How Liberal Arts College Websites in the US Are (or Are Not) Discussing Autism

College websites are a primary source of information for prospective students. As increasing numbers of autistic students head to college, we wanted to capture whether and how college websites were presenting themselves as autism-friendly or autism-aware environments. This is a descriptive study of how college websites from liberal arts institutions in the U.S. talk about autism. The top 50 liberal arts schools, as ranked by the US World and News Report from 2023, were searched for the following terms: “autism”, “autistic”, “ASD”, “neurodiversity”, “neurodivergent”, and “neurodivergence.” Five website areas where these terms may appear, or where prospective students may look for them, were identified: admissions, accessibility, counseling/mental health, faculty resources, and student life. Overall, the occurrence of any searched terms was extremely low across all areas. This lack of terminology representation likely reflects the reality of autism-related services on these campuses. On some websites, mentions of autism did not reflect a deeper cultural understanding of the term. The lack of representation of and information about autism and neurodiversity on college websites should be a call to these types of institutions that there are a number of students whose identities are not being recognized by these academic spaces.

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Publication Details

Journal
Disabilities
Published
2025-10-08
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/disabilities5040089
Primary Topic
Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

How Liberal Arts College Websites in the US Are (or Are Not) Discussing Autism

Simone Dufresne, Dan Rothstein, Anna Phillips, Eileen T. Crehan et al.
Disabilities
Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
article

How Liberal Arts College Websites in the US Are (or Are Not) Discussing Autism

Simone Dufresne, Dan Rothstein, Anna Phillips, Eileen T. Crehan, Abigail Donaghue, Anh Ngô, Natalie Bartlett
article en

Abstract

College websites are a primary source of information for prospective students. As increasing numbers of autistic students head to college, we wanted to capture whether and how college websites were presenting themselves as autism-friendly or autism-aware environments. This is a descriptive study of how college websites from liberal arts institutions in the U.S. talk about autism. The top 50 liberal arts schools, as ranked by the US World and News Report from 2023, were searched for the following terms: “autism”, “autistic”, “ASD”, “neurodiversity”, “neurodivergent”, and “neurodivergence.” Five website areas where these terms may appear, or where prospective students may look for them, were identified: admissions, accessibility, counseling/mental health, faculty resources, and student life. Overall, the occurrence of any searched terms was extremely low across all areas. This lack of terminology representation likely reflects the reality of autism-related services on these campuses. On some websites, mentions of autism did not reflect a deeper cultural understanding of the term. The lack of representation of and information about autism and neurodiversity on college websites should be a call to these types of institutions that there are a number of students whose identities are not being recognized by these academic spaces.

DisabilitiesVol. 5(4)
Pearson (United States) (US), University of Richmond (US), University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (US), Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center (US)
Oregon State University
Openalex Percentile: Top 72%
Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
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