By Andrea Malkin Brenner, PhD | Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
Adjusting to college-level academic expectations can be difficult for many first-year college students. For neurodiverse students, the challenges may be even greater. But there’s good news. Studies have shown that neurodiverse students can thrive academically when they prepare for the transition to campus by practicing their academic readiness skills. It’s especially important for students with learning differences to understand how their executive function challenges may impact their academic success in college. Students will benefit by preparing in advance to independently manage their study skills, improve their professional communication, set up their academic support system, and most importantly, normalize mistakes while building strategies for resilience.
Assess and hone needed study skills
Neurodiverse students should be able to recognize which class delivery method (in-person, virtual, hybrid) works best for their learning strengths and challenges. It’s important for students to discover how and when they study best for a particular learning environment or subject area, recognizing that this may take trial and error. To set themselves up for academic success, neurodiverse college students should make sure they know how to best prepare for different types of written and oral assignments, condense homework and test dates from multiple syllabi into a planner, and commit to a consistent weekly study schedule.
Self-analysis is a helpful measure for a neurodiverse student to understand which reading, writing, and note-taking skills they will need to hone before leaving for college. For example, students should ask themselves if they can identify main ideas when reading academic texts or articles and if they know how to use varied pre-writing techniques such as chunking large written assignments into more manageable parts. Families, academic coaches, and teachers can assist by helping neurodiverse students build a list of study skills they need to focus on before beginning classes and a schedule for practicing those skills before college orientation. It might also be helpful for students with learning differences to research assistive technology (AT) tools or apps to assist with their reading, writing, and note-taking.
Practice professional communication skills
The required professional skills needed in college are often overlooked as college-readiness competencies. Professors frequently complain that their first-year students don’t know how to communicate professionally. Students with executive function challenges often struggle to write professional emails and send them in a timely manner. Students with social anxiety challenges may feel uncomfortable attending their professors’ office hours or even leaving professional voicemails, but these are necessary for academic success in college. College professors will differ in their styles and academic expectations, but all will expect professional communication. Practicing these skills is key for success.
Research and establish an academic support system
What is your student’s plan to stay focused in their classes? If they find themself struggling academically in college, what steps will they take to get back on track? It’s important for incoming students to research the academic resources available at their college before they arrive and set up a support system based on their learning needs before classes begin. Families will benefit from research tutoring or academic coaching options available on campus and decide if their student plans to use those services provided by the school or continue to use an existing academic coach from home. If the neurodiverse student will be seeking accommodations in college, it’s important that they communicate with the office of disability support during the summer before arriving on campus to learn about the requirements and procedures to apply for disability accommodations.
Normalize academic mistakes and encourage resilience
Your student won't have perfected every college-level academic skill before arriving on campus. And that’s ok -- academic mistakes are expected of first-year students and should be normalized as part of their transition to college. Students with learning differences may struggle more than neurotypical students when it comes to time management, in particular. When speaking with your neurodiverse college-bound students, it's important to emphasize that professors, academic advisors, and residence life staff all expect first-year students to make rookie mistakes as they adjust to new, more challenging courses and much less-structured time.
It’s helpful for families of neurodivergent students to talk through common academic mistakes in the first year of college and discuss together how the student will address them independently or with the help of campus academic support. Many first-year college students will try to appear cool and collected to their families back home, masking the fact that they might feel overwhelmed by their college classes. Ultimately, families can teach their college-bound students that much of learning is gained from making mistakes. Acknowledging a mistake, finding help, adjusting in the face of adversity, and then moving on is a hallmark of being a responsible young adult.
Dr. Andrea Malkin Brenner is the creator of the Talking College™ card decks and co-author of How to College: What to Know Before You Go (and When You’re There). She brings 25 years of experience as a college professor and university administrator to her presentations with college audiences. See Dr. Brenner’s website for her articles, resources, podcast recordings, and upcoming talks and webinars.
