#133 Tips for College-Bound Neurodiverse Students with Jessica Nelson Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker Robbins 01:01

In today’s episode, we’re diving into how to identify programs and support services for neurodiverse students. I’m excited to be joined by Jessica Nelson, an independent educational consultant who previously worked at a college specializing in neuro diverse students. And our conversation, Jessica shares her expertise on the importance of finding the right support services. During the college search, we’ll explore the different levels of support services colleges offer from basic to structured and proactive programs and discuss how parents can assess these services to find the best fit for their team. Jessica also highlight the importance of preparing for independence and self advocacy early and understanding the path to college may not be linear, for neurodivergent high schoolers, whether your teen is neurodiverse or you’re looking to support someone who is this episode is packed with valuable insights and practical advice. I’m Lisa Mark Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and Career Clarity it flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right in to a fantastic conversation.

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:18

Jessica Nelson, welcome to the show.

Jessica Nelson 02:22

I thank you so much for having me excited to be here.

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:25

I’m excited to talk about this topic, because it’s interesting. As a college major and career coach, I get parents asking me all the time, does your process work for a neurodivergent kid does or you know, my kids on the spectrum, or my kid has severe ADHD or my kid has dyslexia? And I’m like, Well, yeah, everybody needs to figure out what career fits for them, and then what the path is to get there. And the process is the same. We just have additional considerations. And when I that’s the answer, I always give and I sort of feel like this topic that we’re talking about today. is kind of the same answer, right? Like, if you want to go to college, and your kids neurodivergent, then yeah, it’s just add another layer is that is am I looking at it correctly? I think you are

Jessica Nelson 03:15

looking at it correctly, it’s just another one of those components about fit are a match that you know, you would consider just the same as if religion is important to you, and you want to make sure that’s part of your college search. Making sure your student has the correct supports in place for them to be successful, really should be top of the mind for a student or divergent who has a learning difference, ADHD autism, that should just be one more component of your college search that you should have top of mind. So

Lisa Marker Robbins 03:46

I like that you just kind of strung together. Yeah, sort of the list. So as our listeners are going like is this episode for me, we really what we’re endeavoring to do is help a parent whose student hits one of these, any of these sometimes more than one of these categories. Figure out how do you assess a college to know if they’ll be able to meet your students needs? And we you know, we did talk in a previous episode episode 47. I’ll link to it in the show notes with Eric and like who you and I both are fans of, we talked about, you know, is your student college capable or college ready? And if we figure out that our kids college ready, and if somebody wants to listen to that episode, it’s flourish coaching code.com, forward slash 047. If you listen that new Yes, my my student is ready to go. They’re capable and they’re ready. Now we’re going to help them with Okay, now how do we figure out what school should be on that short list? So what are that let’s go through those one more time. So if your student has kind of what are some of the diagnoses that we’re going to help the direct those families Sure,

Jessica Nelson 04:58

ADHD? in autism, language, face disabilities like dyslexia, but you could also consider things like dis calcula dysgraphia audio processing. When we talk about the term learning differences, I do like to note, it is a huge umbrella. And these students all have very different needs a student with dyslexia is likely going to have very different needs than a student with autism. So, before you even think about what college is like, how do I assess their supports? It is really good to think about what does my student actually need?

Lisa Marker Robbins 05:35

Let’s talk about that. Yeah.

Jessica Nelson 05:37

What I ask all my students, when we start to start this process is what has allowed you to be successful in high school, what have been of supports in place, what have been those pieces that you’ve recognized that this has helped me to really do the best in all of my classes. So that may be things like extended test, taking time, extended time, and assignments, sometimes it’s just having a really good relationship with their teacher. And that’s not when they always recognize and so I remind them, I’m like, if having a relationship with your teacher is really important, that may indicate you need to be at a small school, where you can form these relationships to be successful. And so taking these pieces that have allowed us to be successful, and how can we replicate them on the college side right? Now, can we replicate all of them, not necessarily high school, in college or under different laws and offer different things, but you can look at what has been most important, and move that to the other side. Another consideration too, especially for parents, is I think we oftentimes put a lot of invisible supports in place for our students and invisible structures.

Lisa Marker Robbins 06:47

Wow. And I would say to I feel like schools sometimes put invisible support. So let’s, let’s define invisible support, and kind of, because as we’re saying that people are like, Oh, we might be doing that, like, what are some of the common ones? And what are how do you kind of dig in to go like, Oh, gosh, have I inadvertently because I think a lot of times, it’s just very inadvertent? Are we? Or is the school putting those in? What are what are some of those invisible supports?

Jessica Nelson 07:19

You know, they’re oftentimes not the ones written down in an IEP. And then, you know, the the individual education plan, right? There are things like, Do I have to wake my teenager up every morning? To make sure they can get to school? Am I checking Google classroom every night to make sure their assignments are actually done? Or are they managing their own medications? Or am I making sure they’re taking their ADHD meds every morning and making sure that that piece happens. And for the student, they might not see that these things are happening around them? Because they’ve been happening for so long, right? And so, you know, the weather’s nice out today, I’m thinking about summer, I think summer is such a great time for families to kind of sit back and look at like, what are all the things that I’m doing? And what are some things I can start to put on my students, for them to be ready for the this next thing that they’re doing? And so then I also recognize like, what level of support am I offering them as a parent, if I’m checking checking Google classroom every night, that might indicate that they meet need a more structured support program, on the college side, somebody that they’re checking in with once a week to make sure that they are catching all their assignments, planning long term getting ready for tests, and there are programs that offer that. So it is kind of not just the obvious things that are IEP, but what other supports, you know, am I offering as a parent? Well,

Lisa Marker Robbins 08:46

as you’re, as you’re going through these invisible supports, you know, because we have five adult children, thinking through our five kids when we were raising them. And I’m like, you don’t have to be neurodivergent for a parent of a neurotypical kiddo, doing some of the waking that teenager up or monitoring some of those things. And so I love the idea of like, as you were saying that I’m thinking and I went back to when we were when I mentioned at the top college capable, academically capable of doing college work, but college ready. If you can’t get out of bed and you can’t do your work, you’re probably not college ready, but trying to remove those invisible supports earlier to really assess. I mean, is your kid college ready? Right that that’s for typical kids or neurodivergent kids.

Jessica Nelson 09:37

I think the difference though, that I want to point out is that neurodivergent kiddos often need a longer runway. So in our typical student, when we start to remove some of these supports and kind of push towards independence, they might be able to do that on the fly the summer before college, they may be able to wing it their first semester and be fine for a neurodivergent kiddo, depending on how their brain works. It will Do you need to start the summer before junior year. But as you know, the summer before senior year, we’re we’re giving them these little pieces to work on. And as they have little successes, they’re going to grow more confident and have a better understanding of what their needs are. Because to me, when we think about self advocacy, which is a word we throw around all the time, it’s a student, knowing what they need, how to articulate it, and how to get it. And if we have all these invisible structures in place that can be really hard for them to do. So we just have to help them identify what are those actual pieces that they need to be successful?

Lisa Marker Robbins 10:37

Well, it sounded like, you know, and I say to parents all the time, I, in my coaching with families, say, every week, carve out 1520 3060 minutes to do something on the college bound journey, right. And whether that’s doing their modules inside my college major and career coaching course, whether it is scheduling, when they’re going to take their AC T or their LSAT, whether it’s you know, scheduling college, but like, there’s something you could be doing, you could just have a budget conversation when we can like, do something all the time, but we’ve got to slow down in this fast paced world and pause to reflect and have these conversations. And as you’re saying this to my guests, they need to do it as a family. But would you also suggest like reaching out to the school counselor or the teachers to address this? Like, what do you see me needing the mouse? I mean, that’s where my brain started to go? Like, is that a suggestion that you typically make?

Jessica Nelson 11:37

Yeah, because I think this is a team approach, right? Just as I kind of feel like even though it’s a student going to college, I often refer to like my students as like, Team branded, like, we’re all doing this together. Yeah. And supporting you in different ways. I also consider the IEP and the teachers, you know, can be part of that team. And they’re great people to reach out to to say, you know, what are you seeing that they need to work on? Or what support do they really tend to benefit from or lean on, so that we know that when we’re looking for colleges that they may be offer something similar,

Lisa Marker Robbins 12:11

that because there can be things in those IEP or five oh, fours that are still in the document that the kids just you don’t have, you’re not required to use a main, they’re supposed to be using them if they’re in the IEP, but there’s a lot of times that they’re on the IEP, that they’re not regularly using it, and maybe it’s not truly an aid. So once like a family has gone, okay, here are the listed accommodations that we know we need, and the ones that we kind of have a hierarchy. And then here are kind of some of the invisible supports that maybe we need to work at start pulling back or see if the school can give some, you know, those, how do we start to identify the colleges with the strongest programs, because for sure, all schools are not created equal in this way. Absolutely.

Jessica Nelson 12:55

And I think that’s an important note is that the expanse of service or services offered is huge, because and I kind of put them into like three different categories of basic coordinated and structured. So colleges only have to offer what is deemed reasonable by law, and that is the term to use and reasonable is a very subjective term that they can use. So basic schools, I don’t mean to call the school basic and schools that offer basic support. They are typically offering things like you know, extended test, taking time, maybe a note taker, maybe being in a distraction free zone, but they’re really only offering what they have to buy a lot. And it’s a good note that all colleges that receive my net federal financial aid, which is about 98% of them, they do have to offer some sort of support, you know, via the ADEA. The American with Disabilities Act. So most colleges do fall into that basic support category. coordinated services usually have an office where the person who running it is a professional in that field. They may have not just peer tutors, but they may have graduate students and professionals who offer tutoring to students. They may offer workshops on things like time management, they may have your support groups within their office. They may have training for faculty. They may be centrally located on office, so like on campus, so they’re easy to find. So they offer a higher level of support than just basic. And then there’s the structure programs and these are also sometimes called Proactiv. The structure programs oftentimes are what I call pay to play. They do have an additional fee and additional application process outside of the admissions office and they are separate from the Disability Support Services Office because they’re offering maybe academic coaching. So maybe a student is meeting with a specialist one to three times a week to work on things like things academic functioning, claiming their assignments, all those pieces. But they’re just adding, adding a much higher level of support and helping students with what I called scaffolding. So kind of building their systems in place, so that by the time they graduate, they feel pretty confident they can do most of these things on their own. So they might start their freshman year with three meetings a week, and that may be less as they go on. And then there’s two colleges that actually aren’t on that the one through three scale there, because they exclusively deal with students with learning differences. And that’s all they do. So I don’t put them in other than the one through three. And that’s Landmark College, and Putney and began college in Florida that exclusively work with students with learning differences. So there are those levels of support. And then, you know, you were saying, so what should families look for?

Lisa Marker Robbins 15:50

I want to ask a quick question before we talk about that. So, yes, first of all, to colleges out of 1000s, that are exclusively working with these students. Right? And would you question on that? And I have one other question on the structured one, because this is like, totally not my area of expertise at all. So on the ones that are the two exclusive landmark can begin? Is it a kid have to be pretty severe on what their needs are? And need a lot of accommodations? Like? Is that what you’re gonna find who’s best served? Or is it kind of a is it still existing on a continuum, who’s going to find that place to be a really good home for them?

Jessica Nelson 16:35

It’s a continuum, I would have met a huge amount of like amount of students at Landmark that had very different needs. And because I worked at Landmark College for six years, and they’re transferring career office, and what I found was, there were a number of students that actually transferred into landmark because their first college experience was not successful. And it was, it was either because they had trouble kind of finding the right fit and using the supports there, or just registering for supports in general, oftentimes, students get into this place of Magical Thinking, I think sometimes where they’re like, I will cure myself of my ADHD. And I didn’t use those supports in high school that were invisible, so they didn’t notice they were using them. And I will be fine. I don’t want to be labeled anymore. And then they really struggle because they realize all those pieces were helpful. And they also realize that they have a lot of kind of self work to do to build that scaffolding and landmark or a place like beacon as a really good place to do it. So a huge percentage of the students there have actually transferred in, because they realize there’s some work they need to do. And then they oftentimes plan to transfer out once they kind of build their skill sets. So really large range of different students. Okay, so are the scholarships. So

Lisa Marker Robbins 17:53

I’ve had parents listening, and they’re like, Well, my kid, they need yes, they need supports. But we’re not saying like, you have to be really severe and your diagnosis to benefit from these two exclusive colleges, like you might find a home there. Oh, absolutely.

Jessica Nelson 18:09

And I think they both I know landmark, for sure. But beacon probably does two pre college programs. In the summer, we’re sponsored, a lot of times work on these skill pieces also. But yeah, if your student has anything they need to work on and would benefit from like, really kind of working on an executive functioning skills, or just understanding how they learn for a lot of students, they don’t have an in depth understanding of like, how do I love and knowledge. And these colleges are really good at helping them understand those pieces so they can be successful learners.

Lisa Marker Robbins 18:39

And I would guess two from how you described it, that that third group that stand the structured or proactive, also probably does a good job with that. And now you’re paying for college, but there’s going to be these additional fees. And so my my mom, I literally our youngest just graduated from college last month when we’re recording this, and I’m like, Okay, I just got a pay raise done paying for all of that everybody’s off the payroll now all five of them. And so the cost, you know, the cost of colleges a lot. Is there a range of costs that the structured and proactive? You know, what kind of family expect? There

Jessica Nelson 19:24

is a range of costs, and it depends on how much they interact with the services. are they wanting to meet with somebody one time a week, three times a week, a few times throughout the semester. So I mean, it can range anywhere from I think, you know, $1,800 a semester to $6,000 a semester. The something to keep in mind that I’ve been noticing is a lot of colleges are adding academic coaching even outside of these structured support systems and not just for students with learning differences because they recognize like having professionals that help students learn how to study who may not have done that during COVID, or during high school is really benefiting a lot of students. So you can oftentimes find academic coaching, that may not cost a thing. And I see these programs starting to pop up all over the place. So

Lisa Marker Robbins 20:12

that kind of brings us back to you. And I interrupted you, but I want now I want to circle back. Because that’s a good question to ask. And you said, you’re gonna give us some insights on like, how can we know? What questions should we be asking? So we could be asking a basic or coordinated level a level one or level two? Do you have academic coaching? That’s available to pay extra for if I think even my typical kid might need it? So let’s kind of go down the path of like, I’m, if I’m a mom of, you know, neurodivergent kid, what can I start asking? How do I even know if what they offer is good?

Jessica Nelson 20:52

Well, first off, you can start with what I call some like nonverbal indicators, just like when you go visit a campus. So for instance, where is their disability support services office? Is it in the basement of a dorm somewhere? Or have they centrally located it? Maybe next to a library or writing center? Does it have wind up? It was? Because to me, that really tells me like, do they prioritize this on campus? Is this something they find important? So I feel like that’s one nonverbal indicator, you can also see like, who is heading up that office? Are they professional in that field, ask them what their background is. So again, you have a sense of like, how important is it to this campus? And then what do they call that office? i That one’s not always want to go by but I do love colleges that call it the Office of Accessibility, as opposed to the office of disability, it’s just a different way of framing

Lisa Marker Robbins 21:48

positive versus feels somewhat negative. Yeah, they’re providing

Jessica Nelson 21:53

access to the straight through their education, which is their job to do so. You can look for those indicators. But also, there’s so many questions you can be asking. And I think it’s good for families to know that the admissions office does not talk to the disability support service offense, and vice versa, I think they

Lisa Marker Robbins 22:13

including to say that again. Because I know people have all died to ask when they’re listening. It’s like, okay, multitaskers, zero back in for a second because this is true. A lot of things and then college. So admissions, is not speaking to the accessibility office, nor Earth admissions, usually talking to financial aid. So, yes. So

Jessica Nelson 22:38

this is the time for you to ask the disability office, all of those questions you have and not worry about them calling admissions being like, Well, we had this mom, no, this is the time when you need to ask is it stopped by a professional? How many students at that campus are registered with Disability Services? Because that gives you a sense of like, what percentage of students that they’re serving and how many reps they have at doing this? How many? You know, professionals do they have working in that office with that number of students? Do they help students with advocacy? Maybe what happens if they have a professor that they’re struggling with? Who may not be helping them with their accommodations properly? Are they good with assistive technology? So if you have a student with dyslexia, who may be using speech to text and text to speech to be doing their papers or accessing their reading? How good are they at those things? And can they help them if they’re having trouble with those programs? Or can they get all their books and digital tax? I liken it to you know, you wouldn’t walk into a house that you want to purchase, look around and say, This looks great. We’re in no inspection, let’s do it unless it was COVID. But we’re over that.

Lisa Marker Robbins 23:54

Yeah. Not recommended to do that. Right. And

Jessica Nelson 23:58

I mean, when you think about the cost of college, it’s not that much off from buying a new home. So this is the time to ask every question that’s coming to mind and not being afraid to go back and ask your questions, to make sure again, that your student’s needs are being fulfilled. And I think at the same time, though, you have to understand that that IEP does not go to college. So it will not look the same. High schools have to provide ensure success. Colleges only have to ensure access. So that is a different way of thinking about this process. So it’s more access, you know, as we said, digging out one of those most important things and in what ways can they be replicated, but it will not be a perfect replication of baseball.

Lisa Marker Robbins 24:44

That’s, I mean, I think right there you said like, high schools have to ensure that we’re educating the students and they’ve got that a good basic education at the high school level, and they don’t Have to college, they don’t have to insure it, they don’t have to hunt your kid down. They don’t have to do anything, it just has to be available.

Jessica Nelson 25:07

Right. And they can’t actually, like greatly modify the curriculum that can happen on you know, in the high school level, that does not happen at college, they cannot be modifying their curriculum to a great extent for the students. So instead, they can provide support and access to it, because college is a privilege, right? Whereas high school, K three, I mean, K through 12, that that’s a right.

Lisa Marker Robbins 25:31

Right. You know, it also makes me think of, I often say to parents of high school students, you know, as their kids are starting high school, be low high school, I feel like teachers in a lot of times kids run teams, right? When they’re in elementary and middle school or junior high. And there’s a lot of invisible supports, teachers will bend over backwards, or your kid only sees two teachers all day. So they’re well coordinated. And they are putting those invisible sports in, and then it kid gets to the high school. And it’s like, oh, they’re seeing six or seven teachers a day who are not on a team and who are not necessarily communicating with one another. And then it’s now another level, and they get to a height that they get to college. And it’s like, Yeah, nobody’s talking to anybody in let alone, they’re not even talking to each other, and you have to go talk to them, they’re not going to talk to you about it. So it just keeps getting like, I guess, step, step down. Right.

Jessica Nelson 26:32

Right. I mean, that’s ultimately what we want, in some way to hell yeah. And then to launch into being successful adults that can manage their lives. And so this is kind of just a step in that direction. And he made me think of something in Britain that I want to make sure I mentioned, which is herba. So the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act, parents in high school have access to everything, their grades are slipping, they might get a call, they can look at all their grades online, they have access to their IEP team, to their teachers, the counselor to the principle at 18, all of those rights, move over to the student, and you no longer have access to them. So you can call a college and say, how is my student doing? And they can say your student is enrolled here. And then is about it. And I think that’s really hard for parents because they’re footing the bill. Yeah. And they, you know, and it’s easy to get angry with a poor person on the other side of the phone, and I’m like, it is not their fault. Be kind to them. At some places you can we have your student waive their FERPA rights, and they can talk about things more freely, which is really great. We actually that happened, a lot of landmark students could sign off on the right, so we could talk more liberally with parents, but I think parents have to get used to the idea that they may not have a lot of access to what’s going on. And so just like you kind of mentioned, having those discussions, 30 to 60 minutes a week, maybe that continues. In college, you set up that Sunday call and kind of ask how classes are going and have your little mental checklist for yourself.

Lisa Marker Robbins 28:09

Right? Well, I think too, you brought up something good. It was like, parents have all these feelings about like, what I can’t, I can’t call and check. I’m splitting the bill. Right? I’m paying. And so yeah, you don’t have that, right. But when it comes to your child, you can say like, I need to see your grades. You know, I, I need to talk to you on FaceTime, or Zoom once a week and see your face and have a conversation. Like, I sometimes encounter parents who are a little afraid to like push it with requiring some of these things of their students and, and I hear it around the college major and career coaching like, wow, you know, they don’t want to, you know, they don’t want to do whatever right now. And I’m like, you’re getting ready to spend six figures. And it’s a huge to your point is like a house investment. It’s far more than most people’s cars. And so you have the right to require some of these, like, we are going to talk once a week. I am you know, you’re you’re still parenting. I mean, believe me, I have all adult kids, we still a parent, even when they’re in their 20s and 30s. So are there any any parting words of advice, or I mean, I think you’ve covered so much that is so helpful, but I it’s not my expertise. So I don’t know if there’s anything else we need to share or any parting words of advice?

Jessica Nelson 29:37

That’s a really good question. I think start early if you can, but don’t panic if you’re starting now. And as I said, having that longer runway for your kiddos and just recognizing that and also recognizing that the process may not be linear for your student and often is not for neurodivergent students and that’s Okay, so it may mean a gap year may be really beneficial a year doing an internship, or maybe the startup community college and they transfer on and it’s okay for it not to be a linear process for them, they will get there and they will launch their timeline could just look a little bit different. And that’s okay, like giving yourself permission, giving your students permission to do what feels right and authentic to them.

Lisa Marker Robbins 30:23

I hear a lot of hope for families in this episode. And so Jessica, thanks for being on in being a hope creator. If anybody says why want to work with Jessica, we need her help or I want to learn more or you know, how do they stay in touch with you? What’s the best way?

Jessica Nelson 30:40

Or I worked with college wise, so you can find us on college wise.com And you can look for to college wise.com and search Jessica Nelson. It is spelled just like how it says the really boring way,

Lisa Marker Robbins 30:53

which is really appreciated.

Jessica Nelson 30:57

Yep. So it’s really easy to find me in that sense. You google those things you will find me and the colored rice has a bunch of gray resources too, if you want to get started on your own, but, you know, link

Lisa Marker Robbins 31:09

to those show notes for sure south. Thank you, Jessica.

Jessica Nelson 31:13

Thank you.

Lisa Marker Robbins 31:20

Thank you to Jessica for sharing her invaluable insights, identifying college programs and support services for neurodivergent students. As we wrap up, I encourage you to take a practical step forward. Make a list of the invisible supports you currently provide for your team and consider what supports the school might be offering as well. This exercise will help you and your team prepare for a smoother transition to college. You might want to begin to remove some of these support slowly. Or you might find that your team would be better served by finding a college program that continues those supports. If today’s episode was helpful, please share it with a friend who might benefit from it. And don’t forget to rate and review the podcast to help us reach more families with valuable insights and support. Thank you for listening to the College and Career Clarity podcast where we help your family move from overwhelmed, confused to motivated, clear and confident about your teens future. I’m Lisa Mark Robins and until next time, keep striving for clarity and confidence in your teens college journey.