Autistic university students’ accounts of interactions with nonautistic and autistic individuals: a rhetorical genre studies perspective

Abstract

Increasing numbers of autistic students are enrolling in universities worldwide. These students are taught by mostly nonautistic instructors who try to support them in their learning of academic literacies, without always fully understanding this emerging group of neurodiverse students. Most research on the development of academic literacies, including academic writing, to date has not explored the lived experience of being an autistic student at university. In this small-scale qualitative exploratory pilot study, we draw on Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) to probe into the accounts of 12 autistic students from two Canadian universities regarding their interactions with nonautistic and autistic individuals at university. By analyzing the data from the RGS perspective, we have been able to establish and unpack the rhetorical nature of such social interactions. Understanding the rhetorical nature of these interactions provides a first step towards developing effective supports for autistic students learning to speak and write academically in the predominantly nonautistic contexts of universities.