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Article

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

by
Eileen T. Crehan
1,2,*,
Anna Phillips
3,
Anh Ngo
2,
Abigail Donaghue
2,
Natalie Bartlett
2,
Daniella Rothstein
2 and
Simone R. Dufresne
2
1
Eunice K. Shriver Center, Department of Pediatrics, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, MA 01655, USA
2
Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study & Human Development, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA
3
Department of Psychology, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Disabilities 2025, 5(4), 89; https://doi.org/10.3390/disabilities5040089
Submission received: 7 July 2025 / Revised: 26 September 2025 / Accepted: 30 September 2025 / Published: 8 October 2025
Review Reports Versions Notes

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.

1. Introduction

Students of diverse neurotypes are attending college in greater numbers [1]. Neurodivergent students, a descriptor that is used for students with diagnoses such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disorders, or Tourette’s syndrome, among others, have historically been overlooked or excluded from higher education contexts. Diagnostic rates of autism are rising rapidly (currently 1 in 36; [2]) and, in particular, the rise in diagnosis of autism without intellectual disability means that more autistic students are matriculating at universities [3]. About 15% of college-attending autistic students are at four-year institutions [4]. From the limited amount of available research, autistic students who matriculate into these types of schools are stating that the educational and social processes are generally not designed with accessibility for neurodivergent students in mind [5,6]. In fact, many students choose not to disclose a diagnosis at all on a college campus [7]. There are many reasons why students may make this decision, from not needing or wanting programming related to their diagnosis, to wanting to avoid anticipated stigma, and a lack of either awareness or availability of services a college might offer. In short, the number of autistic students on campuses is increasing, but campuses are lagging in representing and meeting the needs of this group.
From other areas of diversity and equity work, making information available about a particular identity group can help potential consumers (in this case, applicants to the college) decide whether or not they would be welcome in a space like a college campus. Past work has shown the importance of representation on college websites as a marker of how welcome disabled students may be in a campus [4,8,9]. For autistic students, a lack of representation can result in feelings of being othered or unwelcome on community college campuses [4]. Students with “invisible” identities, such as autism, often need to search for other indicators (e.g., identity-related terms, resources, and self-advocate voices) to ensure that they will be welcomed and supported on a college campus. As with all students, a feeling of isolation or lack of connectedness has serious implications for mental health, graduation rates, and academic achievement [10,11,12].
Different types of higher education institutions have their own infrastructures, values, and ways of operating. For this paper, we will focus on four-year liberal arts colleges in the U.S. Core aspects of liberal arts institutions appear to make these types of educational settings a potentially good fit for neurodivergent students, which is a sentiment that many families of autistic college-bound students echo [13]. The Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts describes a key value of liberal arts institutions as “curricular and environmental structures that work in combination to create a coherent integrity to students’ intellectual experience” [14]. Interactions between faculty and students can allow for more opportunities to explore specific interests and for faculty to get to know students personally, a likely beneficial environment for autistic students [15,16]. More opportunities for personalized mentoring and the encouragement of interdisciplinary and critical thinking would likely support flourishing autistic students. A liberal arts education can have long-term implications for employment and positively impact the development of leadership and well-being. Development of broad skills such as problem solving and critical thinking, instead of focusing on one specific set of skills, can allow for a range of post-college employment options.
Although the landscape may seem well-suited for autistic students, oftentimes the selective nature of liberal arts schools and long-standing stigma around disability and autism in higher education have presented unclear messages to prospective autistic college students about whether or not they are welcome on these campuses [17,18,19]. Surveys of postsecondary education settings more broadly reflect that faculty have concerns about the impact of disability-inclusive campuses on the classroom [20]. Once on campus, hesitancy to disclose a diagnosis, either due to not needing services or as a form of self-protection, means that the true numbers of autistic students on liberal arts campuses in the U.S. are nearly impossible to calculate. To our knowledge, there are no current estimates of how many autistic or neurodivergent students there are on liberal arts college campuses specifically. As a close proxy, in one anonymous survey of college students, about 1 in 10 students self-identified as neurodivergent [21].
As part of their college search, students and their parents often consult the US World Rankings as well as college websites. We wanted to understand how autism and neurodiversity are represented on liberal arts college websites. The purpose of exploring websites of liberal arts institutions stemmed in part from the lack of information on these educational settings, despite the logistical and theoretical consistencies between a liberal arts college setting and the experience of autistic students. Visibility and representation have significant implications for belongingness on college campuses for a range of identity groups. One study of queer and/or trans students showed that rainbow stickers meaningfully conveyed messages of belonging at their community colleges [22]. Colleges seeking to attract more ethno-racial diversity to their campuses intentionally use images with diverse people, although these are not always consistent with their true campus demographics [23,24]. Performative representation of historically minoritized identities on college campuses is not beneficial for students either; ideally, this representation would translate to action once on campus. For instance, for Black first-generation college students, feelings of belonging are associated with academic motivation and students’ well-being [25]. Although we focus here on autism as an identity group, intersectional identities (e.g., each individual’s location across a number of social categories, such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, disability, etc.) represent both potential and risk for students to feel included across different facets of their identity.
As autistic students head to college campuses at increased rates, we sought to explore how autism and/or neurodivergence are discussed on these college websites to better understand how welcoming these academic communities may seem. College websites are a significant source of information for college-bound students. In 2019, campus tours were the primary source of information, although since the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person sources of information like tours and open houses have dropped in utilization [26]. It is important to recognize that using these terms does not reflect the culture or practices of these campuses; this would be a first step in understanding the visibility of autism and neurodiversity on liberal arts campuses. Recommendations for college websites include reflecting the values of a university on the site [27] and enabling students to identify with being in a particular college space based on what they read and see [28]; for many students, whether autism or neurodivergence is discussed on a college’s website could help them to determine how welcome they may feel on campus. Additionally, many autistic students prefer written and visual modes of learning new information [29], such as websites, so these resources may be of particular relevance to this student population.

Research Question

We want to understand the current state of autism and neurodiversity representation on websites for liberal arts colleges. Liberal arts colleges offer unique environments for neurodivergent students, yet less is known about students in these environments. Thus, we wanted to explore how autism and neurodiversity were made apparent on school resources that were likely to be consulted by college seniors, such as college websites. Our research question is the following: How do liberal arts college websites represent autism and neurodiversity?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Sample

A total of 50 liberal arts college websites were analyzed for this study. These colleges were selected from the US News and World Report 2023 college rankings [30]. Although less commonly a primary deciding factor for college-bound students, it is the most commonly consulted ranking system in the U.S. [31].

2.2. Terms Used

Our primary interest was in how autism was discussed, and to explore this, we included “autism”, “autistic”, and “ASD” in our search terms. Initially, our goal was to use individual site search engines for our terms of interest. After consulting with web masters at different schools, we learned that their search engines recognized Boolean terms or wildcards in different ways, which would mean the same search would yield different results by site. We then reverted to individually reading each website area (Table 1), and then a final search engine check was performed with each individual word to ensure consistency across websites. We also included “neurodiversity”, “neurodivergent”, and “neurodivergence” to allow for positive findings from institutions that were discussing neurodiversity more broadly, as well as “disability” and “disabled” to use in visual comparisons of terms used. The review of each site was discussed as a group to help determine whether more searching was warranted or whether some phrasing should be tallied or not (examples are given in Section 3).

2.3. Frame

Coding research team members conducted an initial review of liberal arts college websites to identify the most relevant areas to look for information and terms. There is no standard format for college websites, so, in addition to relevancy, we sought to define website areas that were consistent across schools. The team met and prioritized five areas to search for these analyses: Admissions; Accessibility; Counseling/Mental Health; Faculty Resources; and Student Life. Rationale for the selection of these five areas is provided in Table 1.
Any mention of search terms was added to the tally by website area, and the written content was compiled into a spreadsheet. Based on prior work with self-advocates, two suggestions for what could be helpful to make a campus more accessible were identified [32]. These specific suggestions were included in the coding frame: whether the site used person-first or identity-first language and/or whether there was a list of diagnoses listed on the accessibility site. As a comparison group, we also searched for “disability” and “disabled” in each of the areas and marked whether or not an ADHD skills group was listed in Counseling/Mental Health to help assess whether websites were listing diagnosis-specific resources at all.

2.4. Ethical Approval Statement

Ethical approval was not required for this study as we are analyzing text descriptions from public websites without any human subjects.

2.5. Analyses

Frequencies were calculated for each search term in each area. Initially, we planned to assess how the presence of terms in one area was statistically related to terms in another, but we did not have sufficient search term hits to power these analyses.

2.6. Positionality

We are a diverse team in terms of age (undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty), race, and neurotype from liberal arts institutions. In addition to our research, our group advocates for more neurodiversity-affirming representation in education settings from elementary school through college and graduate school. The importance of accessibility of college campuses is a repeated theme in our lab advisory board meetings, which is a group comprising self-advocates. Our personal experiences as autistic students who recently completed the college search process, members of liberal arts college communities, and educational advocates surely shaped the pursuit of our research question; we sought to minimize the impact of our personal biases by pre-determining our search frame and terms, and by reviewing results as a group.

3. Results

Table 2 shows the rates at which different terms appeared on the website. Overall, terms related to autism and neurodiversity were sparse across all campuses.

3.1. Admissions

Many admissions pages highlighted the racial, geographic, gender, or socioeconomic diversity of their student populations. None of the websites used words relating to autism or a form of neurodiversity. Of the ten sites which mentioned disability, just over half (n = 6) were in the context of a non-discrimination statement (e.g., including students regardless of …disability), two mentioned financial resources available related to a disability, three referred to the student experience or student groups relating to disability, and two included a link to their disability services page. Across all 50 schools, 11 mentioned disability or disabled on their Admissions page.

3.2. Accessibility

This area yielded the highest frequency of searched terms. Thirteen distinct schools mention autism, autistic, or ASD on their Accessibility page. One site referred students and their families to an Autism Speaks site. Of the 19 schools that included a list of possible disabilities, three schools specifically listed autism. Some schools included a list of four domains in which students could qualify for services (e.g., ADHD, learning disability, chronic/medical disability, and psychological disability). One school incorporated neurodiversity into their advocacy statement “…all students regardless of physical disability, neurodiversity, or mental health status.”

3.3. Counseling/Mental Health

Two schools had either “autism” or “ASD” on their counseling/mental health page. One of these mentions of autism referred students to external assessment services and an Autism Speaks resource. Seven schools mentioned that they offered ADHD skill groups, and three schools listed that there was a group related to neurodiversity. Disability or disabled were on seven of the pages, mainly in the context of learning disorders.

3.4. Faculty Resources

The purpose of searching in this area was to assess whether autism information was made available to faculty. After beginning to search, it became clear that for some institutions, faculty needed to log in to access certain resources, thus falsely negatively skewing our findings. Search results are still reported but may not represent the true rate of what resources faculty may have available. A total of 29 schools had a mention of disability or disabled in their faculty resource materials.

3.5. Student Life

Clubs with names that included neurodiversity or autism were listed on eleven websites. A total of nine schools had either an autism or neurodiversity related student group. When searching “disability” or “disabled,” 22 unique schools used one or both term(s) in their student group descriptions.

3.6. Cross-Cutting Patterns

There was no relationship between the school’s ranking and whether they used the language we coded. In addition, mentioned of autism or neurodiversity in one category was not related to whether it was mentioned in another; for instance, of the eight schools mentioning ASD on their Accessibility page, only one of those same schools used ASD on their Faculty Resource page (meaning three schools mentioned ASD on the Faculty Resource page and not on their Accessibility page). Even though the frequency is too low to draw conclusions, of the campuses using the terms neurodiversity/neurodivergence/neurodivergent on Accessibility pages, none of those same schools used the autism-specific terms (e.g., autism, autistic, or ASD).

4. Discussion

The lack of mention/representation of autism and neurodiversity on liberal arts college websites was pervasive. Although no statistical analyses were conducted due to low incidence, overall use of terms was quite low across all five areas. Representation is even lower than rates found on community college sites, which is closer to 70% [4].
Autistic students attend community colleges at twice the rate they attend four-year colleges. Whether representation on websites is higher because of this or vice versa, this fact does highlight the importance of knowing a website’s audience when curating resources. Virtual platforms can be easier to navigate for many autistic individuals [29]. There is a critical need to understand how many autistic and neurodivergent students are on liberal arts campuses. Understandable fears about disclosing due to stigma, peer and faculty attitudes, and safety impact what is known about autistic students. Unfortunately, many outdated beliefs about autism can lead individuals at these institutions to mistakenly believe there are fewer neurodivergent students than there truly are. Anonymous surveys or aggregated data points from campus partners may enable institutions to more broadly assess what types of support are needed on campus, rather than requiring individual student disclosure.
In particular, the terms “neurodiversity”, “neurodivergence” and “neurodivergent” were rarely mentioned. Neurodiversity is a newer paradigm that college students are increasingly comfortable with, but this adoption does not seem to have drifted into the administrative vernacular quite yet, which reflects the lack of exposure to the concept of neurodiversity, the benefits it can bring to a campus environment, and the necessary self-examination of the role of assumed neuronormativity. An example of this is including information about autism by referring students to Autism Speaks materials. Although offering relevant resources is generally a positive action, for college-bound autistic students, there is generally a negative association with this organization [33]. This highlights the importance of collaborating with community members to find what resources would be most helpful and neurodiversity-affirming. Further, on websites where the term “autism” did appear, 100% of those schools used person-first language (some also included identity-first language; this was primarily used by student groups). This language use also reflects a lack of understanding of autistic culture, with a significant proportion of autistic college students preferring identity-first language [34].
Although these results highlight the expected dearth of information about autism and neurodiversity in academic spaces that inherently should serve this population, a solution here is not purely to increase the mention of autism or neurodivergence on websites. Performative actions would actually be more harmful or misleading, as is the case with other marginalized identity groups [35]. In prior research looking at the representation of racially diverse students, many colleges were found to use images of racially diverse students that were more diverse than their actual student body [24]. Accurate representation of the programming and environment for neurodivergent students is the primary goal. The website information here is reflecting a lack of preparedness that college campuses have to best serve neurodivergent students [36], but a lack of programming does not reflect the fact that neurodivergent students are not on campus.
We were encouraged to see the existence of autism-, neurodiversity-, and disability-related organizations in student life. Significant research has confirmed the importance of and support gleaned from affinity groups and engaging with identity development outside of the classroom [37,38]. Race, gender, sexual orientation: any of these historically marginalized identities can often feel safest and most understood in the company of others with shared identities. As we are thinking about incorporating neurodiversity into how colleges think about their students, the intersection of identities will be a critical aspect to keep in the conversation, as disability can often add compound experiences of marginalization [39].

4.1. Limitations

Clearly, a description of frequencies of search terms lacks a depth of analysis or potential to make inferences about causal mechanisms, or ways to assess how autistic or neurodivergent students feel on a campus. However, we feel that even this snapshot can provide important information to liberal arts colleges about the messages their website information is sending.
We recognize that simply searching for these terms skips over a major accessibility and equity point: assessments for neurodivergent conditions (especially after childhood) can be expensive and difficult to access. Especially for racially minoritized or non-male people, a different diagnosis may be made initially that does not fully match a person’s experience. Documenting diagnoses can be important at some institutions in terms of what they are lawfully required to offer but this leaves undiagnosed or misdiagnosed individuals with even less access to programming or services. The role of self-diagnosis on college campuses is an additional phenomenon that deserves more attention, which was not considered here.

4.2. Recommendations

Although not tested statistically, for institutions where autism or neurodiversity appeared on their websites, we have generated some recommendations based on observations of our coding team.
  • Make neurodiversity and autism visible on liberal arts institution sites. These students are on campus (or are considering coming to your campus), so make the information findable and clear. Past commentary has advocated for including information about disability on diversity pages [40]. Existing academic, residential, social, and student-led programming should be listed. It would also be useful to comment on whether this program exists to allow potential students to make the best decision for themselves. College students have fantastic ideas about how to increase accessibility of their college experience [41]. Related programming will become easier to publicize as it exists more substantially; consult with self-advocates on your campus about what is needed.
  • Language around autism and neurodiversity needs to be updated across websites. The information that was present on colleges’ sites was not reflective of the preferences of autistic people. Ideally, campus administrators and educators would be educated on current models of autism and neurodiversity, using materials that are co-created with self-advocates. For instance, the double empathy framework is an important perspective to understand for non-autistic individuals working with neurodivergent students [42].
  • Spotlighting the existing human resources and connections relating to autism and neurodiversity. Neurodivergent students already exist in great numbers, and we are playing catch up to represent the interests of this growing student (and faculty) population. Having faculty members with expertise, professional, and/or lived experience with neurodiversity would be expected to benefit the college campus more broadly. Hearing tips and tricks from these individuals, as well as challenges, will be the best way for campuses to improve their intentional inclusion of neurodivergent students. On the administrative side, student services departments, offices of accessibility, diversity and inclusion programming, and residential life; all of these departments should be educated on autism and neurodiversity using materials from self-advocates. If those self-advocates are from that institution, great care should be given to compensating and protecting these individuals for their time and energy. In our review of sites, some schools had self-advocate-generated resources for matriculating students and parents. Although assessment of faculty resources was skewed for reasons that are described above, having information about autism and neurodiversity and how to cultivate inclusive learning environments should be readily available to faculty.
  • Provide clear guidelines on how to navigate the accommodations process at your institution. Whether students consider a liberal arts institution or are already matriculated, a lack of transparency in this process can be frustrating and off-putting for students and their families exploring resources. Students have put forth ideas such as having a guide/mentor to assist with the process of qualifying for services, or a menu of options of services that are available, so that they can decide whether or not to submit paperwork to receive services [41].
  • Mental health resource pages should absolutely include mentions of autism and neurodiversity, in part due to the high comorbidity between neurodivergent conditions and anxiety, suicidality, and eating disorders [43]. Some schools listed ADHD Skills groups on their Counseling/Mental Health page. These groups are not an exact proxy for autism-related groups, but the model and importance of these groups could be used as a template for more service planning.

5. Conclusions

There is a clear disconnect between the pedagogical approaches endorsed by most liberal arts institutions and the absent or outdated approaches to neurodiversity representation. The American Association of Colleges and Universities (aacu.org) defines essential outcomes for a liberal arts education as follows: knowledge of human cultures, intellectual and practical skills, personal and social responsibility, and integrative and applied learning. The process of understanding and appreciating autism or neurodiversity is in keeping with these outcomes. Similar movements toward critical thinking about gender and race have illustrated that colleges are very capable of taking on this work when it is asked of them, and we hope that consideration of neurotypes will become more commonplace. This leaves an important opportunity for liberal arts campuses to be leaders in the inclusivity of autistic and neurodivergent students in ways that are consistent with their current academic traditions.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: E.T.C. Methodology: E.T.C. and A.P. Investigation: E.T.C., A.P., A.N., A.D., N.B. and D.R. Writing—original draft: E.T.C. and S.R.D. Writing—revising and editing: E.T.C., A.P., A.N., A.D., N.B., D.R. and S.R.D. Supervision: E.T.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

None to report. Anna Phillips had summer support to visit Tufts as a Richmond Scholar.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable. Ethical approval was not required for this study as we are analyzing text descriptions from public websites without any human subjects.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

No new data were created for this paper; the data described are all publicly available through each college’s websites. Please contact the authors for a copy of the coding template.

Acknowledgments

We wish to acknowledge our lab advisory board for emphasizing the importance of exploring college experiences for autistic and neurodivergent adults. We also greatly appreciate Kathleen Bogart from Oregon State University for inspiring the initial idea of this study with her work on examining course descriptions of disability courses and her availability to discuss the approach for this manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Disability Language/Terminology Positionality Statement

We use identity-first language to reflect feedback from our own advisory board and from the literature relating to autistic college students [44]. When quoting or describing sites, language used on those specific websites was mirrored here.

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Table 1. List of generic website areas that were searched and summarized.
Table 1. List of generic website areas that were searched and summarized.
Area nameRationale
AdmissionsWhen prospective students explore a college website, how is neurodiversity mentioned in many of the statistics and alumnae facts that are included on these pages?
Accessibility aIs autism included on any list of services or supports? Are there self-advocates working in or with accessibility centers? Are study skills reflective of potential needs of autistic students?
Counseling/Mental healthAre there any groups related to mental health or executive functioning either specifically for autistic students, or that might be inclusive of individuals with that identity?
Faculty resourcesAre faculty given information on neurodiversity-affirming practices? Is there information available on how to support autistic students in or out of the classroom?
Student lifeAre there students organizations or residential spaces that are open and inviting to autistic or neurodivergent students?
a Exact names of areas varied by school (e.g., “Accessibility” included “Student Accessibility Services,” “Office of Disability and Access,” “Accommodations for students with disabilities”, etc.).
Table 2. Frequencies of search term mentions per website area.
Table 2. Frequencies of search term mentions per website area.
AutismAutisticASDNeurodiversityNeurodivergenceNeurodivergent
Admissions000000
Accessibility1028201
Counseling/Mental health101201
Faculty resources *204100
Student life320321
* Some faculty resource pages needed institutional log on and thus the team did not have full access to those resources.
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Crehan, E.T.; Phillips, A.; Ngo, A.; Donaghue, A.; Bartlett, N.; Rothstein, D.; Dufresne, S.R. How Liberal Arts College Websites in the US Are (or Are Not) Discussing Autism. Disabilities 2025, 5, 89. https://doi.org/10.3390/disabilities5040089

AMA Style

Crehan ET, Phillips A, Ngo A, Donaghue A, Bartlett N, Rothstein D, Dufresne SR. How Liberal Arts College Websites in the US Are (or Are Not) Discussing Autism. Disabilities. 2025; 5(4):89. https://doi.org/10.3390/disabilities5040089

Chicago/Turabian Style

Crehan, Eileen T., Anna Phillips, Anh Ngo, Abigail Donaghue, Natalie Bartlett, Daniella Rothstein, and Simone R. Dufresne. 2025. "How Liberal Arts College Websites in the US Are (or Are Not) Discussing Autism" Disabilities 5, no. 4: 89. https://doi.org/10.3390/disabilities5040089

APA Style

Crehan, E. T., Phillips, A., Ngo, A., Donaghue, A., Bartlett, N., Rothstein, D., & Dufresne, S. R. (2025). How Liberal Arts College Websites in the US Are (or Are Not) Discussing Autism. Disabilities, 5(4), 89. https://doi.org/10.3390/disabilities5040089

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