03/01/2026

Supporting Neurodivergent Students’ College and Career Success

By Erin Barnes, Vickie Houser, Sarah Moenning, and Jack Fejfar

Neurodivergent students diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) face unique challenges in higher education (Dwyer et al., 2023). The Academic Life Navigator (ALN) program at the University of Iowa provides individualized support to help neurodivergent students build executive functioning, self-advocacy, and resilience skills. Practitioners can use the strategies outlined to support neurodivergent students’ development (Earnest & Crowley, 2025; Le Cunff et al., 2024).

The Role of Academic Life Navigators (ALNs)

Academic life navigators (ALN) serve as a bridge between neurodivergent students and the university’s resources. The University of Iowa created the ALN role to empower and promote independence by offering structured support tailored to students’ unique needs. The ALN program is designed around the following five activities:

• Referral and Intake: Access consultants provide an overview of services available and refer the interested student to the ALN program, where they then complete an intake survey.
• Initial Meeting: The ALNs meets with the student to discuss goals, review informed consent, and outline the program structure.
• Goal Development: The ALNs collaborates with students to create personalized academic and social goals.
• Intervention and Monitoring: The ALNs provide ongoing support by proposing and implementing interventions that help students build executive functioning skills and track progress.
• Reflection and Evaluation: Students assess their experience, reflecting on their growth and future academic or workforce needs post-graduation.

Core Functions of Academic Life Navigators

The ALN is a role within Student Disability Services at the University of Iowa (UI). This position leverages graduate education to meet a critical campus need. Graduate students in the Rehabilitation Counseling program provide individualized, skills-based guidance to neurodivergent students. The overall goal is to empower students to succeed academically and socially while they navigate their collegiate life. This project is offered at no cost to participants, ensuring accessibility for any neurodivergent student at the UI. Services are provided in-kind, and the institution has successfully served over 270 participants since 2020.

ALNs utilize counseling skills to help students identify challenges, articulate goals, monitor their progress, and reflect on successes. Common challenges include time management, task prioritization, organization, motivation, wellness management, self-advocacy, and support (Blaskowitz et al., 2025; Earnest & Crowley, 2025; Le Cunff et al., 2024; Kennedy et al., 2025). Within the past year, ALNs have integrated technology-based tools to address these challenges and advance students’ career goals and overall developmental process.

Challenges and Strategic Supports for Neurodivergent Students

ALNs identified five challenges participants encounter in higher education that are linked to needed career readiness competencies (NACE, 2024).

1. Time Management and Task Prioritization: Participants have indicated they often struggle to allocate their time efficiently and wisely. Specific time management challenges include setting clear goals, scheduling tasks, avoiding distractions, and setting time limits (Langberg et al., 2008). Task prioritization means determining which tasks are most urgent (Guo et al., 2018).
2. Organization and Study Habits: Organization involves structuring work materials and the environment in a way that makes it easier for them to access what they need when they need it (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.a). Essentially, it helps students to stay focused and on track.
3. Overcoming Procrastination and Motivation: Procrastination involves delaying activities counterproductively (Cherry, 2024). Managing procrastination includes chunking, having an accountability partner, setting deadlines, practicing self-compassion, and incorporating rewards (Lombardo, 2017). Motivation is one’s drive to accomplish tasks (APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2018a).
4. Stress and Mental Health Management: This involves the ability to identify periods of discomfort and employ strategies to reduce or manage them (APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2018c). Mindfulness, breathing activities, physical exercise, and setting healthy boundaries are key well-being strategies.
5. Self-Advocacy and Support: Self-advocacy has to do with one's ability to express their needs, desires, and rights to others in a mature way (APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2018b). Support refers to one’s ability to seek out and receive practical assistance from others, including friends, mentors, family, or professionals (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.b). Oftentimes, support systems provide avenues to identify resources, receive guidance and encouragement, and reduce stress.

The ALN's have identified numerous technology-based resources to support student challenges.

Time Management and Task Prioritization

• Habitica is a gamification-based system used to promote and sustain healthy behaviors.  
• Forest is a task-management system that allows users to plant virtual trees that grow when the user successfully manages their time.
• Motivation Web is a handout that utilizes structured prompts to encourage participants to reflect on their academic goals and reasons for persistence.

Organization and Study Habits

• Twos assists with note-taking, task management, and reminders.
• Routine aids workflow management by seamlessly integrating resources such as calendars, task lists, and project planning resources.
• Calendarpedia provides customizable calendar templates that participants can use to organize their class, work, and social schedules more effectively.

Overcoming Procrastination and Motivation

• Pomofocus provides a customizable Pomodoro timer that helps participants work in structured intervals to enhance focus and reduce procrastination.
• Habitica and Forest reinforce task initiation and completion.
• Positive Psychology provides psychoeducational resources for improving motivation and mental well-being.

Stress and Mental Health Management

• Headspace offers mental health management tools, including mindfulness, mental health coaching, and therapy resources.
• Calm provides guided relaxation and meditation exercises aimed at reducing stress.
• Therapist Aid offers psychoeducational and self-help tools for mental health management.

Self-Advocacy and Support

• Transition Tennessee provides training and resources aimed at preparing students with disabilities for post-secondary life.
• iCreate Social Skills Story Creator can be used to increase self-awareness as well as increasing leadership and communication abilities.

Key Implications

The ALN program empowers neurodivergent students to navigate higher education. These skills also transfer to the workforce after graduation. Through a structured process, career service professionals can collaboratively develop and monitor interventions to foster independence and inclusion. By expanding neurodivergent resources, they can address academic challenges that threaten their success.

AI Statement:

AI tools were used to organize students’ career development goals into five broad categories of challenges. It was also used to brainstorm and edit written content.

References

American Psychological Association. (2018a, April 19). APA Dictionary of Psychology: Motivation. https://dictionary.apa.org/motivation 

American Psychological Association. (2018b, April 19). APA Dictionary of Psychology: Self-advocacy. https://dictionary.apa.org/self-advocacy 

American Psychological Association. (2018c, April 19). APA Dictionary of Psychology: Stress management. https://dictionary.apa.org/stress-management 

Blaskowitz, M. G., Pustorino-Clevenger, A. M., Killion, M., & Shirlow, C. (2025). Are universities ready to support autistic students? A call to increase coordinated campus efforts. Autism in Adulthood, 7(4). https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2024.0293 

Cambridge University Preses (n.d.a). Organization skills. Cambridge Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/organizational-skills 

Cambridge University Press. (n.d.b). Support. Cambridge Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/support 

Cherry, K. (2024). What is procrastination. https://www.verywellmind.com/the-psychology-of-procrastination-2795944 

Dwyer, P., Mineo, E., Mifsud, K., Lindholm, C., Gurba, A., & Waisman, T. C. (2023). Building neurodiversity-inclusive postsecondary campuses: Recommendations for leaders in higher education. Autism in Adulthood, 5(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2021.0042 

Earnest, D., & Crowley, Z. (2025). Time literacy: Academic support for neurodivergent students in higher education. Cognition and Instruction, 43(1), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2025.2463652 

Guo, M., Haque, A., Huang, D. A., Yeung, S., & Fei-Fei, L. (2018). Dynamic task prioritization for multitask learning. In V. Ferrari, M. Herbert, C. Sminchisescu, & Y. Weiss (Eds.), Proceedings of the European conference on computer vision (pp. 270-287). Springer. https://openaccess.thecvf.com/content_ECCV_2018/papers/Michelle_Guo_Focus_on_the_ECCV_2018_paper.pdf 

Kennedy, L. J., Richdale, A. L., & Lawson, L. P. (2025). Comparing disclosure and supports used by higher-education students with neurodivergent or mental health conditions. Autism in Adulthood, 7(4). https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2024.0118 

Langberg, J. M., Epstein, J. N., & Graham, A. J. (2008). Organizational-skills interventions in the treatment of ADHD. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, 8(10), 1549–1561. https://doi.org/10.1586/14737175.8.10.1549 

Le Cunff, A. L., Giampietro, V., & Dommett, E. (2024). Neurodiversity and cognitive load in online learning: A focus group study. PLOS ONE, 19(4), e0301932. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301932 

Lombardo, E. (2017). 11 Ways to overcome procrastination. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/better-than-perfect/201703/11-ways-to-overcome-procrastination?msockid=192d6af376a06d4720ca798977cf6ccc 

National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2024). Career readiness. https://www.naceweb.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/2024/resources/nace-career-readiness-competencies-revised-apr-2024.pdf 

Dr. Erin Barnes is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Counselor Education at the University of Iowa (UI), where she teaches graduate counseling courses and leads initiatives focused on experiential learning for adult learners. Over the past six years, she has co-developed innovative clinical training partnerships with organizations including the Iowa City Senior Center; the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association of Iowa; UI Student Disability Services, the UI Dean of Students Office; and the UI Pomerantz Career Center. She also developed and directs the UI’s Certificate in Integrated Career, Substance Use, and Mental Health Counseling. Her recent grant-funded research examines the impact of deliberate practice software on clinical skill development among master’s-level counseling students. Erin may be reached at erin-barnes@uiowa.edu.

Vickie Houser serves as the Assistant Director of Student Disability Services (SDS) at the University of Iowa. She earned a BA in Psychology and two Mater’s degrees—one in Applied Psychology and one in Higher Education and Student Affairs. Within SDS, she oversees day-to-day operations; reviews student applications and documentation to approve students for accommodations; provides training for new staff; coordinates academic support programs; supervises Academic Life Navigators; and maintains a small student caseload. She can reached at vicky-houser@uiowa.edu 

Sarah Moenning graduated from the University of Iowa's Rehabilitation Counseling Program in 2025. During her graduate studies, she served as an Academic Life Navigator (ALN), providing academic-focused counseling through the University of Iowa's Student Disability Services office. In this role, she helped neurodivergent students in navigating challenges that affect their campus experiences and overall academic success.  She has previous work experience in job coaching. She currently works as a Return-to-Work Specialist for a national third-party claims administrator.

Jack Fejfar is a recent graduate of University of Iowa's Rehabilitation Counseling Program. During his graduate studies, he served as an Academic Life Navigator (ALN) through the University of Iowa's Student Disability Services office. In this role, he supported neurodivergent students in navigating challenges that impact their campus experiences and overall academic success.  He has previous work experience in crisis management, personal coaching, counseling, and assistive technology services. He currently works as an Accommodation Specialist for a national third-party claims administrator. He welcomes correspondence at fejfarjack@gmail.com.