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.

This is my sector and in all honesty they're all pretty dreadful. The support system is old-fashioned and based on the view that being autistic automatically means you are disabled.

The medical criteria for autism changed dramatically around the 90s (becoming significantly wider) and this means the majority of autistic individuals do not know they are autistic until they are studying at postgrad level. Despite this, the support is focused on 18 year olds, including; summer schools, Wednesday afternoon social clubs etc. Reasonable adjustments are often a tick box exercise that are based on stereotypical views of the labels you have rather than your actual needs.

Through the DSA your child would be eligible for autism mentoring and perhaps study skills support. Autism mentors are often very poorly paid and its hit and miss whether they'll have someone who tries to change them or empower them.

Peace and quiet rejuvenate me so I found the constant social demands of undergraduate studies exhausting. The only RA I needed at that age was my own studio flat. Think about your child's needs first and then use that list to help you find the right university.

I'd love to work at Nottingham Trent. They claim to follow the social model of disability but keep referring to autism as a disorder. As an autistic, I'm firmly in the camp that having the autistic neurotype doesn't automatically mean your disabled, frustratingly, due to the discriminatory language they use in job adverts I'm unable to apply for a post supporting students like myself

Echoing others. Anywhere but Warwick

My child has MH difficulties (disclosed) and the support has been appalling. It has done more harm than good.

It’s so sad to hear of others struggling, I must say it was a very difficult time for my DS made massively more difficult by Covid. DS did not get any proper support and became very depressed, something he is still struggling with and now he doesn’t know what to do next/how to move on with his life.
I think looking back he was not as ready as we thought he was to look after himself and as he dropped a grade he didn’t get into his preferred university choices, although he/we were very happy that he got into UEA we hadn’t researched the support side of things as well as we should have.
I do think a smaller university would have been a better idea, it’s so easy to get caught up in the whole image/rating of a university but my DS isn’t that sociable, doesn’t drink or play sports so most things other students are looking at/for didn’t matter to him.
He did make friends and liked feeling independent even though he didn’t look after himself that well. I also think now that he’s just not very mature and I wish he had waited a bit longer before going, he just wasn’t ready for it.

Derby were pretty good with DD

Cardiff and Birmingham (both Original and Metropolitan) were also very good in what they said they offered.
Warwick hopeless.