Navigating Neurodiversity: Self-Advocacy on College Campuses

By Burt Brooks, Co-Founder & CEO, PathAble AI

College is the first place most people are expected to advocate for themselves. Not coached through it. Not accompanied. Just expected to show up, know what they need, ask the right people, and follow the right process. For neurodivergent students, that expectation lands differently — not because they're less capable, but because the system was built without them in mind.

Transition is Change and Change is Hard

Under IDEA, K-12 schools are obligated to find students who need support and provide it. Under the ADA and Section 504, colleges are only obligated to respond to requests. The student has to self-identify, provide documentation, request accommodations each semester, and follow up when they aren't honored — a significant administrative load dropped on students already navigating new living situations, academic expectations, and identity.

Disclosure Is a Decision, Not a Confession

Disclosure is a choice. The disability services office needs the full picture to approve accommodations; a professor usually needs only the accommodation letter, not the diagnosis. Requesting an accommodation is not an admission that you are broken — it is the transfer of operating information so the environment can stop getting in the way of what you're already capable of.

What Campuses Can Do

Proactive outreach, transition programming that bridges IEP to ADA, practical faculty training, and feedback mechanisms that measure student success — not just accommodation utilization — are the investments that make a campus genuinely navigable.

Read more perspectives on the PathAble AI media page or explore the AI Learning Portal.