Unshared Realities: A Rhetorical, Double-Empathy Perspective on Autistic University Students’ Lived Experiences of Academic Acculturation

Abstract

Currently, only limited literature is available concerning autistic university students, particularly, regarding their internal, lived experiences of learning at university. This manuscriptbased dissertation, which includes three research articles published or accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals, investigates the lived experiences of autistic university students as they go through academic acculturation. In this multiphase, multimethod doctoral project, I used a qualitative, participatory design that involved a group of autistic graduate students who provided feedback concerning the data coding, analysis, and writing and editing of the three publications.