Evaluation of a Transition to University Programme for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Jiedi Lei, Steph Calley, Mark Brosnan and 2 others
PMID 30315485WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic students reported fewer worries about university after a three-day summer school and rated it helpful and enjoyable.
The programme included many components, so it cannot show which part helped.
Key findings
01After the summer school, students reported significant reductions in total endorsed university-transition concerns and in each of seven concern domains.
02Students rated the programme 4.36 for enjoyment and 4.30 for helpfulness on a 5-point scale.
03Of 96 students who gave written feedback about what was helpful, 93 gave positive detailed comments, and the most common thing they looked forward to was new social opportunities (39 responses).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The TUQ factor analysis was preliminary and exploratory, and some domains, such as support, did not hang together well as a group of items. After the programme, students re-rated only the worries they had endorsed before arrival, so the study could not show whether new worries appeared. Students from 2014 did not complete the written satisfaction feedback, so their views are not included. Feedback was written, which may have disadvantaged students with poor fine motor skills or difficulty writing by hand. The evaluation looked only at short-term worries and satisfaction after the programme; it did not report whether students enrolled, stayed, succeeded academically, or gained employment later. The programme had many components delivered together, so the study cannot show which component produced the changes. The evaluation used consenting attendees who applied for the programme, so it does not describe students who did not consent or did not attend.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the Widening Participation Department at the University of Bath, the University of Bath Alumni Fund, the BaileyThomas Charitable Foundation, and the Sainsbury Foundation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the lower post-programme worry scores as proof that the summer school caused the improvement. The paper reports ratings before and after the programme, many components were delivered together, and follow-up was short-term.