I hope you don't mind my intruding, I know I probably shouldn't technically be here, but I hope you can help!
I'm working with a university, trying to improve access to people with all disabilities, and at present, when we ask for feedback, those with ASDs are always one of the least satisfied, so that's where we are starting our improvements.
We believe that students are coming and in many cases working really hard and doing really well, but this, coupled with the characteristic social difficulties, makes them less content with their non-academic life, which makes them less satisfied overall. Our research has generally shown that those with disabilities do less outside of the classroom, and have lower satisfaction rates, and this is even more noticeable in those with ASDs
We're working to improve this, and we think a good place to start would be an informal "support group" type scenario. Would this be better as a general disability service, or more specifically depending on what the exact nature of it is?
Has anyone got any experience of anything like this that can recommend what works? What sort of things are people interested in talking about? We are also considering supporting a student lead body to represent the views of disabled students on a slightly wider scale.
We are also proposing a general 'drop-in' service for short discussions about academic or social issues with our existing advisors.
Are we going the right way?
Do we need to be more specific with ASDs, rather than throwing all disabilities, health conditions, psychological problems and learning differences all together?
Has anyone got any experience of this at other places that can tell us what you did differently?
Thanks in advance for your help guys!
02 Nov 2011, 8:02 pm
