Accommodations (literally) for a commuter student

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Hello,

I'm a college advisor. We've just admitted our first student diagnosed with autism. He'll be here in the fall.

J. will be a commuter student, living at home because he doesn't feel that he's ready to live in a dorm. Among his other accommodations requests (a long list but nothing out of the ordinary), he has asked us for a quiet, private room to use while he's on campus. He needs to be alone between classes, to have a distraction-free place to study, and to have a "safe haven" in the event that he has a panic attack or sensory overload which could trigger a meltdown (the word he used).

We're trying to figure out how to meet this need. He'll already be taking his exams in one of Disability Services' distraction-free testing rooms, which is as quiet and private an area as we can make it. However, we don't want to tie up that room for other students during the entire part of the day that he's here, and the possibility apparently exists that a meltdown would cause him to involuntarily make noise that would distract students taking exams in the adjoining rooms. The study rooms in the library have interior windows and no privacy. We don't expect to have any extra rooms in quiet dorms that he could use during the day.

Does anyone have any suggestions or guidance as to what might work best for J.? Thanks!

John

If you have the possibility to upload course material (presentations, video or sound tape) online I'm sure that would be great as it would allow him (and others) to stay home on the "bad days".

Will he need the room all day, or only when stressed?

At my first university they have a computer room for disabled students & notetakers only, which was almost always empty, and I often went in there when overloaded. Maybe something similar could work for this student?

I'll have to second psychegots, the best thing that can be done is allow him to stay home or go home on bad days without penalty provided he completes his work for the day and contacts his professors. It sounds like the risk for meltdown is great enough that providing a consistent cool-down room may, as you have already noted, be beyond the means of the staff and facility.

Also, edited to add, I wish they were still lax about attendance in college... when I went almost a decade ago now I could really just show up for tests and pass classes. Laboratory work was always fun so I never missed those classes and at the time I had the type of personality that made it literally impossible to work with me so I was always without a lab partner *(good thing too!)*

Nowadays, I HAVE to attend class because it's like 20-30% of the grade! People get straight A's that are morons because of this "fluff" grade for just showing up.

Redacted

As a student with Asperger's, I have accommodations, such as Test accommodations where I have a separate area to do my test, quizzes and exams. I also wear ear plugs, as well. This allows me to be able to concentrate on my exams, and not have to worry about background noise distracting me.