TY - JOUR

T1 - Neurodiversity and the Accessible University

T2 - Exploring Organizational Barriers, Access Labor and Opportunities for Change

AU - Borsotti, Valeria

AU - Begel, Andrew

AU - Bjørn, Pernille

N1 - Funding Information: We thank all the people who participated in this study. The first author would also like to thank Natalia Avlona, Barbara Nino Carreras, Kellie Dunn and Sarah Homewood for the inspiring discussions and support during the making of this research. Publisher Copyright: © Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.

PY - 2024/4/23

Y1 - 2024/4/23

N2 - The access needs of neurodivergent individuals in organizational settings are many and varied - and so are their everyday contributions to the creation of collective access. In this study, we contribute to the growing body of CSCW research on accessibility and investigate the invisible access labor of neurodivergent students in three computer science institutions. We use an exploratory, multi-stakeholder approach, combining semi-structured interviews (n=26) and document analysis. We adopted a broad definition of neurodiversity: our study included individuals with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, cyclothymia and individuals with neurological conditions that developed as a result of illness, trauma or injury. Our findings show that neurodivergent students face a number of structural and attitudinal barriers to access in the educational environment and within the disability support system. We identified barriers in three main areas: (i) assistive technology access barriers, (ii) cognitive and physical access barriers, and (iii) social access barriers. We examined how stigma, individualized understandings of disability and intersectional disadvantage shape organizational practices and explored how students are creatively improving collective access through micro-interventions, although these efforts are largely invisible. We then draw on our findings to identify opportunities for change. We propose access grafting as a bottom-up approach to rethinking and reorienting organizational strategies to improve equitable access.

AB - The access needs of neurodivergent individuals in organizational settings are many and varied - and so are their everyday contributions to the creation of collective access. In this study, we contribute to the growing body of CSCW research on accessibility and investigate the invisible access labor of neurodivergent students in three computer science institutions. We use an exploratory, multi-stakeholder approach, combining semi-structured interviews (n=26) and document analysis. We adopted a broad definition of neurodiversity: our study included individuals with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, cyclothymia and individuals with neurological conditions that developed as a result of illness, trauma or injury. Our findings show that neurodivergent students face a number of structural and attitudinal barriers to access in the educational environment and within the disability support system. We identified barriers in three main areas: (i) assistive technology access barriers, (ii) cognitive and physical access barriers, and (iii) social access barriers. We examined how stigma, individualized understandings of disability and intersectional disadvantage shape organizational practices and explored how students are creatively improving collective access through micro-interventions, although these efforts are largely invisible. We then draw on our findings to identify opportunities for change. We propose access grafting as a bottom-up approach to rethinking and reorienting organizational strategies to improve equitable access.

KW - access labor

KW - accessibility

KW - equity

KW - intersectionality

KW - Neurodiversity

KW - norm-critical

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85193284318&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/3641011

DO - 10.1145/3641011

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85193284318

VL - 8

JO - Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

JF - Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

SN - 2573-0142

IS - CSCW1

M1 - 172

ER -