Neurodivergent in College, with Eric Endlich, Ph.D. | EDB 249

 

Dr. Eric Endlich discusses his work helping neurodivergent students find the right college.

(VIDEO – 32 mins) Dr. Eric Endlich is the founder of Top College Consultants, whose mission is to improve access to college for students worldwide, especially those with learning differences or emotional challenges. Dr. Endlich has worked with many families around the world to help them navigate the college application process and find the ideal universities for their interests and needs.

He is a Professional Member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) and serves on their Learning Differences/Neurodiversity Committee. In 2020, IECA honored Dr. Endlich’s contributions with the “Making A Difference” Award. Dr. Endlich is also a licensed psychologist, professional writer and former college instructor. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in English from UC Berkeley, where he was awarded a Regents Scholarship (highest honor) as well as the President’s Undergraduate Fellowship for original research. He went on to earn graduate degrees in psychology from NYU and BU, and a certificate in independent educational consulting from UC Irvine. 

Dr. Endlich has taught at Tufts University, Suffolk University, Boston College and UMass Boston. He is an advisory board member for Oakstone Publishing, the International Journal of Rehabilitation and Special Education and the Asperger/Autism Network (AANE).

For more about Dr. Endlich’s work: https://www.topcollegeconsultants.com/ 

 

 

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HACKIE REITMAN, MD (HR):  

Hi, I’m Dr. Hackie Reitman. Welcome to another episode of Exploring Different Brains. And today we’re so lucky to have with us, Eric Endlich who is rapidly becoming one of my heroes. Not just because he’s a neurodiversity self advocate, and not just because he’s helping countless people whose brains are a little bit different transition to college. But he’s got it all. He’s a self advocate. He’s a dad. He’s a coach. He’s doing everything. Eric, welcome.

ERIC ENDLICH PhD (EE):  

Thank you. It’s nice to be here.

HR:  

Well, thanks for having us. You know, each time I read about you, and your history, I get more and more. I guess impressed is not the right word. I admire you more and more. Because I love that you. You do what our philosophy is here at Different Brains, you take a maybe not so good break, and you turn it into a great break, and you use it to help other people and you use it to do so many things. Tell us how you got into this whole thing. And then and, of course, we want to talk a bit about Top College Consultants. But Eric endlich, you have the floor.

EE:  

Oh, I’m a clinical psychologist by training. And I did work for quite a few years in the mental health field. I’m also an autism dad. So I was immersed in the autism field or have been immersed in the autism world since my son was diagnosed at the age of two and a half in 1999 is now 24. And that was a life changing moment, you know, my wife and I into the autism world. We started going to conferences reading about and so on. So I was pretty knowledgeable, I think, pretty involved in the field already. And then, quite a few years later, my wife and I were at an autism conference. And we simultaneously figured out that that I’m on the spectrum too. And that was sort of another shift, where I became even more involved in autism, became sort of a special interest for me. And I actually changed careers to not just helping folks on the spectrum and helping neurodivergent teens and adults with problems in general as a psychotherapist, but specifically with the transition to college and applying to college and grad school. And I’ve always liked working with teens. And I’ve always liked working with autistic teens and adults. But I realized I particularly passionate about higher education. And I had seen as a therapist, I’d seen some teens go off to college and unfortunately, not have the successful experience where they were back home in the first year, because they didn’t have the support they needed to college. And I realized that if families learn about the supports available at college, and send their kids to the colleges, where they’re going to get the support they need. And if kids are, of course willing to access those supports, they can thrive and stay in college and graduate just like everybody else. But as a group, unfortunately, the graduation rate tends to be lower. And I think part of that is because they’re not embracing their own identity that saying, Yeah, I’m on the spectrum, or I have ADHD or dyslexia, whatever the type of neuro divergence might be, and are, and then you know, getting whatever help and support they need.

HR:  

Tell us about the support that is available at various colleges and what you’ve done to analyze and break down different colleges, as it might affect the choice and habits of neurodivergent individuals. 

EE:  

Sure and maybe before getting into that, I want to emphasize that you don’t have to wait until you start college to get you know the support that you might need. Many of the students I work with are already on an education plan and IEP or 504 in high school. Some of them are attending special needs schools. So there’s opportunities to work on those skills and hone the skills you’re going to need in college before you get to college. So frequently, no sometimes they’re independent living skills, executive function skills, social skills, whether it’s getting up in the morning, keeping track of your schoolwork, taking regular showers, whatever the challenge may be. Start working on those things before you leave high school and and parents need to. And the whole team that’s working with the student needs to be kind of nudging them along and I understand as a special needs parent myself that the difficulty it’s very tempting to kind of do everything for your child. So I think there’s that opportunity to work on the skills in high school, then there’s the time between high school and college, you don’t have to immediately go to college if you’re not ready. And part of what I do is help figure out if students are ready. And if they’re not, they can take a gap year, go to college readiness program, go get involved in some kind of program where they can learn more of those life skills, executive function skills, whatever it is they need to work on.

And then finally, to your point, they can go to a college where they’re going to be adequately supported. And most colleges have sort of a base level, which is really accommodations, disability accommodations, you can get extra time on tests, you can take tests in a special distraction reduced room, you might be able to get a single room in the residence hall, and various other accommodations, those are not services or supports, those are just accommodations that are available under the federal law, the ABA, that’s great. But you might need way more than just that sort of basic level of accommodations, when if you need help keeping track of your assignments, what if you need help, learning how to make friends and get along with your roommate and other social aspects. So some colleges have learning support programs, and then some program. Some colleges also have autism support programs. They sound similar, there is some overlap, but they’re not exactly the same. So autism support programs tend to have a social component that might be social skills, workshops, it might be social events, it might be both. It might be a one on one time to work with the student on any difficulties, the running into getting along with a roommate or self advocating with professors. And then learning support or academic support programs will have some of the same components like academic coaching, helping students with executive function staying, managing their time getting assignments done, but they usually don’t have the the social component that the autism support programs have.

HR:  

Have you found a big gender difference? I don’t mean in frequency, I mean, between the transitioning process for a male versus a female versus non binary versus… 

EE:  

And I have nine non binary students on the spectrum too. That’s a great question. I have not actually thought about that, per se. But it reminds me of not going too far of a tangent. But as you may know, I recently co wrote a book on autistic adults, “Older Autistic Adults In Their Own Words: The Lost Generation”. And we did find significant gender differences in that study, it was a international study of 150 adults over age 50. And I know it’s not the same as your question about about high school students applying to college. But we found some interesting gender differences, we found that women or folks who identify as female, were less were more likely to self diagnose or self identify as being on the spectrum. So less likely to get professionally or officially diagnosed. That’s a whole other topics. But that I think, speaks to the fact that females may present differently from males and maybe overlooked. And so they often ended up kind of having to advocate for themselves more because they, they kind of fall in the cracks. And there was also more diversity in gender identification and sexuality for females that they were less likely to identify as being straight more likely to identify as being LGBTQ plus than the males in the study work. That was another difference. And I think they reported higher rates of PTSD as well. So we did find some interesting findings there. Just thought I’d throw that in.

HR:  

Very interesting. What is the one biggest challenge that the autistic individual might find? When they go off to college? I know there’s multiple, but are there any that just stick out? Or is it a group of them? Or is it all of the above?

EE:  

There are a few. I mean, I think it really kind of triggers all the things that you might find difficult. So if you have sensory sensitivities, you’re going to get hit right at orientation, before classes even start, you show up at a college orientation. And they have a crowd awaiting you who are screaming to you know, cheering you on as you come in, and there’s hundreds or 1000s Students moving in, you could have sensory overload from day one, not to mention the smells in the dining hall and, and so on. I, you know, I’m part of my goal in life is to help colleges and workplaces organizations in general, become more autism friendly, not just specifically for autism, but neurodiversity friendly, become more welcoming, and inclusive of everyone. So, you know, I I’d like to see that that change, but you certainly will encounter challenges if you have sensory sensitivities, which is likely, I think, if I had to pick one thing, it would be executive functions, because there’s so much more structure in high school versus when you go off to college. So in high school, whether you know it or not, you have a lot of structure around you, typically, from the time that your parents may be waking you up in the morning, helping you with breakfast, making sure you have stuff in your backpack, getting you to school on time, you know, all the structure of the day. students lives are often pretty structured from morning to night in high school, in college, much of that disappeared years. And although much of your support network disappears, unless, as we talked about earlier, you access higher level support in college, then is then is typical. But if you just go off like any other student college, you’re going to have a huge amount of freedom, which may seem very exciting and fun, hey, I can do whatever I want, I can sleep as late as I want. On the weekends, I can decide, you know, I can procrastinate on assignments and so on. But that can you can get into trouble very quickly. And as I said earlier, I did see that with some students, you may have classes schedule, three, four days a week, you may have three or four days a week with absolutely nothing scheduled, you can do anything you want. If you are resourceful, and outgoing, and some students on the spectrum are outgoing, and you join clubs, and you hang out with your roommates, or make friends, you go to the library and study you do a sport, what have you, you can have a fantastic time in college.

But if you just sit in your room, because you don’t have any class, or you play video games, because you don’t have any assignments do the next day. Again, you can get into trouble very quickly from a mental health standpoint, becoming depressed, not being very well nourished, because your your parents aren’t, you know, choosing your balanced meal for you. Or falling way behind on on schoolwork such as such that you don’t catch up and you start failing out. So the executive function I think is, is the biggest challenge. And then of course, there’s the social piece. Often students prior to college have been in a somewhat stable cohort, through high school, they may be in high school with the same kids, they were in middle school, or at least some of the same kids. So they haven’t really had to start fresh and make new friends for a very long time when they start college, and then suddenly, in college, you don’t know anybody. And if you are introverted, and you don’t take the initiative, or you struggle with conversations or social cues, you could be very challenged from a social standpoint. And then you’re also in all these new situations. Now, not just making friends but living with appear in a various close quarters unless you request a single room, which is an accommodation that students can request that families often don’t know about. And one of the things you know, I like about working with families is that that can help open their eyes to opportunities out there that they had no idea was even an option like, Oh, I can get a single room for my kid in college. Oh, there’s colleges that have autism support programs. Wow. You know, I didn’t know all this stuff.

HR:  

What do you say to the transitioning college student who is afraid to ask for accommodations?

EE:  

What some people liken it to insurance, you know, cost money to buy fire insurance or car insurance or health insurance and you might not need it, your house may never burn down your car may never get into an accident. But if you need it, you really want to be sure that you have it. And I hear a couple of things with from students. One is they don’t necessarily say to explicit consent that they they don’t like having been associated with special ed. And they have this fantasy I think that in in college, they can start fresh. Nobody knows their history. They can be a mainstream student, and they won’t have any stigma associated with them. Well, I totally appreciate that and if they were bullied or teased, I you know, I feel terrible about that. I was bullied, 80% of the folks in our Study of older autistic adults who are bullied as kids. It’s really unfortunate, but I don’t think the answer is to not access supports that you need. For one thing, nobody needs to know that you’re accessing those supports and accommodations, you don’t have to tell your roommate, you don’t have to tell your friends in college that you are, you know, getting accommodations to the disability services office, that’s totally up to you, you also don’t have to talk about it when you apply to college. It’s a whole other topic, you don’t have to disclose your diagnosis during the application process, you can but you don’t need to. Um, so part of that, I think is that, you know, wanting to get away from the stigma. I think that’s understandable, but I think it can lead to a lot of trouble. The other is that I hear students sometimes say, you know, I don’t know if I mean, you need that stuff, I don’t really use it that much right now, why don’t I just kind of go and see how it goes. And if I need it later than all you’ve done, I’ll you know, access it, then or I’ll look into it at that point. I don’t think that’s a good approach, either. Because if you’re in, you know, in your first year of college, and you’re starting to fail some of your classes, it’s going to be very difficult to put everything in place on top of trying to stay on top of your schoolwork to then also have to make appointments with the disability office, figure out if your company if your documentation is up to date, figure out how you have those conversations with professors, that’s a lot to take on at a time when you might be starting to, you know, sink below the surface. So you won’t have all that in place in case you need it. If you don’t need it. You don’t need extra time on tests, you don’t have to use it for maybe you only need in one class, but not in another. But I say get all that stuff in place. And if you don’t need it great, but and it’s not black or white, you might need it for some classes, but not others. You might need it in your first year, but not in your second year. For example, with some of these support programs, it’s not unusual for a student to have a Learning Support Program their first year, and then then fly solo after that.

HR:  

Very interesting. You know, I find with our 18 plus year old interns that we’re mentoring here with different brains, that I kind of encourage him to wear their neurodiversity, like a badge of honor. And I think it’s very interesting that you, I guess you suggest, but you let them make the decision.

EE:  

I’m saying it’s a personal decision, I’ve had students write about being on the spectrum in their college essays, that’s great for them, it’s part of their their identity. For other students, they may want, they may have something else that they’re passionate, they want to write about, maybe some particular interest that they’ve pursued. And there may not be a specific need to talk about. It’s not that they’re necessarily hiding it, but they may not have a pressing need to talk about it. I certainly encourage families to research disability services while they’re shopping around for colleges, and to make those connections and to get those services lined up prior to classes starting. But whether they talk about it on their application or not. That’s a personal decision. If they want to, I will absolutely help them with those essays. I I do agree with your philosophy. I think that autism pride disability pride, neurodiversity pride is not at the place where other identity groups are, you know, I have a gay daughter, she has a enormous pride flag hanging in her window. I don’t think we’re quite at the same place yet, as a society that that we are with other groups, but I hope that we get there. I would love to get to a point where one student can say to another, whether it’s in high school or college, hey, I’m on the spectrum. And another student says, Oh, that’s so cool. You know, tell me more about it. I am too or my brother is to where it’s something that with that people are extremely comfortable sharing and that it could be, you know, open doors.

HR:  

very worthy goals. Let’s hope we get there. Um, talk to me about the specific problems you find with students with note taking and what some of the tools are.

EE:  

Yeah, well, I probably have my own executive function challenges. So there’s, you know, there’s a whole specialty of help in accessing accommodations, and I’m blocking on the term right now, but, I think there’s a few challenges for students on the spectrum with with notetaking. One can be just the physical act, the fine motor coordinations students might have dysgraphia might have dyslexia also. So there may be some challenges with the actual process of it, the mechanics of it. And then there’s the executive function piece of having to mentally abstract what you’re hearing and compacted into a summary form. So the professor’s going on and on about whatever it might be, or there’s a few things going on in class, you’ve got to figure out, what’s the most important thing to write down? What is it that I’m going to need to know on the test, or for this paper that’s being assigned, that’s hard to figure out on the fly, with everything else going on, you might be distracted by the you know, sounds of the air conditioning, or the smell of the student sitting next to you. And to also be able to figure that out and listen to the to the professor that’s just met can be overwhelming. So sometimes students can get access to a professor’s notes or to a recorded lecture or content, so they don’t have to do all of that on the fly. So I am not, I don’t think the burden should always be on the student to up their game and just do it anyways, you know, run faster, I think, you know, let’s level the playing field. If it’s more difficult for you, then let’s find ways to make it, you know, comparable to what it would be for other students. And the thing is, as I’m sure you know, with universal design, these are accommodations or tools that can help all students, if all students have access to the recorded lecture, what about a student who was sick that day, who didn’t attend the lecture, that’s great, they can listen to the lecture recorded. So things that sound like, you know, oh, special treatment for people, with, with a diagnosis often end up helping everybody. And that’s true for universal design in general, not just for neurodiversity, whether it’s students with visual or hearing issues. I think moving in that direction, again, of making curriculum universally accessible of making colleges not just autism friendly, but by inclusive and neurodiversity friendly, and disability friendly, is going to help everybody,

HR:  

How do people who are watching this or listening to this or reading this? How did they learn more about you, and your resources?

EE:  

I would say, you know, in start by going toTopCollegeConsultants.com, I tried to put lots of content out there for free. So you know, I don’t like websites where you go on the website, and immediately there’s pop up saying, you know, subscribe to this, get our, you know, buy our course by this by that I don’t have any pop ups, you know, you can just go there and browse. And there’s articles and podcasts and recorded videos, whatever you your format is you prefer a gun, a list of autism friendly colleges that I spent a lot of time collecting, which people find useful. So you know, you want to find the list of all the college autism programs in one place. It’s not the only list on the internet. In fact, the college autism network just updated their list. But I’ve tried to keep it updated and put information on there that is useful to families like the cost of the programs. So I want to put information out there that’s useful for them. Not all families can hire consultants, I’m well aware of that. It’s something that my colleagues and I are very sensitive to. We want families, we want to make higher education more accessible to everyone I wish college weren’t so expensive. And you know, we are always looking for ways to help families access education, and all the tools that we have. So if you want hire a consultant to help you through the process, great if you if that’s not your in your plans, there’s lots of information out there anyways, I also co administer a Facebook group, which now has over 1000 members. It’s called “parents of college bound students with learning disabilities, ADHD and ASD”. It’s a long name, but you can always reach out to me to find it. And that is just a great resource for parents to help each other. Hey, does anyone have any students who’ve gone to this school? Has anyone tried this programs? Anyone recommendations for a tutor, executive function coach, it’s a great place for parents to help each other. So that’s another resource.

HR:  

How has the pandemic affected what you do in the families you treat in the individual neurodivergent transitioning to college individuals?

EE:  

Great question hacky and of course, it’s affected all of our lives in different ways. I would say it’s affected my families more than it’s affected me because my work was already a virtual I work with students world Why’d, primarily in the US, but some some international students as well. And I was doing that and I was on zoom before the pandemic, so I didn’t have to suddenly, you know, move my office or closing my office. And I’m going to continue working virtually with students all over. So that aspect didn’t change. The one thing that sort of changed for me personally was not traveling to colleges, I love getting out there in 2019, before the pandemic, I visited over 50 colleges that year. And then in March 2020, I was visiting colleges, and it just stopped, I had a bunch of visits on the books that got canceled. So that’s a big change for me, as well as you know, not seeing colleagues in person at conferences. For families, it’s much bigger than that it’s studying remotely, it’s not being able to tour college does and having to kind applying to colleges that you haven’t visited I was, I finally got to resume college tours. I was at one a few weeks ago at Providence College in Rhode Island. And the Director of Admissions said, for the first time we have a class of freshmen starting, most of whom have never set foot on this college, most of them never been to this campus. And so that’s a kind of a unique new point in time right now. There have always been international students who are applying from China, India, other countries, to colleges, they have not seen in person. So it’s not unprecedented. But for American students, it’s kind of unprecedented that you’re applying to all these colleges, you don’t really know what it’s like to be there. So that’s the big difference. Then there’s the whole, you know, tests being cancelled, ACT and SAT, administration’s being cancelled left and right, colleges going test optional. And then families not knowing Oh, what does that mean? Should we try to take the test? Is it going to help? So many questions coming up because it’s a moving target. Because there’s so much in flux. Initially, I think some folks thought, oh, maybe with all these changes, and you know, people losing their jobs, people wouldn’t be going to consultants, actually, our work got busier. Because the anxiety level, and uncertainty got higher. So people were like, geez, I need help figuring out what to do about this. How do I research colleges should my kid tried to take the test. And as I said, I’m a psychologist by training. So part of my job, part of the reason I do this is to reduce the temperature to reduce the anxiety. I don’t want families being stressed about this, I think going to college can be an amazing adventure. And I want kids excited about it, not worried and stressed about it. There are colleges out there for everyone. If you want to go to college, obviously you don’t have to go to college, there’s plenty of people who are having successful careers without going to college. I’m not saying that it’s for everyone. But if that’s what you want to do, there are opportunities out there for you. Even if you’re not that strong of a student, you can still go to college and have a great experience. So I want I want families to see that.

HR:  

What you do is so admirable, because you take so much of the anxiety out world ruled by anxiety when I wrote the Aspertools book. That’s why I made that the very first chapter, you know, because anxiety was all of us, you know, and the first thing that you do is you relieve the anxiety multifactorial, because it’s not just talk, it’s, listen, if you do this, you can do this. And here’s the formula. And here’s what we’re gonna do. And we’re here to help you. Just amazing.

EE:  

Some of the anxiety can be anxiety about working with an adult that they don’t know. And so I think having a consultant in the picture is a good experience for kids because when they go off to college, their parents aren’t going to be in the picture typically. And they’re going to be dealing with professors, academic advisors, maybe tutors, executive function coaches, other folks, maybe a counselor, maybe, you know, other administrators at college, whether it’s, you know, all kinds of offices you have to go to in college, it’s a good time to start getting comfortable interacting with adults and self advocating and, you know, students are, you know, making their appointments with me, I don’t want the parents to necessarily make the appointment students can get involved in scheduling and communicating with me and giving me feedback on on how things are going. So it’s an opportunity for students to start kind of developing the skills they’ll need in college for self health. To see and flying a little more, you know, independently of their parents.

HR:  

What is one thing you wish all colleges understood about their neurodivergent students? 

EE:  

You know, the one thing I wish all colleges understood about neurodivergent students is that neuro diversity is just another kind of diversity. We’re all unique. We all bring different things to the table, and be different in the way you think it’s different in the way that your mind works is an asset. It means that you will have a college with a variety, a richness of viewpoints and ideas that will make for a better college.

HR:  

Well, Eric Endlich, thank you so very much for being here. What you do is just, you know, really, to me, it is so admirable and so amazing, with the Top College Consultants, in what you do, for those of us whose brains were a little bit different, we hope you’ll come back soon and thank you so much for spending time with us here at Exploring Different Brains.

EE:  

Thank you, Hackie. It’s been a pleasure.