Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Clinic Notes: ABA, Autism, and a College Education

According to a recent article in the Schafer Report (3/7/07) an increasing number of children with autism want to go to college. (By Shaya Tayefe Mohajer for The Associated Press, Huntington, WV. http://tinyurl.com/3y49da). We have children with ADHD, Bi-Polar Disorder, Depression, and a host of neurological disorders attending college now so I don't why students with a diagnosis should be left out. And I'm sure that I already have students with Asperger's or high functioning autism in my classes now. My question as a college professor is what accommodations do we make for students diagnosed with autism. My question as a clinician is how do we make these accommodations. For students with a diagnosis of ADHD we have to give them all of the time they want on tests and let then take their test alone in a quite room. What accommodations will we have to make for children with autism who have sensory issues? And will we have to adapt out teaching methods--perhaps using ABA to teach college classes? This could be interesting especially if the federal government gets involved.

3 comments:

Maddy said...

I am delighted to read that professionals are so willing to even consider accommodations.
Best wishes

Anonymous said...

Hi,
What would ABA do for college students with ASDs? How would it help them deal with the demands of college? I am in college, but don't have an ASD label so don't know what accommodations for autistic college students are currently in place.

Dr. Brown said...

I don't know of any accomodations that are widely in
place. I would think that ABA would help in learning
concepts mostly. High functioning ASD's ususlly do
well in memorization.