THE CHALLENGES OF BEING A GRADUATE STUDENT AND TEACHING ASSISTANT WITH ADULT DIAGNOSED AUTISM AND ADHD

Neurodivergency manifests in several different forms each with their own complications towards success. It has given me a duality of seeing both the big picture ideas and an attention to detail, many of which just get in the way, to push forwards towards being a contributing member of the scientific community. Graduate school as a member of the neurodivergent community has been challenging for me in many respects because of the need to fit multiple roles. As a student, my role is to learn how to design and implement a research project. While as a teaching assistant, my role is to interact with students in a way that facilitates their learning. The challenge of these competing roles is compounded by the fact that I am adult diagnosed with ADHD and Autism. Almost all available resources for these disorders are designed for parents of children diagnosed with them, leaving us adult diagnosed people minimal avenues for help with managing our disabilities. Executive function dysregulation has proved to be the biggest hurdle for succeeding in graduate school and it makes maintaining deadlines almost impossible. I have developed a myriad of coping strategies over the years that reduce the impact of my neurodivergency in my day-to-day functions as a graduate student. Oddly enough, teaching has been by far and away the aspect of graduate school that provides the greatest feeling of accomplishment and pushes me to continue this path. However, the coping strategies and accommodations that I use as a student do not translate well towards my role as a Teaching Assistant. Thus, I have developed a second set of coping strategies for this role. My own struggle with neurodivergency has led me to better understand my students who are also neurodivergent. I use this insight to better implement accommodations for those students and tailor course content to connect to the interests of those students. I found that by forging a connection between my neurodivergent student’s special interests or hyperfocus subject, I can improve the student’s outcomes and knowledge retention. I intend to share how my roles as a student and as a teacher each have separate difficulties due to my neurodivergency and outline the strategies and accommodations that have mitigated these difficulties for each role.