mentor and DD really felt happy after with what was proposed and she doesn’t please easily

we managed to chat with him while DD was having her DSA assessment and felt he really got the measure of her complex needs. Very much felt it was a can do attitude rather than must do which we experienced elsewhere

Can I pick assembled brains? My oldest hasn’t sat GCSEs yet. Would there be any difference in entry requirements for him because of the asd? Would a fewer number of GCSEs be acceptable, or is this a myth?

@Writingworries some universities do offer slightly lower grades or contextualised offers based on disability, but it’s a universities choice rather than across the board, we were given some lower grade offers, Reading University dropped the grade requirement, but it was after DS had been given an initial offer and had attended an offer holders day.
He didn’t go there, we had hoped Bath might do the same (as we knew the support was so good there) but they didn’t drop the offer and my DS dropped one grade so couldn’t go there.
I’d recommend attending any offer holder days you are invited to as you get a chance to meet some of the staff.

@Writingworries I believe they need a minimum of 5 GCSES including an English and maths

So basically say ds couldn’t manage the full 10 or whatever due to anxiety but got 5 including maths and English A-C equivalent in the old grades. Would that mean he might still get offers from Russell Group unis if his A level predictions were good enough?

@Writingworries I have to respect DD’s privacy as she is quite identifiable and has been bullied so don’t want to publicly state her exact passed GCSEs etc but she has multiple offers for courses and has only 5 GCSEs. All three of her A level subjects were grade 8 at GCSE

@Tomnooktoldmeto thank you and really appreciate you confirming. It’s a weight off my mind. I hope your dd will enjoy her course.

@Writingworries We hope so too, she has 2 results already as her exam board is a week before so just waiting for the one now

DS is also waiting so it’s an anxious house here

one thing I would recommend is get your documentation ready for submitting to DSA. I was able to produce bundles for both DC which made it much smoother. DSA assessor was great and has put forward a fantastic package of support but they need evidence

Thank you very much! I will have to get on to all that - a few more years to go for us!!

@Tomnooktoldmeto good luck for both sets of exams

Haven't rtft but saw that you'd mentioned Lincoln. I have ASD, went to Lincoln and had an awful time in my second year. I ended up moving home at the end of the year so unwell that I couldn't remember whether my grandparents were alive or dead and forgetting where I was going halfway through a journey. I'd failed several modules having begged for more support/to defer my exams and ended up having to engage a solicitor for them to let me retake the exams uncapped on the basis of illness. I was in receipt of DSA but my 'learning support worker' changed every few months and they lost my learning support plan and had to rewrite it. They also kept telling me they couldn't do anything that they'd written into my LSP. I just about got through the degree but not with any of the support I was entitled to.

Leicester was good, Warwick was terrible, Cardiff seems good but not completed yet

birmingham.autism-uni.org/

This is quite useful from Uni of Birmingham.