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Argument, Autistic Pride Day Symposium 2024
Why three extra weeks fail autistic students who do not understand the question
In short
A panellist on the Sydney education panel argued in 2024 that university adjustments are offered from a fixed list, and proposed that autistic people check assessment questions before students ever see them.
Read it instead, 5 minutesThe transcript
The story
One panellist had a plain test for the adjustments universities offer autistic students. Give a student who does not understand an assignment an extension, the panellist told the audience at the education panel of the Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Sydney in June 2024, and the problem is still there when the extra time runs out. The panellist called the offer kind. “And 3 weeks later we don’t understand the question that you asked us.” By then, the panellist added, the student is also three weeks closer to the next assignment being due.
The point came out of a wider argument about what happens when autistic students move from school to university. A panellist opened it by saying changes were starting to appear in primary and secondary schools, though the sector was not there yet, and that many students then fall off a cliff. The reason, the panellist said, is an expectation that “if an autistic student is smart enough to get into university, then they’re smart enough just to deal with it.” The supports that were in place at school are assumed to be no longer needed.
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Sources the story draws on
- Autism in Australia, 2022 (opens in a new tab), Australian Bureau of Statistics
- Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Fact sheet 2) (opens in a new tab), Australian Government Department of Education
- Exploring the experiences of undergraduate students with disability who withdraw from university studies (opens in a new tab), The Australian Educational Researcher (Springer), vol. 52, no. 6, pp. 4195 to 4219
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