Autism and Higher Education: Challenging the Power Dynamics That Silence Us
Why do well-funded organisations and paid media placements dominate the conversation about autistic students in higher education, whilst research led by autistic individuals is so often sidelined? This is a crucial question, especially as the volume of autistic-led research continues to grow, offering nuanced insights into the challenges autistic people face in navigating education systems. Despite this, organisations like SPARK, which benefit from vast funding, still shape the dominant narrative about autism in higher education. This narrative focuses primarily on surface-level accommodations, whilst failing to address the systemic barriers that prevent true inclusion and success for autistic students. By doing so, these organisations maintain a status quo that ultimately serves their own interests rather than those of the people they claim to support.
Drawing on my own doctoral research (Hoerricks, 2018), which explores the retention of autistic students in higher education, it becomes clear that these systemic barriers are a major factor contributing to the high attrition rates among autistic students. Yet, the commercial narratives driven by organisations like SPARK tend to focus on isolated accommodations like extended test time or quiet dorms, ignoring deeper issues such as the structure of curricula, accessibility of learning environments, and the social and sensory challenges faced by autistic individuals.
In today’s article, I will use Critical Theory (CT) and the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) to critique how commercial autism research reinforces power structures that marginalise autistic voices. CT allows us to interrogate the power dynamics shaping research narratives, while the PTMF shifts the focus from seeing autism as a deficit to recognising it as a difference that institutions must accommodate. This lens will reveal how power structures in higher education often fail to serve autistic students, perpetuating inequality and exclusion.
The Agenda Behind Paid Autism Research
The recent “Forbes article,” which promotes the work of SPARK, a well-funded autism research organisation, highlights a larger issue in the way autism is portrayed in higher education. This article, a paid placement designed to boost SPARK’s visibility, is not just an informational piece; it serves as a strategic tool for securing ongoing funding under initiatives like the Autism CARES Act. SPARK, as a beneficiary of this Act, pushes a narrow, agenda-driven narrative about autism that prioritises their own research goals—particularly genetic research—over the immediate needs of autistic individuals, especially those navigating higher education.
The Autism CARES Act has directed substantial resources toward genetic research and projects that often fail to provide direct benefits to autistic people. The Act, although framed as a wide-ranging initiative to support autism research, rarely addresses the critical issues autistic individuals face in education, employment, or healthcare. Instead, the focus on genetic exploration fits comfortably within the framework of commercial research, which attracts lucrative funding opportunities and appeals to the public by suggesting that the “causes” of autism are being uncovered. However, this does little to address the everyday challenges faced by autistic students, such as navigating an education system ill-equipped to accommodate their needs. The Forbes article, like many others, perpetuates this superficial narrative, promoting isolated solutions like extended test times or quiet dorm rooms, whilst ignoring the more complex, structural problems.
CT provides an essential lens for understanding the power dynamics behind these commercial narratives. Organisations like SPARK dominate the conversation because they have access to substantial financial and media resources, which allow them to control the public discourse around autism. This control enables them to perpetuate narratives that align with their own interests, whilst marginalising the voices of autistic individuals and researchers. The commodification of autism, wherein autistic traits and experiences are packaged as problems to be “solved” through research, serves to reinforce existing power structures. These organisations are not invested in dismantling the systemic barriers that contribute to high attrition rates for autistic students in higher education. Instead, their focus remains on generating public support and funding for research that does little to improve the quality of life for those on the spectrum.
By pushing an agenda that frames autism in terms of deficits that need fixing, organisations like SPARK sidestep the more urgent need for institutional reform. Rather than advocating for changes that would make higher education more accessible to autistic students—such as revising curricula, providing sensory-friendly environments, and addressing the socio-emotional challenges of college life—they focus on narrow interventions that maintain the status quo. This failure to engage with the real issues reflects how the power dynamics at play in autism research serve to maintain control over the narrative, ensuring that autistic-led research, which might challenge these structures, remains marginalised.
Autistic-Led Research: What’s Missing in Commercial Narratives
Autistic-led research brings an entirely different depth to understanding the challenges autistic students face in higher education, especially when compared to the narrow focus of commercial studies. Whilst pieces like the Forbes article centre on superficial accommodations, they neglect the systemic issues that make these environments so challenging for autistic students. Authentic autistic-led research, such as my dissertation (Hoerricks, 2018), explores the broader, more complex barriers that autistic students encounter, advocating for deeper structural changes—such as prioritising autistic students for appropriate housing from the outset and rethinking how professors engage with students who may already possess expertise in their fields.
One of the critical oversights in the Forbes article, and in commercial autism research more broadly, is the assumption that isolated accommodations are sufficient. This approach fails to address the structural challenges that autistic students face, particularly in housing. Autistic students often have significant sensory needs, and the ability to control their living environment is crucial for their success. My research highlights how many universities delay granting single-room accommodations to autistic students until their third or fourth year, if at all, despite these students needing these living arrangements from day one. By not prioritising autistic students for single-room housing, universities place them at a disadvantage from the start. Front-of-line privileges for housing should be the norm for autistic students, enabling them to create an environment where they can manage sensory overload and retreat from the intense social demands of campus life. (Side note, two of my sons - who happen to be neurodivergent - are attending the same state college and managed to get a 2-person dorm room together for the second semester of their 1st year. We’re hoping that they can continue that arrangement moving forward.)
Furthermore, whilst commercial narratives focus on accommodations that address surface-level needs, they often fail to consider how the academic structure itself alienates autistic students. Many autistic students enter college with deep, specialised knowledge in their fields of interest—often knowing more about a subject than their professors. This level of expertise, however, is frequently met with resistance from faculty who are unprepared or unwilling to engage with students who challenge their authority. Autistic students, who thrive in environments where their knowledge and interests are respected, often find themselves in power struggles with professors who are not ready to acknowledge them as equals or, in some cases, more knowledgeable on specific topics. My dissertation addresses this element of power and control, showing that the need for a sense of competence and recognition is crucial to autistic students’ academic success. (Another side note, one of the afformentioned sons ‘failed’ pre-calculus because the professor insisted that they perform the work in a single, rather labour-intensive way. My son was not wrong in their answers, but the power struggle was won by the professor.)
The PTMF provides a lens through which to understand these dynamics. Rather than viewing autism as a deficit that requires accommodations, the PTMF shifts the focus to the power imbalances in higher education. Autistic students, who already face challenges with navigating sensory and social environments, are often disempowered further when their academic contributions are dismissed or when they are denied the autonomy to control their living spaces. The PTMF reframes these struggles as responses to power structures that marginalise autistic individuals by failing to meet their basic needs for autonomy, competence, and safety.
In contrast to the surface-level solutions offered by commercial research, my dissertation emphasises the importance of addressing these power imbalances to improve retention and success rates for autistic students. Providing autistic students with the autonomy to control their environments and acknowledging their expertise within academic settings are key steps toward fostering an inclusive educational experience. By prioritising these needs, universities could significantly reduce the high attrition rates among autistic students—a problem that cannot be solved with accommodations alone.
The Role of Power: Why Authentic Autistic Research Is Sidelined
Power dynamics within higher education present a significant barrier to autistic students, shaping the way they are perceived, supported, and included. Using the PTMF, we can understand these dynamics as structural issues rather than individual deficits. The educational system, as it currently exists, prioritises ideals of “independence” and “self-advocacy” as the markers of success. This framing assumes that all students can—and should—navigate higher education independently, advocating for their needs without support. However, for many autistic students, this expectation is unrealistic and harmful, as they often require different kinds of assistance that are not adequately provided by the system. Rather than creating flexible environments that support diverse needs, higher education institutions continue to promote rigid standards of success, thus marginalising autistic students.
This is not merely an oversight, but a reflection of the power structures at play. Organisations like SPARK, which benefit from substantial funding and influence, play a key role in setting research agendas that serve their own interests. These agendas typically focus on areas like genetic research or superficial accommodations, which fail to challenge the underlying structures that make higher education so inaccessible for autistic individuals. By aligning their goals with commercial interests and appealing to funders, organisations like SPARK perpetuate a status quo that maintains their power and influence. As a result, autistic-led research—research that highlights the need for systemic change—is often sidelined. Autistic voices, especially in decision-making roles, remain underrepresented, leaving critical insights and lived experiences out of the conversation.
The power of the narrative itself plays a central role in this marginalisation. Commercial autism research, reinforced by mainstream media outlets like Forbes, promotes a one-size-fits-all approach to supporting autistic students in higher education. These narratives often simplify the needs of autistic individuals into generic solutions like extra time on tests. Whilst these accommodations can be helpful, they do not address the real, systemic barriers that autistic students face, such as inaccessible curricula, inflexible pedagogical practices, or the social power imbalances between students and professors. In doing so, the commercial narrative disempowers autistic students by failing to acknowledge their lived experiences and actual needs, reducing their challenges to individual failures of self-advocacy or independence.
By contrast, authentic autistic-led research seeks to dismantle these power structures. It emphasises that autistic students often arrive at university with different, but equally valuable, ways of processing the world, and that these differences should not only be accommodated but respected and celebrated. Autistic researchers, who know firsthand the barriers to success, propose solutions that challenge the very structures of higher education. They argue for flexibility in curricula, prioritised housing accommodations, flexible curricula, and a rethinking of the role of professors in engaging with autistic students who may already have deep expertise in their fields. However, these voices remain marginalised because they threaten the existing power dynamics that benefit organisations and institutions which are resistant to significant change.
As such, the narrative promoted by commercial autism research serves to maintain existing power structures, while authentic autistic-led research challenges these dynamics by advocating for systemic reforms. To truly support autistic students in higher education, the system must acknowledge and address the power imbalances that keep these voices at the margins.
Toward an Authentic, Autistic-Led Approach
To create real and lasting change in higher education for autistic students, we must move away from the deficit-based, individualised approaches that currently dominate. CT and the PTMF provide powerful tools to reshape how we think about autism in these settings. These frameworks challenge the assumption that autistic students must adapt to the rigid structures of higher education, instead shifting the focus to how those structures can be transformed to accommodate and empower neurodiverse learners. Through this lens, the problem is not the student’s ability to fit into the system, but the system’s failure to recognise and meet the unique needs of autistic individuals.
By applying CT and the PTMF, we can advocate for a new approach to autism in higher education—one that centres autistic voices and acknowledges the diversity of ways people experience and navigate the world. Autistic-led research plays a crucial role in this shift. Those with lived experience of navigating education as autistic individuals understand, in ways that commercial research cannot, what supports are truly necessary. Autistic researchers offer solutions that challenge the status quo and push for systemic changes, including the implementation of specialised curricula that accommodate different learning styles, flexibility in academic requirements, and sensory-friendly environments that allow students to thrive. By centring these voices, we move toward an educational model that not only accommodates but also celebrates neurodiversity.
Authentic support for autistic students goes beyond surface-level accommodations, and my research provides a clear framework for what that could look like. For example, offering autistic students front-of-line privileges for single-room housing would provide them with a space they can control and retreat to, something that is critical for managing sensory overload and reducing anxiety. Additionally, flexibility in the academic environment is crucial. Many autistic students arrive at university with extensive knowledge in their chosen fields, often surpassing their professors in certain areas. Professors and institutions must be willing to recognise and engage with these students as equals, rather than forcing them into traditional, hierarchical structures that diminish their expertise.
Moreover, the idea of “independence” needs to be redefined in the context of autistic students. Higher education institutions often equate independence with success, but this fails to account for the different ways autistic individuals may require support to thrive. Independence should be understood not as an absolute, but as the ability to control one’s environment and have access to the necessary supports, whether that be in housing, academic requirements, or social interaction. Authentic support means moving beyond the legal minimum of accommodations, such as extended test time, to create environments where autistic students can truly succeed.
Thus, a genuinely supportive approach to autistic students in higher education requires a shift from individualised, deficit-based interventions to a model that recognises the systemic changes needed. By using CT and the PTMF, and centring autistic voices in the conversation, we can push for educational reforms that provide the flexibility, recognition, and autonomy that autistic students need to thrive.
Final thoughts …
The Forbes article and much of commercial autism research focus on narratives that serve their own institutional agendas rather than addressing the real needs of autistic students. By centering on superficial solutions, these articles fail to engage with the systemic barriers that make higher education inaccessible for so many autistic individuals. Autistic-led research, like my own, highlights these deeper issues, calling for more profound institutional changes, such as front-of-line housing accommodations and a rethinking of how knowledge and expertise are valued in academic settings.
During the start of the pandemic, I experienced firsthand how institutions can avoid addressing these real needs. My school, Loyola Marymount University, was utterly unprepared to accommodate the diverse requirements of students when remote learning became the norm. Despite having an accommodations letter and all the necessary paperwork, the disability services department spent an entire semester filibustering, creating endless delays and forcing my care team to jump through hoops. They insisted on specific forms and language that didn’t actually exist, all in an effort to avoid dealing with the problem. In the end, it became clear that the accommodations I needed couldn’t be supported by their existing learning management system, and the university wasn’t willing to spend the money to upgrade it. They were hoping the pandemic would end quickly so they could return to normal operations without having to invest in real solutions.
This experience is emblematic of the deeper issues in higher education when it comes to supporting autistic students. At its core, it’s about money and power—institutions and organisations hold both, and they’re not eager to relinquish either. They control the narrative, the funding, and the policies, whilst autistic voices remain marginalised. Institutions and media platforms should be prioritising autistic-led research and centring the voices of those who actually live with the realities of autism, but they won’t do so unless forced. It’s crucial to critically question where the information on autism comes from, as the current system serves the interests of those in power, not autistic individuals. Only by directly challenging this imbalance of power and demanding systemic reform can we hope to create a more equitable and inclusive future for all students.