Autistic voices in higher education: lessons from U.K. geoscience students to inform inclusive practices for neurodiverse learners

Jeffery, AJ, Rogers, SL, Jeffery, KLA, Lucherini, M, Hulme, JA ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6217-1815, Griffin, M, Derbyshire, EJ, Wisniewski, KD, Pringle, JK, Hallam, C, Stemp, I, Lau, L and Bullock, LA, 2025. Autistic voices in higher education: lessons from U.K. geoscience students to inform inclusive practices for neurodiverse learners. Discover Education, 4: 326. ISSN 2731-5525

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Abstract

Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition which can affect communication, attention, perception, and cognitive processing, and thus has an impact on learning in higher education. This study investigated the experiences of geosciences students in U.K. higher education, using a novel qualitative methodology designed to be inclusive for autistic participants. Forty self-identified autistic geosciences students, across at least 16 U.K. universities, took part in semi-structured asynchronous discussions, sharing their self-perceptions, experiences of learning in geosciences, university life, support in higher education, and other issues that they wished to discuss. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, generating three themes: (1) Being me; (2) Interacting with the world around me; and (3) Facilitating change. Participants stressed the need to recognise the diversity of autism experiences and presentations, and suggested a number of recommendations that would improve their learning and wider higher education experiences. The outcomes of this study provide actionable recommendations for all higher education institutions to develop more inclusive practice for autistic students.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Discover Education
Creators:	Jeffery, A.J., Rogers, S.L., Jeffery, K.L.A., Lucherini, M., Hulme, J.A., Griffin, M., Derbyshire, E.J., Wisniewski, K.D., Pringle, J.K., Hallam, C., Stemp, I., Lau, L. and Bullock, L.A.
Publisher:	Springer
Date:	27 August 2025
Volume:	4
ISSN:	2731-5525
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1007/s44217-025-00639-8 DOI 2454859 Other
Rights:	© the author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	25 Jun 2025 08:47
Last Modified:	09 Sep 2025 10:50
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53797

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