Planning for university

You may find you have to make payments up front, which you can get re-embursed once your son gets a disability education allowance. I don't know the up to date details, but you pay for an assessment on which his needs are assessed, and if your local authority or whoever is making payments in your part of the country allocates money, you will be able to recover those up front fees.

If you don't qualify, and again I don't know the thresholds, then you might have to pay for support yourselves including the fee.

I was hoping someone who has recently put a son or daughter through university would respond to your request sooner, so failing that meantime, I've offered what I can.

My immediate concern to feed back was the balance between being scientific and 'mathy' and the expectations of a course on computer science. By all means pursue it if he can but look carefully at what is expected of him. Most degree courses have standard course expectations which means he will have to show proficiency across all the learning outcomes to complete the degree.

Ask to see the course outline - it may be downloadable on the university's website, but they should provide a detailed outline. Also ask how the course is assessed - how much by exams and how much by coursework? Is there any group work, where the mark is awarded to a group rather than individuals? How much is written (essay syle or report), and how much is calculations, including setting out the thinking process?

Look carefully to see if there are any aspects he might find difficult on account of the aspergers, and if there are, find out whether the course allows alternative assessment. For example working in a group may well be problemmatic - particularly if that means he ends up with lazy group members because the better groups wont take him - you may be able to get the option of an individual submission. If he has trouble with written work, how this is set out may be critical. There have been cases of people on the spectrum not seeing the point of explaining the workings if the answer to a question looks easy, when what the assessor wants to see is the detailed workiong out process.

Mathematics courses are often highly theoretical; an applied maths form may be safer than pure maths, and numbers skill may better suit a course in accounting.. In computing, the ability to write computer games software may not be what the course is about - if there are things in computing he really cannot do, you had best establish that early on.

Teaching environments in computing often mean sitting in a room with many terminals close together, and lots of people working on them - would that be difficult.

Try to get a meeting with the staff who would be teaching him before the start of the course, to find out if there are constraints.

You may find you have to make payments up front, which you can get re-embursed once your son gets a disability education allowance. I don't know the up to date details, but you pay for an assessment on which his needs are assessed, and if your local authority or whoever is making payments in your part of the country allocates money, you will be able to recover those up front fees.

If you don't qualify, and again I don't know the thresholds, then you might have to pay for support yourselves including the fee.

I was hoping someone who has recently put a son or daughter through university would respond to your request sooner, so failing that meantime, I've offered what I can.

My immediate concern to feed back was the balance between being scientific and 'mathy' and the expectations of a course on computer science. By all means pursue it if he can but look carefully at what is expected of him. Most degree courses have standard course expectations which means he will have to show proficiency across all the learning outcomes to complete the degree.

Ask to see the course outline - it may be downloadable on the university's website, but they should provide a detailed outline. Also ask how the course is assessed - how much by exams and how much by coursework? Is there any group work, where the mark is awarded to a group rather than individuals? How much is written (essay syle or report), and how much is calculations, including setting out the thinking process?

Look carefully to see if there are any aspects he might find difficult on account of the aspergers, and if there are, find out whether the course allows alternative assessment. For example working in a group may well be problemmatic - particularly if that means he ends up with lazy group members because the better groups wont take him - you may be able to get the option of an individual submission. If he has trouble with written work, how this is set out may be critical. There have been cases of people on the spectrum not seeing the point of explaining the workings if the answer to a question looks easy, when what the assessor wants to see is the detailed workiong out process.

Mathematics courses are often highly theoretical; an applied maths form may be safer than pure maths, and numbers skill may better suit a course in accounting.. In computing, the ability to write computer games software may not be what the course is about - if there are things in computing he really cannot do, you had best establish that early on.

Teaching environments in computing often mean sitting in a room with many terminals close together, and lots of people working on them - would that be difficult.

Try to get a meeting with the staff who would be teaching him before the start of the course, to find out if there are constraints.