Son not allowed to continue to second year at uni

[PocketSand]

DS2 has just completed his first year in an engineering degree. His results are all over the place from 1st in maths to 2:2 to required resits. He exceeded the A level grade requirements for MEng. He is autistic and has ADHD. He was un medicated prior to and during most of his first year due to shortages followed by referral to cardiology.

His DSA support didn't start til the spring term and one support worker provided 1 hour support when 30 hours was approved. He constantly tells the one he has seen that everything is fine and they believe him.

He always says everything is fine and doesn't ask for help. He has never been to the library and relies totally on lecture notes. He doesn't know what independent study is. I have always been his advocate but now he is expected to advocate for himself. No one at the uni knows these issues - he has not even contacted his personal tutor let alone disability services and just thinks he needs to work harder.

He found out today that he has failed his third submission of a lab report he initially submitted in February. He did not have DSA agreed support at that time so he didn’t have his own laptop. He borrowed another student’s at the time but when he had to resubmit no longer had access to his results and so he tried to cobble together a report using specimen (and maybe someone else’s results - not clear). He had previously received an email saying he couldn’t proceed unless he passed resubmission. I assume that’s where we are at now.

His feedback is harsh - shouldn’t study for a degree if not prepared to use feedback to improve his work. Trouble is he often doesn’t understand the feedback and he is unwilling to ask for clarification as he fears tutor’s anger. He says he doesn’t know who marked the work so doesn’t know who to talk to and seems generally clueless about most administrative issues.

I feel completely in the dark and don’t know where to go from here. Obviously I don’t want to just give up and accept his journey ends here as it seems very unfair but don’t know what I can do to try and enable him to fix this or if it can be fixed.

Can anyone who knows the system provide advice on next steps please?

Some students have a disability that makes all that much harder.
For example, difficulty with executive function is very common in people who have a diagnosis of asd and adhd.

Nope! This isn’t a normal circumstance. This young man has diagnosed special needs.

But studying at uni is by nature not explicit. Lectures may provide an outline of a subject but it is up to the individuals to be curious and find resources to fill in gaps. Even in maths he would not get given enough teaching to fulfil assignments on its own. The brief itself may need interpretation and choosing the correct format to follow. Progressing to year 2, even with a successful appeal and more learning support, without a grasp of this would be setting him up to fail and not do him any favours.is year 1 a pass/fail or do the marks contribute to the final classification?

@DontWheeshtMehis barrier to independent study is not explicitly knowing what this involves. Once he knows he will do it. Same with making use of resources in the library. What does this practically mean? You can’t expect a literally minded autistic student to understand what reading around the modules means unless this is explicitly interpreted. NT DC know what vague phrases mean in terms of what actions are required. ND DC don’t know what actions are required in response unless explicitly taught. And then don’t seek clarification because everyone but them seems to get it.

Students are normally supplied with reading lists: core reading and supplementary reading

I agree entirely with this

A major part of being at Uni and obtaining a degree is showing to the world of work that you can Independently study and understand on your own what that means.

Its the big difference between school and Uni.
Its a big difference when employing someone and an expectation that those with further study can of course go that

@LIZS teaching does not need to be explicit in terms of teaching everything that needs to be known. But the way to learn things that aren’t taught in the lecture needs to be explicit. It not about curiosity it’s about knowing what to practically do in response to curiosity. To someone who’s NT and comfortable with the library it may be obvious. Someone who is ND may need more support to navigate the library.

This sounds good, disability staff can ask libary staff to do a longer induction with him in September about all the things you can do in the libary. Some universities do this with all students identified as disabled at the start of the year so that they know all it has to offer. Again if they aren't told they don't know or pick it up, so it can be very important for them. I recommend asking disability team to email libary team to include him in it or do it 1-1.

I agree that when you complete your degree you should have learned what independent study entails and take that skill into your work. That is different to saying that all new undergrads should already have that skill. NT DC will implicitly learn it. Degree success should not be based on picking up implicit skills when reasonable adjustment for explicit teaching can be provided to ND students.

Would he be better off doing an NVQ in the subject? Does one exist for engineering? As NVQs are more clear cut and list the homework, reading and practical criteria. All work has to be either amended or signed off. Then all issues cleared up before each end of module. I worked at a college as support and noticed that the autistic students did well on the NVQs.

Students are normally supplied with reading lists: core reading and supplementary reading

What I was going to say. Aren't they given reading lists? Maths/engineering aren't my area, but in the Humanities there are always reading lists.

And libraries have extensive online guides.

I have an autistic son and tbh he was taught ( as were all three of mine) at gcse level how to work around a question
how to look for further information
how to formulate his own questions to further his understanding

Schools in small steps deal with this in the general classroom for everyone

So for example
English lit questions will be about subject matter in the book. Teachers explain how to dissect the text to answer the question but also would make it clear there may be several solutions and students will have got used to different theories snd how to source them

If students, for example, do history this comes up a lot because there are so many historical theories about things not set in stone.

This is taught at gcse level not as part of the syllabus but Just because it’s a necessary part of learning even at that stage.
Once at Alevel stage it depends what subjects a student is studying.

Are you aware OP/ds if your sons school for gcse did this.

I think without this key grounding a Foundation course leading to a degree after is the best course of action.

Nevertheless it sounds like things are sorted for your ds
I hope he feels better about Uni moving forward

Can you access his reading lists?

He should do all the required reading and the supplemental reading.

the old fashioned way is to get a journal article or a text book and read all of the works cited. Or the main ones to deepen learning.

I use this website for example https://www.researchrabbit.ai/ which shows all the texts that cite another text and similar papers. It groups them visually. Would something like that be helpful?

Not all disabled DC pick up study skills taught in a general lesson at GCSE or A level. Some need explicit tuition, which is why study skills sessions can be part of DSA support.

Does he know how to organise a literature review? For example. Is that key skill he has to learn? Does he know how to reference properly? Has he explored his library guide online for his subject (his uni will have one for every subject on the library pages).

you can sit with him and help him do this - walk him through how to do it but really he needs to learn to do it for himself so if you can give him the structure of what he needs to do, he then needs to go and do it.

Can you access his reading lists?

Reading lists are usually publicly available. I look them up sometimes if I want to see if there's anything new in subjects I'm interested in. Google university name reading list subject. You should be able to drill down into specific module reading lists.

To an extent you learn as you go, that is why he got feedback and resubmissions, but by year 2 he would be expected to be further forward to meet the next level of the demands of the course. Did he attend tutorials where he could have gone through the expectations and drafts in a small group? He would be at a disadvantage trying to catch up while studying new material, even with more support. This might be equally true of nt students who may have struggled to pass year 1.

To an extent you learn as you go

Without explicit study skills instruction, actually some disabled students don’t learn as they go.

The op’s son should definitely access study skills support. I’d be surprised if there isn’t such support for those students who choose to avail of it.

It may well be the DSA support OP says her DS should have but only one session has been provided.

As I understand it, but I could be wrong, 30 sessions were to be provided. The op’s son went to one, and since then has told the support provider he’s fine and doesn’t need support.

additionally, there should be general studies skills support he can book on to, or even in some unis drop in sessions.

It might also be worth him accessing free study skills courses online via futurelearn or openlearn such as https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/skills-to-succeed-at-university

That isn’t what OP said. She posted “DS2 can’t have failed to engage with support that was not provided” and “DS2 has attended every support session provided. Unfortunately the sessions have not been provided for one of the tutors despite him emailing (on my insistence) multiple times. A single session was finally set up at the end of the third term!”

For some, general study skills support may not be appropriate. Hence specialist study skills support sessions being funded via DSA.

Maybe I’m wrong but the op said this in her first post:

His DSA support didn't start til the spring term and one support worker provided 1 hour support when 30 hours was approved. He constantly tells the one he has seen that everything is fine and they believe him.

I took it to mean they were trying to get him to engage with support and he was saying he was fine so therefore no more support was organised?