Why College Breaks Neurodivergent Students (And How to Fix It)

Empowering teens for college transition

SPEAKER_00 1:32

We spend years protecting these children in K through 12, but three months after high school graduation, the cliff hits. They step onto a college campus with five different learning management systems, zero automated accommodations, and an expectation to self-identify on day one. If we don't build their self-advocacy muscle in our own homes today, we're handing them a system designed for their failure. Today we're joined by Dr. Tara Williams, founder and CEO of Innovative College Consultants Inc. Holding a PhD in synthetic inorganic chemistry and backed by over 13 years of teaching experience, Dr. Williams is a renowned higher education expert who specializes in helping students navigate the collegiate journey with a powerful focus on supporting students with disabilities. Dr. Williams breaks down the reality of the post-high school transition and shares how parents can empower their teens with the critical self-advocacy skills needed to thrive in higher education. Tune in to learn how to bridge the gap between K-12 support and college independence. Welcome to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Nurturing Through Adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren. As we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support, I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of child rearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care. We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you. Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored. We do it out of deep love and concern for their survival. But then there comes the quiet morning after high school graduation. Suddenly the legal landscape shifts, the automated protections vanish, the child who relied on your executive functioning is now standing on a campus, expected to navigate rigid, neurotypical systems all alone. I know what's ahead, and honestly, I'm fearful. How will they survive? How can I possibly prepare them for what's ahead? And every time I feel my chest tighten and that exact lump in my throat, realizing that protecting them isn't enough anymore. I realize I have to equip them so that they can lead their own defense. Today's guest, Dr. Tara Williams, a veteran chemistry professor and founder of Innovative Collegiate Consultants, joins us to break down how we start building universal design and self-advocacy into our homes before the collegiate transition occurs. Good afternoon, Dr. Williams. Good morning to you. Thanks for having me. In your work, you advocate for moving away from these rigid institutional boxes towards universal design and a self-driven executive functioning for children that are transitioning from the traditional K-12 system to the college level. How do we begin to apply this system to a transition like heading to college that oftentimes feels so overwhelming for these neurodivergent families?

Teaching self-advocacy to kids

SPEAKER_01 5:57

I mean, I think my first thing is always self-advocacy and teaching children that self-advocacy is so important. I know you and I are obviously in different generations, but for me, I even know I'm a millennial. And for my generation, it was really difficult for me to self-advocate because we're always taught, like, hey, just do what people tell you. You're the kid, they're the adult, right? And I didn't really learn a lot of self-advocacy. And I think students who are growing up now, it's even harder with all the technology. And I feel like, you know, saying this doesn't work for me sometimes needs to be reframed as this is what I need, not what I want. Right. Like we have that thought, I think, sometimes, oh, these kids just want something different. No, it is what they need in order to succeed in whatever they're doing in school or whatever. So the self-advocacy piece, if we can start that at, you know, whatever age is possible, maybe even sort of middle school. So if you're, you know, maybe um going on a vacation, maybe have your student talk to the teacher instead of you being the one that talks to the teacher or you guys coming up with an email together if they're not ready for that yet, right? Or same terms as they grow up, just giving them a little more self-advocacy, a little more independence, maybe not on something super high stakes, like a let's not tell them and remind them they have an exam, right? But also let's learn, let them learn how to use their voice because they're going to need it, especially in that transition to college period.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Absolutely. We've been protecting these children for so long. And then moving them into college, moving them out to college, we think that they should have all the tools that they need and they should be able to do this on their own because we've taught them everything we know. But teaching self-advocacy, self-identification, self-protection is something that we don't, I think, speak about early enough with kids.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah, I mean, and I think it's also just how much things have changed, even from when we were in college, right? To think about, yes, we've taught them. A, we've we we tend to teach people what works for us, right? So what works for you may not at all work for your grandchild, right? And also when we were in school, it was like, here's a syllabus, here are the due dates. Now we're looking at, okay, there's a learning management system, then we have email, then we have um announcements on the learning management system. Some professors have a Google system inside the system, right? We're thinking of four or five different things that we now have to keep up with on top of everything that's going on socially in this transition. So for me, it's a lot of places to look. And I think that's why students really struggle

Challenges of Self-Identifying as Neurodivergent

SPEAKER_01 8:38

and to have to now self-identify and be like, hi, I'm neurodivergent, I have autism, I have ADHD, I have both. And usually those comorbidities of depression, anxiety, right? Like those are really hard as a young person to admit that you have. And maybe you've had your caregivers your whole life manage that system. And now at 18 or whatever, you're gonna be like, hey, I have all these things. And a lot of the things that I see where students don't do well is because they don't want to self-identify. They just want to be like everybody else because in K12 they weren't. But then they also had all of these things that they were able to use and accommodations, and then they don't use them at all three months after they graduate high school, and everything is very difficult then.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yes. Uh something I thought of as you were mentioning that to me, the term universal design is not one that I think many people of my generation are familiar with. Why don't you talk about how that framework suits these neurodivergent kids that we're raising now so much better than a traditional system?

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Well, I explain universal design to most people as one of the things that we use every day that we probably don't think of as universal design is like a ramp for a wheelchair. We're outside a building, maybe it has, you know, 57 stairs, whatever it is, to go to the courthouse, to go to whatever. And that ramp was designed universally for was designed for, you know, people in a wheelchair. Yet we all use that because maybe that's easier on our knees. Maybe it's just easier in general, right? So universal design is something that is designed for somebody with some kind of difficulty, whether that be physical or learning, but it works well for everyone. So if something we know that sending two announcements, right, about an assignment or simply writing something on the board instead of just saying it, if that works well for neurodivergent students, that's gonna work well for everybody. So any part of universal design is just thinking if that works well for one population, it makes sense it would work well for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

I like that description because that's something I think we can all understand.

unknown 10:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

It's a universal restriction. Right? Yeah, exactly. I always think about the jar, the thing that helps you open the jar. Right. Like, where would I be without that? Right. And that was designed for people who had hand mobility issues. But now it's something that we all use because it works well for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

So why don't you help us for those of us that do have children that are going to be transitioning soon from high school to the college level, even as far as making applications or preparing them maybe a couple of years in advance, making them aware of the things that they're going to have to be navigating? How can we do that better so that we're not burning out as much and we're not causing as much friction for the kids as well as for ourselves to begin preparing for this stage in their lives?

SPEAKER_01 11:29

When I think about college applications, I think about a lot of times students pick somewhere they really want to live, right? Or they really want to be. Or they have this idealized version of what that's gonna look like, where as we know, supports are very different at different

Supporting students with disabilities

SPEAKER_01 11:49

places. So I think that that was never something that we really thought of before that's super important now for students is where is there going to be supports for me? Um, if I, you know, have autism, is there places that provide a bridge program? Because there are a lot of colleges that do. If I have ADHD and I need to sit in a certain part of the room or I have autism, I need to sit in a certain part of the room, how easy is that gonna be if I go where there's a class of 500 students, right? And how much more am I gonna have to advocate? Hey, like, no, I really need this seat because this is what I need as my accommodation. Um so I think thinking about smaller classes, different environments where it is, like just thinking about if the child you care for struggles with organization time management, are we gonna take them out of a small town and move them to NYU? What does that look like? Right. Now we have to think about, oh, with subway systems and what does this look like? It's just very different. So I think the main thing is at first focusing on what does the community look like at that school? And then focusing, also, I know we're so pushed to choose a major, and that was not something I was pushed to do. And I feel like a lot in my experience, it's like 50% the students know what they want to do, keep it. And the other 50% is, oh, I'm gonna do that because it makes money or because my parents do it, or I know someone who does it, whereas they know nothing about finance and I want to do finance. And like, okay, have we thought about the math that's involved in that? Have we thought about what that looks like? You know, if you're neurodivergent and you struggle in foreign language, you may have to take a foreign language for this major. So I think just thinking about the big picture, whereas we get so excited about, oh, I just want to go to this school and be part of this community, really looking at what the whole picture looks like, not just the social life or simply the academics of wherever you're at. So great. So great. I love this. And I'm assuming this is all in your book. I mean, so for the book, I really focused on my own learning journey. And I also focused on six students that I had worked with and where they were at when we started, some things that we tried and where they're at now. So more like case studies of the different students from before COVID to some during COVID to some after, and very different students, and also thinking that every student is different and we can't just teach things one way or have things one way, and every student's gonna work in that same way.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

So if you had to pick one survival tool from your book, by the way, it's called the Neurodivergence Student Journey, a story of hope and breaking out of the box. So this is your story and the story of several students that you've worked with. What great tool do you think readers are going to get from reading your book?

SPEAKER_01 16:30

I mean, I think the the one emotionally that I can think of is that there's always hope. I think that a lot of times we think or we hear maybe like there's no hope for this student. This student's never going to college, this student's never gonna make it, or maybe you should think about this program, right? And there's always hope, right? Even if we don't do well the first time, I think we can all remember a time that we failed at something. I tell my students all the time, even in my chemistry classes, we never remember the highest grade we got, but we always remember the worst grade we got because that's what's stamped on our mind, right? And I think tenacity and being able to keep going is such an important tool that maybe has been lost a little bit and the ability to fail, right? Like we all fail. And I think that people really struggle with that now. And we used to fail all the time. Um I just have to get back up. So, but I think the importance of hope and knowing that if you don't do well, then maybe you change your major, or maybe that's not the school for you, or maybe you do a trade, or maybe you take a year out and decide what you want to do, right? Nothing has to be decided by one certain pathway in life, where I feel like a lot of times we're driven to one pathway. Keep an open mind. Keep an open mind. And then I also think making friends in college and people you can study with is foundational, right? A lot of times we need to sit with somebody in order to be able to do things. We feel alone, we feel isolated, we don't know how to start. And you really see that with neurodivergent students. So having a study group and just working on something also teaches you, A, to make friends and B to self-advocate. How many times were we, you know, studying when we were younger and I was like, hey, called my friend on the on the actual, you know, landline and said, I don't know how to do this problem. Are you working on it? Right. And we worked on it together. And now in college, I feel like so many students struggle because they're isolated instead of just being like, you don't have to be friends with everyone. You can form a study group and then you're learning how to self-advocate, you're helping each other, you're learning how to teach one another. So for me, like forming those social spaces in order to study and to have a social network. Yeah. And so you're not, and also you don't feel so alone. We're all confused. Some people are just better at admitting it than others.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yes. And you know, something I realized, I look back on my childhood as a student. In fact, it was something that was discouraged. You don't have somebody to come over and do homework with you because your parent thought that that was too social and you should be able to do it by yourself. But I love the idea that developing these healthy groups that support each other in learning is something we can develop earlier on in their lives.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

And like just the sitting around the kitchen table. Like I'm a first generation student, my parents didn't go to college, but

Family study time habits

SPEAKER_01 19:20

they were very much like my brother and I sat at the kitchen table. Like we didn't have phones or computers or any of those things then. But my dad would be like, it's six o'clock, we've eaten dinner, let's work on your math homework. And he would sit there, even if he wasn't, if we were working on it, just because once again, we have somebody mirroring us, somebody there, somebody helping us do things. And I I tell parents a lot, like, I think we should go back to that, right? Sitting around a table and, you know, mirroring what we want to. Maybe as a parent, don't have your phone if they can't have their phone, right? But just sitting there and learning to read or work on things, or my I think my mom used to work on the checkbook, right? But we were sitting there together. And so if there was a problem, we could ask if they could help. And at the same time, it was teaching that it's good for to not be sitting in your room trying to work on something and struggling.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that idea. Now, your website, why don't you share that with everyone so that they can go there to find more about your coaching services and your resources?

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah, so it is innovative collegiate consultants.com. Um, and we always do a free consultation with parents or caregivers or students to make sure we're a good fit. It also has our social media on there where we do some tips and tricks just to get everybody sort of started. And we're adding a tab for resources and things like that as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Great. I will also add those shows links in the show notes. Um there are three questions that I ask everyone that I interview for the book that I'm writing. And one's a systematic question, one's a taboo question, and one's a policy question. This is my systematic question. When a student turns 18 and enters college, the legal framework abruptly shifts, leaving many neurodivergent individuals without automated protections. So, from a systematic level, what do you think? What policy or institutional infrastructure needs to change so that self-advocacy isn't the sole barrier to higher education access?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

I mean, I think obviously a better system of transition between an IEP and a 504 and accommodations at college. Um, because a lot of times it's students not self-identifying. I don't know how we broach that. But I think a more automated system of a lot of people don't know, oh, maybe my student hasn't been tested in enough time. Maybe um I have to get retested, which is expensive, or maybe, you know, the school needs other paperwork. Like it just becomes a very sometimes complicated process to be able to transition that paperwork. So I think it's some kind of systematic, easier way to be able to transition that paperwork from K-12 to college to make it easier for both the caregiver and the student. Great idea.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

I love that. I don't know how we make that happen, but I don't know. We'll work on it. We'll work on it. Change. The taboo question is that there is so many times this unspoken guilt or shame among parents

Emotional toll on caregivers

SPEAKER_00 22:16

and caregivers with neurodivergent children. And it's difficult for us to talk to many families that don't understand what those struggles are or where they've come from or what their background is. Simple tasks, just like making sure you write down your homework. I have one of those, and checking emails or managing all the paperwork that needs to get filled out, is a big effort. But what do you think is the taboo truth about the emotional toll that this takes on families when we're not talking about it openly?

SPEAKER_01 22:50

I mean, I think one of the first things to consider is are you neurodivergent yourself as a parent or a caregiver, right? We see that a lot. And so I think there's a lot of guilt and shame when you realize that as a parent or caregiver, you've struggled with this and now you don't really know how to help someone else who is struggling. Um, and I I think the emotional toll is huge because I also think you want to do so much to help your student, yet you're trying to let them be self-sufficient and independent, but it's hard to watch them fail, right? So I think the emotional toll is big. And if you have managed their entire life until they are graduated high school, like I tell people all the time, they are the same people they were two months before. And now you have to watch that completely change and let them make their own decisions. And a lot of times you can't because you know it's gonna happen.

Understanding and empathizing with students

SPEAKER_01 23:40

So I think that people don't understand the emotional toll and they don't understand that these kids, we're still gonna call them kids because they are, are not doing it on purpose. And I think before I started teaching when I was so young and thinking about it, like it's easy to see, even with myself. Oh, like she just doesn't get it, she's not trying. When that wasn't it, I wasn't understanding because you were telling me how to do it one way. And so I think really looking at why is that person struggling and having, you know, as much, as much empathy as we can have to figure out how to move forward? Great points.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Thank you. So the policy question: if you were newly appointed COO of the country, tomorrow with full authority over educational policy and institutional standards, what single policy or mandate would you implement to ensure that neurodivergent minds are built for success rather than forced into neurotypical boxes?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

And I think obviously some of the things that we maybe see in a lot of the world is that there are a few people with no experience making decisions for everybody else, right? So I think first looking at where are the problems in education with neurodivergent and neurotypical students, right? Because that universal design idea, and thinking about we need a panel of people who are neurodivergent. We need their parents, we need their grandparents, we need their teachers, right? And thinking about how do we work together to make whatever policy this is. But I feel like a lot of things get lost in the shuffle that we're not asking the right people the right questions, which brings me to the answer of um, I just think that a lot of schools decide what accommodations students should get, or I hear from parents, hey, maybe your student's doing well. Like they don't need that extra testing. They have A's, they have like they don't need that extra time, they don't need that. So I think we we would need some sort of actual policy everybody uses so that every student that has accommodations is allowed to use those accommodations and not told that they can't use them or they don't need them, so that then people have to fight and spend years fighting for things they should have gotten in the first place. Perfect answer. Okay, you pass the test.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Yay! I like I like that. You passed the neurodivergent test. Thanks so much. It was such a pleasure having you on the show, Tara. I appreciate your time. I'm looking forward to reading your book. I'm sorry that it didn't have opportunity to do it before I interviewed you, but I'm sure I'll have a lot more questions afterwards. So we'll look forward to seeing you again on the show. Perfect. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Take a look at your household operations this week. Are you managing your grandchild's daily execution to keep the peace? Or are you handing them low-stakes opportunities to practice their own voice? Here's your boardroom challenge today. Step back from one minor logical task. Let your students solve a new problem, email the teacher, structure their own study group, or sit across from you at the kitchen table to body double without you taking the wheel. Reclaiming your piece starts when we stop acting as their permanent buffer and start acting as their strategic coach. Next week on the podcast, we're joined by Dr. Janet Rosenspig, a nationally recognized powerhouse in child welfare, public policy, and sexual health, armed with a PhD in social work from Rutgers, an MPA from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government,

Dr. Rosenzweig's advocacy and book release

SPEAKER_00 27:14

and over 30 years of frontline leadership, from directorships in state human services to leading national organizations. She is a true titan in systematic child advocacy. Now with the updated release of her landmark book, The Sex Wise Parent, Dr. Rosensweig is handing grandparents and kinship caregivers the playbook to take control of their homes. We are stripping away systematic embarrassment, exposing state policy gaps, and equipping you with boardroom level tools to protect the children in your care from abuse, online threats, and institutional neglect. Don't just survive the system, but demand the tools to lead it. We are 2.7 million strong, still nurturing and still here. Remember, your home is the primary leadership launchpad, and building self advocacy at your kitchen table is the highest return on investment for your child's future. Keep nurturing, keep leading, and I'll see you in the next boardroom.