By Adam Jeffrey, Steve Rogers, Kelly Jeffrey, Jamie Pringle, Mark Lucherini, Martin Griffin
Imagine being a university student and having to pretend to be someone that you are not every time you leave your home and attend your classes – one or more ‘masks’ that you wear in public to try to blend in. Your peers all seem to inherently understand a different language which you just can’t seem to master. The bright lights and surrounding chatter of the classroom are overwhelming but, no matter how much you want to just run away, you are trapped both by a need to engage with your studies and a profound fear of drawing attention to yourself. You are required by your course to attend residential field courses which force you from your comfort zone and require you to live in shared spaces with little to no opportunity for personal space. Information provided during your classes is confusing and vague, but you don’t want to ask more questions because you are just not sure how to communicate with your lecturer or fear you will annoy them. You follow the instructions precisely, as written, but people still become frustrated with your misinterpretations, confusing these with wilful ignorance – “you are just being awkward”. You want to fit in with your peers but don’t really know how to, and the burden of doing so is placed squarely at your feet. You are a problem. You are the problem.
This is a commonly shared experience amongst autistic people who have, in the geoscience subjects (i.e. GEES – geography, Earth and environmental sciences), been underrepresented in the broader push for inclusive education in GEES higher education (HE). The GEES subjects are currently facing scrutiny for a lack of diversity, and the impact that this has on both individual learners and these disciplines in general. In light of this scrutiny, and an increasing number of studies and initiatives on diversity, other areas of underrepresentation such as race, gender, and physical disability have seen emerging critique and intervention, whilst autism remains comparatively misunderstood and under-explored.
Autism is a lifelong condition which fundamentally impacts how individuals experience and communicate with the world around them, and the term is applied broadly to people who are somewhat unified by certain criteria (e.g. challenges in social communication, sensory difficulties). However, autistic people are each unique – “when you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person”. Autism is simultaneously recognised as a form of neurodiversity and protected legally as a disability via the UK Equality Act. As the disadvantages faced by autistic people become more frequently linked to inaccessible systems and environments rather than personal deficits (using the social model of disability rather than the medical model), the opportunity arises to re-evaluate how we, as educators in GEES subjects, can make our fields more understanding of, and open to, autistic learners.
A fundamental component in this endeavour is giving autistic people a voice in their own education, facilitating their self-advocacy and spreading broader awareness through access to their experiences in GEES HE, both positive and negative. Research in this area that focuses on GEES subjects is limited but has, in recent years, begun to gain attention, particularly as autistic researchers choose to undertake the work themselves (Billig and Feldman, 2017; Lang and Persico, 2019; Taylor and Johnson, 2020; Kingsbury et al., 2020; Jeffery et al., 2025). As the favoured approach slowly changes from using autistic people as subjects of research to undertaking collaborative research that amplifies autistic voices, we have sought to build upon existing studies and undertake collaborative research on the experiences of autistic learners in GEES subjects from across the U.K. Through direct and in-depth collaboration with forty autistic students of GEES subjects representing at least 16 U.K. higher education institutions, we accessed critical lived experiences which inform the following key areas as examples in which even minor adjustments could enact long-lasting positive change for autistic learners without negatively impacting others. In fact, many potential adjustments have as much scope to support non-autistic learners as they do autistic learners. Below we summarise some key recommendations to support autistic learners, supported by quotes derived from our study participants.
Four practical steps to empower autistic learners
- Include more opportunities for short breaks in which autistic learners can gain critical opportunities to recharge. Allow learners to make use of aids such as noise cancelling headphones if this facilitates their engagement. Do not make assumptions if learners appear to be poorly engaged (e.g. leaving class early). Autistic learners frequently reported that their learning environments had the potential to be inherently hostile to them; for example, lighting, temperature, and noise levels could render a specific classroom difficult to work in or potentially almost uninhabitable, making meaningful engagement almost impossible:
“…I’ve skipped or straight up left so many lectures because the lecture space was so overwhelming…”
It may not, for various reasons, be practical to literally alter the environment, but by engaging with our autistic learners and paying attention to the potential physical, social, and emotional labour required for participation, we can be more sympathetic to their difficulties.
- Ensure that instructions are provided in timely fashion and do not allow unnecessary room for interpretation. Such measures can greatly enhance their accessibility to autistic learners. By building predictability into our teaching and course structures, we can also reduce potential for misunderstandings amongst autistic and non-autistic learners. Many autistic learners reported frustration and difficulty with unclear, vague, or last-minute instructions, whether relating to individual academic tasks, timetables, or assessments. Similarly, a lack of consistency in the application of instructions was highlighted as a source of confusion that frequently leads to misunderstandings and upset:
“I’ve had difficulties with a lot of assessments, especially if instructions aren’t clear… …when instructions are vague or open-ended I struggle with knowing where to start”
- Provide students with complete information of field trip arrangements, including (where possible) photographs of the accommodation and nearby sources of food. Wherever possible, ensure appropriate breaks and opportunities for recharge. Working and teaching in the field, whether in a busy city centre or a remote mountainside, is a fundamental feature of many GEES subjects and these environments can be uniquely challenging for autistic learners. Residential field courses frequently include long days of continuous instruction, evening taught sessions, and shared accommodation. Our participants highlighted the difficulties of having to mask (present outwardly an alternative persona to blend in) all day, without adequate opportunity to recharge their social battery in the evenings due to continued classes and a lack of privacy:
“Most fieldwork I have been on included long days out in the field, then activities in the [evening] (both social and academic sometimes) and then shared accommodation. This means that there’s no free time or safe space to decompress and recharge which is extremely draining.”
Similarly, vague or incomplete instructions and information prior to departure represents a point of significant concern. For example, some autistic people only eat very specific types of food and, if unsure of what food will be available during a residential fieldtrip, may feel obliged to pack large quantities of ‘safe’ foods to take with them:
“I only like certain food and normally we aren’t told in advance what the food is and so I normally live off cereal bars.”
- Improve autism training and awareness for staff and students. The most significant and frequently requested change was mandatory autism awareness training for all teaching staff and potentially students. The practicalities of this are difficult and, due to funding and organisational limitations, responsibility for this almost certainly lies at an institutional rather than individual level, other than personal responsibility for engaging with available training. However, beyond training, there was a profound desire to be listened to and understood:
“Please be patient with me and take a bit of time to understand me… …please understand that my needs may not be obvious at first, and I may not seem to need support all the time, but it is very necessary to have support and I wouldn’t lie about something I need.”
It is one thing to practically accommodate a group of learners, but another entirely to understand them and integrate this understanding into our teaching practices. It falls on us as educators to be willing to listen and to bear our share of the burden to facilitate communication rather than continuing to passively allow that burden to fall on our autistic learners or adhering to antiquated stereotypes.
About the authors:
Adam Jeffery is a Lecturer in Forensic Geoscience at Keele University. In addition to subject-specific research in petrology and forensic geoscience, he undertakes pedagogic research into eXtended reality (XR) and inclusivity, with the aim of making higher education more accessible to autistic learners.
Steve Rogers is a Senior Lecturer in Geology at Keele University, UK with a focus on teaching and educational leadership roles. His research and scholarship focusses on geoscience education with the ultimate aim of developing a more accessible and inclusive subject.
Kelly Jeffery is a Researcher Developer at Keele University. Her research interests include supporting disabled learners in Higher Education and developing eXtended reality resources to support learners.
Jamie Pringle is a Reader in Forensic Geoscience at Keele University, having wide evidenced-based research interests and research-led pedagogic teaching, lately in authentic learning, eXtended Reality (XR) and simulated activities.
Mark Lucherini is a Teaching Fellow in Public Health at the University of Edinburgh. Mark is a qualitative researcher with diverse interests in the everyday experiences of living with diabetes; nicotine and tobacco; the human-animal bond; and developing more inclusive practices across higher education.
Martin Griffin is a neurodivergent (autistic, dyslexic, dyspraxic) and visually impaired Chartered Geologist and Chartered Engineer with 20+ years of professional experience working on ground engineering projects. He is currently serving as the Geological Society Vice President for equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.
Suggested further reading
Billig, D., & Feldman, H. D. (2017). Harnessing an Effective Geoscience Curriculum for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. GSA Today. 10.1130/GSATG325GW.1
Jeffery, A.J., Rogers, S.L., Jeffery, K.L.A. et al. Autistic voices in higher education: lessons from U.K. geoscience students to inform inclusive practices for neurodiverse learners. Discover Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-025-00639-8
Kingsbury, C. G., Sibert, E. C., Killingback, Z., & Atchison, C. L. (2020). “Nothing about us without us:” The perspectives of autistic geoscientists on inclusive instructional practices in geoscience education. Journal of Geoscience Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2020.1768017
Lang, N. P., & Persico, L. P. (2019). Challenges and approaches for creating inclusive field courses for students with an autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Geoscience Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2019.1625996
Taylor, N. C. & Johnson, J. H. (2020). Challenges and solutions for autism in academic geosciences, Advanced Geosciences. https://doi.org/10.5194/adgeo-53-33-2020
How to cite
Jeffery, A. J. et al. (2025, October) Empowering autistic learners in geosciences. Geography Directions. https://doi.org/10.55203/FSWT6896
Geography Directions 