Support for students with ASD

[TabithaTiger]

Hello I'm hoping someone with someone with some experience or knowledge of university support for students with ASD will be able to advise me.

My DS has recently been diagnosed with Autism and ADHD. He's 23. He's attempted uni twice in the past.a the first time at 18 when he quit on the first term as the course wasn't right. Second time he made it to second year but has a melt down midway through the second term as he wasn't coping with the online learning during Covid and generally was struggling and not in a good way. He came home in Feb 21 and moved in with his girlfriend. He's since been working on and off. We paid privately for assessments and he was diagnosed with Autism and ADHD.

He's now talking about going to uni again in September. Music is the only thing he really cares about and he's found a course that looks brilliant on paper at a uni about 30 minutes train journey from where we live.

I want to support him but I really don't want this to go the same way as the last two times. I know university's all day they offer excellent support for students with disabilities, but what does this look like in reality?

Also, I don't know even know if he would be entitled to apply for a student loan after leaving two courses, so any advice anyone can offer would be much appreciated. Thank you.

I think your DS is amazing wanting to go off to Uni again. It's hard to get through and a lot of students with
ASD don't complete their course.
My advice would be for your your DS to apply for DSA (disabled students allowance). They get assessed on what tech, travel and general support they are entitled to.
Also contact the university Student support as they can help. I would also make sure the academic department is aware early on, make sure tutors are aware and if there are any wobbles, the relevant people are informed so that extensions or exam concessions can be put in place.

As I understand it, he formula for funding is 'length of current course, plus one year, minus any previous years'. So technically, his would be:
3 (presumably)
Plus 1 = 4
Minus 3 (the years completed / started previously) = 1

So student finance would only kick in for his 3rd year.

However, if the reasons for him leaving the previous two times were documented as being for health reasons (or he can get that evidenced now), he should be able to get finance from first year for the new course.

He needs to contact SFE for advice.

Marching is correct on the student finance front, he will have to pay his own fees for first two years. They will sometimes grant extra funding for medical needs but in my experience this takes a long time to get through so it’s unlikely to be sorted for a September start