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Autism and higher education

NAS75959
I am a mature age (40+) student recently diagnosed as on the spectrum. I sought diagnosis after seeing many similar characteristics as my two children who are also on the spectrum.
I have been struggling to make progress in my doctoral dissertation for several years and believe this may have something to do with my cognitive abilities. (I entered as a mature age professional and did not complete a dissertation previously i.e. at Master level, only coursework). In particular, I struggle with concepts and abstract thinking, including being 'creative' with ideas (in order to build a theoretical / conceptual framework for my study) ; I seem to be always looking for the 'truth' rather than understanding all writing in the social sciences are at best only theories. It is hard to explain. Does anyone have any experience with this?  Is there perhaps any literature or information on this issue that I can read and, more importantly, and advice I can obtain on whether this is a learning disability and how to overcome or workaround it?  Would love to hear of others' success stories that are relevant.
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  • I wrote up a PhD aged 49, but it was in molecular biology, so the analogy is probably not close. I did the PhD through the published work route, where you write a thesis around already published papers. My main problem was creating an overarching 'story' to connect the papers, once I had done that, the rest was straightforward. I supect that once youhave come up with a definite idea about what you want to say, the writing will be relatively easy. I think that the trick with most theses is to include an element of challenging orthodoxy, finding a small hole in accepted thinking, offering an alternative viewpoint and then defending it. There are some 'How To' type books out there on thesis writing, it may be useful to have a look at those.

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  • I wrote up a PhD aged 49, but it was in molecular biology, so the analogy is probably not close. I did the PhD through the published work route, where you write a thesis around already published papers. My main problem was creating an overarching 'story' to connect the papers, once I had done that, the rest was straightforward. I supect that once youhave come up with a definite idea about what you want to say, the writing will be relatively easy. I think that the trick with most theses is to include an element of challenging orthodoxy, finding a small hole in accepted thinking, offering an alternative viewpoint and then defending it. There are some 'How To' type books out there on thesis writing, it may be useful to have a look at those.

Children
  • in reply to Martin

    Thank you for your input, Martin! I am very inspired to hear of people in our community succeeding in the PhD studies, that it is certainly possible is reassuring. Oh, how I WISH I had pursued a career in the hard sciences, where there is positivist approaches to knowledge, where facts are black and white, verifiable or not, and hypotheses reign... Social sciences, especially those looking at 'understanding' (how possible?) instead of 'explaining' (why?), are really not suited to my way of thinking...