My name is Cameron Sturgeon, and I am a senior studying Communication Sciences and Disorders with a minor in Human Development and Family Sciences. During the Spring semester of 2020 and into this Fall semester, I began conducting research under my mentor, Dr. Kimberly Frazier. My research is also being done in a group with two other students in my major. Dr. Frazier and my peers have taught me so much and we have worked so well together. Our research is on the transition process of life after high school for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We are collecting qualitative data on the individual’s experiences and if they felt well prepared to move on to the next step of their life. At the moment, we are finishing up collecting data via Qualtrics survey that is being sent to families that have children with ASD that have completed high school. Dr. Frazier has been incredibly helpful in finding families to send our survey to and providing us with any support or help we may need!

Working on this research this past semester has taught me a lot about individuals with ASD as well as teaching me things about myself. Individuals with ASD, especially those that are entering/already have entered the stage of life after high school, are often not prepared and even forgotten about. We also learned that the parents of children with ASD often don’t have a voice during transition or their point of view is often overlooked, so it was important for us to get the parents perspective when collecting our data. This has been an eye-opening process because these are things I never knew regarding the ASD community. This research has taught me a lot about myself as well. I have learned that I am academically capable of a lot more than I thought I was. Since joining the Honors College and working on this research, I have pushed myself and have been able to excel more than I ever thought possible. I am so grateful for this opportunity and can’t wait to continue learning more through this process.

One thing that has been challenging, especially due to the events that have occurred with COVID-19, is the fact that we have had to change our data collection from an interview process of families that have children with ASD to an online survey. This change of plans has been challenging, but we are now be able to get more data because we have been able to send the survey to more families than we would have if we were still doing the interview approach. One other thing that has been challenging or changed is that our research group was set to go to Milan to present at a diversity conference this past June. We were very saddened that we weren’t able to attend in June, but there is still an opportunity to attend in June 2021 that will hopefully work out! Dr. Frazier hopes for us to find other conventions and conferences for us to attend and present our research at. I am very excited to see where this project may take us and to finish it up this next semester!