(bright music) >>Welcome to "A World of Difference: Embracing Neurodiversity."

I'm Darryl Owens.

From college funds open before a child can walk to collegiate onesies, prep schools and SAT tutors, college for many families is a foregone conclusion, an expectation rather than a question.

But for neurodivergent students, the path is rarely that linear.

Academic struggles can leave parents questioning whether college is even a possibility.

Difficulties connecting socially can spark parental fears about how their newly independent young adult will navigate life without the familiar comfort of home.

And the supports needed to make a successful leap from high school to higher education often fall outside what traditional college prep culture imagines.

It can be a crooked path, but one that with patience, planning, and determination, can help students arrive at a college ready to succeed on their own terms.

In this episode, we explore what it truly takes for neurodivergent students to thrive in that transition, not just to get into college, but to stay, to grow, and excel.

First, we meet a Colorado mother and son weighing the prospects of his becoming a big man on campus.

Next, our panel of national experts breaks down the challenges and offers actionable strategies to help parents support successful transitions to college for students who learn differently.

And then you'll meet our latest difference makers, a couple who, when faced with the challenge of finding schools that met their neurodivergent children's needs, turned education into a DIY project that ultimately served both their family and their community.

But first, travel with us to Denver, where Shelly Dill is exploring whether it makes sense for her son to take a shot at college or pivot toward another path that might give him a better chance at success.

(bright music) >>I mean, this is a success.

It's not particularly easy to have a kiddo with neurodiversity, and I think it's a huge success to be able to be sitting here his senior year and be talking about what it might look like for him to go to college.

This is a student center.

And then that building right there is where you would have most of your classes.

So when Luke was young, I watched a video about how autism was his superpower.

And I remember the night that I went and showed him that video.

And I thought, "This is how I want to look at autism.

I wanna look at autism as his superpower."

And I told him that that was how we wanted as a family to look at it.

And although we are constantly having to explain and say to others and really just repeat over and over and over again that he's neurodiverse, I have, I hope, tried to teach him that autism is his superpower.

And I think he looks at the world differently, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

>>I'm a senior in high school.

Next steps in my life are finishing my last semester to get my certifications for cybersecurity through the program I go to.

I'm going to get Google certifications soon.

I also might be looking to go to Arapahoe Community College here in Colorado for photography and digital design and stuff like that.

I've always been interested in computers and taking photos.

>>So whether he goes down the path of photography or whether he goes down the path of cybersecurity, he's kind of got a leg into both of them because he's receiving college credit right now.

Parenting Luke has been a very big challenge since the beginning, given their neurodiversity.

When he was young, he loved the color yellow.

He would dress in yellow.

He wanted everything yellow.

We would have yellow birthday parties and he had a yellow cape.

And I'll just say that, I mean, he was quirky and it was different, but it was fun.

Like we made it fun.

You know, the world was yellow and that was his world.

And that was something that I didn't see the world that way.

He saw the world that way.

And so from a very young age, I had to understand that this is how he sees the world.

There are still a lot of hard things, things that, you know, I don't understand, things where we get stuck and he gets stuck.

But I think he's carried that uniqueness into now who he is, is someone who's very creative.

He's really interested in photography and he's amazing at looking at pictures, looking at things and creating.

And so from a young age, he had that and he's carried that into his now adulthood.

I think this is just a different chapter where I don't know what it's going to look like for him as he transitions into more independence.

I think with some of my other children, they will be like, "Hey, see ya.

Bye."

And they will be out of the house and they will be doing things on a sort of a different timetable.

And with Luke, it's not clear what the timetable will be.

He has uncertainty, I have uncertainty.

I've had to say there is no timetable.

A timetable is for neurotypical folks.

How long does it take for him to, you know, decide what he's gonna do and start school?

Those are not going to be my measure of success for Luke.

My measure of success are gonna be things like, is he happy?

Is he fulfilled?

You know, if he's secure in what he's doing and feels like he's making good choices, then I'm gonna be happy for him regardless of the timetable.

>>I love my mom and I'm very grateful for everything she's done for me.

I wanna go to college.

I appreciate her help in taking me to colleges and touring them and going to college and career readiness nights with me or going without me and relaying the information back.

I appreciate how she has been there for me since I was born.

So I appreciate everything she's done for me.

>>Well, my biggest fear has definitely been that he wouldn't finish high school.

My biggest fear has been that he would not make it, right?

That he would just give up because, you know, it's scary.

I think when you're neurodiverse, the idea that you're gonna suddenly have all of this independence and that you're gonna have all these adult expectations on you and that you're gonna somehow on your own, make it in the world that is a big and scary place, that's hard for someone who's not neurodiverse, let alone someone who is neurodiverse.

And then on Wednesday, you'll be back at U Crest and that's the youth group evening.

So my biggest fear would be that he would give up, that he would sell himself short, and that he would think he can't do it.

And my biggest hope for him is that he dreams big.

That he doesn't self-sabotage, that he doesn't let that fear keep him from moving forward.

My biggest hope is that he decides, "I'm gonna go after my dream," whatever that is.

(bright music) >>Next, our experts share tips and strategies for families who, like the Dills, find themselves weighing college alongside other promising options.

(bright music) Dr.

Oksana Hagerty is dean of Beacon College's Robey Center for Student Success, where she leads a team dedicated to helping neurodivergent students achieve meaningful academic progress and independence.

A psychologist and higher education leader, she specializes in student success, self-advocacy, executive functioning, and the transition to college life.

Amy Kopelman is founder and CEO of Pathlitics, a college planning platform built specifically for students who learn differently and those with ADHD and autism.

Drawing on more than 20,000 hours of research, interviews, and product development, she created Pathlitics to help families identify colleges and pathways where neurodivergent students can thrive, graduate, and achieve long-term success.

Dr.

Antonio Pagan is a licensed psychologist, autism researcher, and director of intervention programs at Lifespan Autism Clinic at UT Health Houston.

His nationally recognized work focuses on helping autistic and neurodivergent young adults build independence, strengthen mental health, and successfully navigate the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

And we're going to begin our conversation with Dr.

Hagerty.

Many neurodivergent students leave high school academically prepared, but they still struggle in college.

What are the biggest differences between high school and higher education that families often overlook?

>>I would say that it's exactly it.

The difference between the expectations in high school and in college.

Those who come from high school, they know they had IEP or a 504 plan, and they're used to the fact that the school is obligated by law to reach out to students if they see that the student is struggling.

They are obligated to identify the problem.

They're obligated to connect students to the resources available.

And nothing of that is happening in the colleges.

In colleges, students will have to self-advocate.

They cannot wait for somebody to reach out to them and say, "Hey, I'm seeing you as struggling.

Do you need help?"

No, the students will have to be actively reaching out for help themselves.

And I would say this is one of the biggest program, challenges and probably where we lose most of the time because students sometimes are expecting, "Well, maybe that professor will say something, or maybe that person in the tutoring center will notice that I'm struggling and will say something."

Well, it's not what colleges do, not because they're not as well prepared to serve students who are neurodivergent, but that's because that's the expectation.

And I think it's very important.

Then I think another difference, another dimension is the role of parents.

Even if FERPA waiver is signed, the role of parents is very limited.

Those who are coming from the IEP process know that parents had a seat at the table.

They were part of IEP meetings.

When you transition to college, parents' role is very, very limited.

They won't be informed.

Colleges usually do not proactively reach out.

They will have, parents will have to negotiate with their students, sharing of information, and maybe sharing of advice if that is what students need.

Another dimension is the amount of reading and writing.

In high schools, and even if students are academically ready with very, very good grades coming out of high school the nature of reading and writing in colleges is very different.

In high school, students usually write in their English classes.

In colleges, writing is the main tool to show what you know.

So students are expected to write in almost every single class, and that amount of writing and the nature of writing is usually very unexpected for students.

The same about reading.

They read upper level texts that are longer, that have more vocabulary that they may not know.

So reading is different.

And the last but not least is executive function.

There is an expectation for independent initiation and sustaining effort, which is very difficult, different from high school.

In high school, a lot of work is done in class, and students are usually measuring the amount of independent work relative to how much effort they had to show in class.

In colleges, they have to double or even triple the amount of work they will have to do independently out of class.

So some of the struggles, and this is both good and bad news.

Some of the struggles are not dispositional, are not something that students cannot overcome.

Some of the struggles are coming from the difference in expectations and the difference in systems.

And we noticed that if we talk to families, if we talk to students about those differences, usually we can eliminate some of the problems, if not all.

>>All right.

Thank you, Dr.

Hagerty.

So Amy, when parents begin looking at colleges beyond rankings, location, and campus life, what are some of the things they should be considering to make sure they're setting their student up for success?

>>I think we are also conditioned to chase prestige and rankings.

I've had the opportunity to review over 500 detailed reviews from students who learn differently across the United States about their college experience.

And again, we found that rankings didn't predict whether they would succeed, but the FIT did.

So there are five components of FIT that consistently come up in our research that separates students who thrive from those who struggle.

We refer to them as the five pillars of college success for students who learn differently.

The first is academic alignment.

Does a teaching style, format, class size, align with how that student learns?

Are there majors that excite that student?

The second, the professor culture.

Are they supportive of neurodivergent students?

Do they honor accommodations?

The third, a sense of belonging.

Do they feel like their true selves on campus?

The fourth, the social connection.

Have they found their people?

And then the fifth, a supportive disability office.

Are they easy to work with?

If a student has additional needs, were they able to access executive function coaching or a comprehensive program where they're meeting with learning support a certain number of times a week?

Maybe there is a social component built in.

So my advice to families is instead of looking outward to best of lists or rankings, look inward at what factors contribute to a student's success on campus.

>>All right.

Thank you, Amy.

So Dr.

Pagan, your research focuses on the transition to adulthood.

Why is that period between high school and college such a critical window to predicting independence and success for these neurodivergent students?

>>Absolutely.

Yeah, such a great question.

I think for the most part, what families are experiencing is that there's a really severe service cliff.

I think as Dr.

Hagerty had mentioned, you know, the system shifts from one of entitlement to one of eligibility where you are eligible for services, but the college is not going to advocate for you as you do experience in high school.

And so, you know, these students now are left to their own devices.

And what I've experienced a lot with a lot of my students is that they have been able to rely on internal skills, whether that's cognitive abilities and things of that nature in high school.

Whereas in college, they are now needing to use skills, right?

So emotion regulation, executive functioning skills and as well, understanding their own abilities, when they function best.

And so for that comes a need to structure their time.

And some of those things are sort of set up for them in high school, whereas in college now, you have this unstructured time where people are not gonna tell you when to study, how much to study what works best for you.

And so it's really critical because it sets up the rest of their trajectory as it relates to changing from being a passenger to being the driver of their future success.

>>Watch the full Ask the Experts segment on our website at awodtv.org if you wanna learn more about this topic.

You can also watch or listen on Facebook, YouTube, or on your favorite podcasting platform.

(bright music) Next, let's meet our latest difference makers.

For many parents, learning that their child is neurodivergent can spark confusion and morph into frustration once they encounter what often feels like an impenetrable wall blocking access to the supports their child needs to pursue an education and thrive.

Brandie and Daniel D'Orazio know that cycle well.

When their children receive neurodivergent diagnoses, the couple didn't throw up their hands in despair.

Instead, they rolled up their sleeves and used their experience as a blueprint for building a place that welcomed students like their children into a nurturing environment.

One grounded in consistent routines, strength-based learning, and therapeutic supports.

That was their promise to families.

And fittingly, it became the name of their new school.

As the D'Orazios show with the Promise School, one family's leap of faith can become a community resource that transforms the lives of other families too.

(lively music) >>So we have four children.

Out of the four, two of them have dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and ADHD.

I'm also a registered nurse, and I started the Promise School with my husband, the co-founder.

And it probably started when our second child was going into the spring of first grade, knowing that there were some differences that we were already tracking.

>>That's the year COVID hit.

So when Anna came home in the spring of that first grade, Brandie, who was very on top of her learning and her needs, I think started to really see some of those differences.

>>And at that time, we just started to see more of the concern that we thought that maybe we need to do something a little bit different.

>>And then we had applied to a different school for Luca, and he didn't get in.

And as part of that process, Brandie had already started to think about getting him evaluated.

And soon after, we met with the evaluator, and I remember saying, "Oh, is there a diagnosis?

I thought it was going to be ADHD.

Luca's very excitable."

And at the end, she said that he too was dyslexic.

>>But with him, it was very, very different.

So it was a big surprise when he got the diagnosis of dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia.

Luca had to do occupational therapy, so did Anna to work on other skills.

It was a, it was a lot.

It was a lot of work, and it was being really exhausting for them.

>>Brandie said we had four children.

We had a son, Leo, who was born with some very rare genetic disorders.

He blessed us and lived for three years.

And in the process of his life, we realized how many other ways that we're able to accommodate him, give him the best quality of life.

And it was really bringing a lot of other clinical and medical and therapies together.

And as we look back, what an influence Leo had on our vision that sort of hit us for this school, that with Brandie's clinical background, we could bring the best of education, but then also bring that developmental, social, emotional, other supports in.

And as parents who have been running around after school trying to get some of that coordinated in school, we realized just how difficult all of that was.

And we thought if we could build a place where that could be incorporated in a meaningful way, and also a lot of those services with those supports coming in, it would make a big difference for their learning development, but also the families, because when the kids come home after school and they have a learning difference, they're working really hard to stay focused.

I call Leo perfectly imperfect.

And there were so many things that he didn't have or couldn't do.

He couldn't see, couldn't talk, he couldn't eat, he couldn't really move that well.

But his three years and three days of life were extraordinary for him.

His quality of life because of what Brandie did and all the other supports we had.

And it really just made us think about no matter who you are, you still need a lot of support in life no matter who you are.

I don't think we realized at the time how much of a response or trigger that was for us for the school, but it's clear to us now that his life gave us a lot of that motivation.

>>So I think that that's something that reminds me that even though we had a child that no matter what we did, it was not gonna change his outcome.

But knowing that what we do here, it changes people every day.

>>It was December of 2022.

I don't know why it hit me, but I said, "I think this is the right thing to do."

>>And I said to him, "Uh, no, that sounds crazy.

We are not doing that.

That's a hard no."

But he's like, "Just keep thinking about it."

And then we are experiencing what other parents are experiencing on a daily basis.

We understand.

So it was all of these things collectively that I thought that, "You know, yeah, maybe we can do this."

And so we did.

>>Parents really need to understand too what their kids need, that the kid's brain is built differently, and that we can help that brain do remarkable things if we can teach differently and help them develop differently.

>>It's just really helping people to understand that it is okay for you to think differently, to learn differently.

It is okay.

The Orton-Gillingham approach is a way that we are able to educate these children in a evidence-based manner that is direct and explicit, that is multisensory, that is diagnostic, that is cumulative, it's flexible.

It works.

It is evidence-based, science-backed, and it works.

>>My job at the Promise School is to oversee all of the teachers to make sure that they are implementing the Orton-Gillingham approach effectively into the classrooms.

It has a set of principles that we use as our standard, and we do all of our teaching based off of those principles.

Teaching is done directly and explicitly.

It's individualized for each student.

The Promise School looks at the entire child, the social and emotional wellbeing of the child, and puts that all together.

>>When you see a child come into these doors at the very beginning of the school year in August, they do not feel smart.

They don't feel like they're like their peers.

And to watch a transformation happen over those nine months, it is nothing more than just extraordinary and remarkable.

>>I'm a proud parent of my son, Henry, who is a fifth grader here at the Promise School.

He was attending a public school here on James Island, but he was struggling with literacy, phonemic awareness.

We always say, my wife and I always say that we got our son back.

I mean, I can't say enough about the community here at the Promise School from the leadership all the way down to the classroom teachers that are making a huge difference in his academic growth.

But what means more to me as his father is how he's celebrated daily.

And now his self-image is back to where he values himself as a learner, so.

>>My husband and I have Everett, who goes to school here.

He was we're one of the original families, so we started.

We realized in the first grade, really the kindergarten, first grade, because that was right after COVID and everything, when we were doing at home learning, that like things were just not clicking with him, that he definitely learned differently than my oldest child.

And that's when we got all the extensive testing.

And we found out that not only is he dyslexic, he also has dyscalculia and dysgraphia.

And at that point, it was recommended that we needed to find an Orton-Gillingham type school.

We took the faith journey and it has been an immense blessing.

It's everything that we hope for, the whole reason why we would move, and it's the main reason why we're here.

I mean, totally different child.

They built self-confidence.

He used to, like, hate reading and learning.

I mean, he loves to learn.

He loves to read now, and he's thriving so much right now.

I mean, it is the biggest blessing a mom could ever pray for or hope for.

>>You can do all things if you put your mind to it.

And, you know, yes, you're gonna need support of your parents, and they're there supporting you along the way, but you can do it.

(bright music) >>Congratulations, Brandie and Daniel D'Orazio for making a difference.

And that does it for this edition of "A World of Difference: Embracing Neurodiversity."

I'm Darryl Owens.

Thank you for being a part of our world.

See you here next time.

You can watch episodes of "A World of Difference" on the Beacon College Facebook and YouTube channels, and on the show's website, awodtv.org.

The website also provides tip sheets and other resources for your parenting journey.

You can watch the show from the PBS app available on your favorite streaming device, and you can listen on your favorite podcasting platform.

Thank you for watching and supporting "A World of Difference."

(bright music) (ambient music) (dramatic music)