Professional Development Workshops for Supporting Autistic Students in Higher Education

ELLAS offers professional development workshops designed for college and university faculty who wish to enhance their ability to design accessible courses and support autistic students effectively. These workshops provide evidence-based strategies, practical tools, and expert and lived-experience insights to create inclusive learning environments and address challenges faced by neurodivergent students.

ELLAS works with organizations to develop workshops that meet the particular needs of their faculty. This may mean focusing on course and syllabus design, or on effective support for autistic students throughout a course, or – one of our most popular workshops – what participation may look like among autistic students and the barriers they may encounter to earning that mostly subjective grade. We also are happy to design a series of workshops for more thorough and in depth professional development.

Participants can:

• Review principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to create courses that accommodate diverse learning needs, specifically with autism in mind.
  
• Examine course syllabi and policies through the lens of autistic students to identify potential accessibility barriers and develop best practices for documenting the course design and requirements, and creating a functional tool for autistic students to navigate course.
• Explore strategies beyond academic disability accommodations for supporting autistic students struggling in a course, including:
  • literal communication strategies
  • peer partnering
  • body doubling
  • question availability for bottom up processing and field-dependent learning
  • approaches for project management and executive function support
  • tactics for assisting in task initiation, completion and prioritization
  • providing consistency and dependability
  • remaining flexible and approachable 
  • lowering anxiety
    
• Learn about the barriers autistic students face to meet professors’ expectations for class participation and ways to minimize those barriers.
• Understand sensory processing and communication differences and how to implement proactive self-regulation supports tailored to autistic students.
• Gain insights into fostering social inclusion and building supportive networks for neurodivergent students.

In-person, on-site sessions: Interactive workshops featuring multimedia presentations, group discussions, and questions/answers with an autistic and highly experienced Professional Academic Support Specialist (PASS). A resource list for further reading will be provided.

Online sessions: Live webinars for a remote option.

By attending these workshops, faculty will:

• Enhance their teaching practices to meet the needs of all learners.
  
• Contribute to creating a more inclusive campus culture.
• Empower autistic students to succeed academically and socially.

Contact Zan Raynor at ELLAS to discuss your school’s needs and customize the format and content of your workshop. Scheduling and costs can be arranged by phone or email.

To learn more about our model for Professional Academic Support for autistic university students, please visit the ELLAS (Effective Learning and Logistics Academic Support) website.

Read a case study that illustrates one example of how ELLAS’ Professional Academic Support can work for an autistic university student.

Read an overview of academic supports for autistic university students by Marci Wheeler through the Indiana University’s Resource Center for Autism.

Read a review of the literature on existing university support programs by Lori A. Wischnewsky, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Texas State University.