Autistic students at York University thrive in mentorship pr

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"Last year, more than 800 students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) registered for support at Ontario colleges and universities — a number expected to grow as more children are diagnosed and treated earlier.

Most campuses are ill-prepared to serve this new population of often bright, but socially impaired students.

York University has taken an innovative approach with its Asperger mentorship program, which is winning praise from both students and experts":
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article ... ip-program

Sounds like a good idea. When I was in college, I used my peers as mentors constantly however they were often not in suitable postions to mentor an autistic kid clinging to them.

I didn't realize this article was posted on WP, but I am actually the girl in the article. Please do not mention my real name here because some of the material I posted in this forum is highly sensitive and I don't want people to associate it with my name.

I actually regret going to this program, not because it was not helpful (it was very helpful in many ways I didn't even realize until now) but because of the field I went into. I had no idea what was going to happen when they put me into it and my plans for the future were not consolidated at the time (which shouldn't be expected of a first-year student). I was put into the program by the disability counselor and there was no disclaimer as to the fact that if you are going into the psychology field and want to specialize in ABA and/or autism, it might deter you from getting related research experience because of conflicts of interest. Basically, the prof who is running the program and the prof under whom my mentors worked in the research lab are two of the top autism researchers at York. I had no idea what "conflict of interest" meant when I was getting into the program. However, I then found out that when you have students from a research lab working with you in a clinical role, you cannot be their co-researchers at the same time. I have quit the program more than a year ago, but still am having difficulty getting into the lab because the students are still saying it's a "conflict of interest" even though I am not in the program anymore.

I also disclosed a lot of highly controversial views while in the program because I was assured it was highly confidential and I liked the fact that I could get direct feedback from the mentors. Many of these views have changed ever since - I am a very flexible person, more flexible than some people may realize. Point is, I'm scared that they might have held it against me in the end.

ABA is my SPECIAL INTEREST. I am miserably slaving away in labs that have almost nothing to do with my main interest and my main future focus just because this crap happened and none of it was my fault. I have the money to pay for private mentoring and if I knew this would happen from the start, I would have found a personal mentor from an area that would have not affected my research prospects and my future. If I don't get into the ONLY GRADUATE ABA PROGRAM in the province this year, I might do something really bad to myself or somebody else. I am just VERY angry about this and not happy with my life right now.

Maybe you should ask the moderators to delete the thread because

1. People will see your name if they link to the article
2. It is a trigger for you

I am sorry that this is happening. If you have not done so already seek help because life should not be over at age 23.

I doubt people will be searching up a link to see all pages where this article is linked to. As long as people don't post my name on the forum it should be fine. If someone does then I'll ask the mods to delete the thread(s) where my name is posted.

I was hoping to get some advice/guidance as to what I can do about this and also raise awareness of what happened to me so that others don't fall into the same trap. People say anything is possible but I really feel like a victim of something that I couldn't control because I wasn't even aware of it.

Pitty about this conflict of interest matter, I would like to know why they think it is a conflict of interest.

The normal conflict of interest is a money matter, for example if I was funded by the alcohol industry then if I write a paper on the health effects of alcohol then I have a possible conflict of interest. For example if I was to publish a claim that drinking a bottle of scotch each night prevented you from getting bad breath then I could be viewed as writing the paper as an hidden advert for drinking scotch.