For individuals on the spectrum to develop, they need to be "stretched" to try new things.1 - Temple Grandin (2015)

In this issue of Topics in Language Disorders, issue editors, Lynne Hewitt and Amy L. Weiss, have planned a rich set of articles to address the topic, "Transition to College for Students with Language Disorders On and Off the Autism Spectrum." They and their authors offer readers concrete and up-to-date information about the challenges faced by students with language and communication disorders, particularly students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), entering college or university life. Comfortingly, they also offer concrete examples of how to help students with ASD prepare to face those challenges, stretch to try new things (as recommended by Grandin, 2015, in the opening quotation), and to cope with particular challenges as they arise.

The issue begins with information about the policy shifts that occur from high school to college, as well as the cognitive and linguistic challenges in the college context, and an overview of the principles of universal design for learning that are important for college professors to adopt to guide their instruction (Frink, Whitmire, & Bogdan, 2015). The two next articles address questions about assessment, one of them focusing broadly and insightfully on comprehensive speech, language, and communication assessment of students with ASD (Hewitt, 2015) and the other focusing more specifically on the characteristics, assessment, and treatment of writing difficulties in college students with language disorders and/or learning disabilities (Richards, 2015).

Finally, the issue concludes with two articles on real-world interventions that have been developed and implemented in two innovative university-based programs to address some of the challenges faced by students with ASD. The first introduces "Camp Campus," a program offered at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire for high school students with ASD to introduce them to campus living and to provide explicit instruction in the executive functions and other skills they will need to succeed as college students (Retherford & Schreiber, 2015). The second describes a "Communication Coaching Program" at the University of Rhode Island, which provides services as part of a comprehensive set of services for students who register through their office of disability services for students (Weiss & Rohland, 2015).

Intervention research is particularly challenging, so these authors are to be commended for seeking and writing about the practical solutions they have tried, along with providing descriptive evidence of complex programs that cannot be easily distilled to simple variables. These are more akin to the effectiveness studies of the real world than the randomized controlled trials of the laboratory. Their strength is that they are situated in authentic contexts. As such, the authors describe what has been tried, what has been modified, and what outcomes have resulted thus far. It is a courageous and meaningful start, which, hopefully, can provide the model to others who wish to stretch to offer better and more relevant services for students with disabilities, including ASD, seeking to continue their education and prepare for higher level employment.

-Nickola Wolf Nelson, PhD, CCC-SLP

Editor-in-Chief

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