Ms. Jekel worries about exposing inherently naïve students, who are as sexual as the next college student, to the complexities of dating. Women on the spectrum are especially vulnerable sexually and emotionally, since they have problems deciphering intentions. Men are at risk, too, misreading clear signals of rejection (“I’m busy”); instead, they might pursue a romance until a confrontation results.

Some assume conventional learning-disability programs will do for such students. But that’s a mistake, experts say. Students on the spectrum need help chopping course loads into manageable bites. They need to learn how to act appropriately in class — correcting professors or asking too many questions are common gaffes. They also need support with ticklish social issues like roommates who complain they are too messy or who lock them out when a date stays overnight.

“That’s a little bit different from what administrators normally do,” says Richard Allegra , director of professional development for the Association on Higher Education and Disability. “If a blind student needs books in Braille, they know how to do that.”

Most advisers just don’t have the training or the time to shepherd students with cognitive disabilities. One student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tells of being assigned, because of a family connection, to a freshman adviser whose son had Asperger’s. “He met with me weekly,” says the student, Richard, who describes his Asperger’s as mild and asked that his last name be omitted for fear of being stigmatized. “It helped keep me on track,” he says. “He would just light a fire under you once in a while.” Sophomore year he had a different adviser, one who was not personally invested. Meetings dwindled to monthly or less. Richard’s grades dropped as he stayed up late into the night roaming the Internet and procrastinating. “I was just not getting the work done,” he says.

Colleges are devising programs that try to integrate students on the spectrum into the academic and social fabric of the campus. The Essex campus of the Community College of Baltimore County, in a joint program with a state agency and a local school, has hired a special-education teacher to help students organize their time and assignments and improve the skills that are second nature to most, like how much space goes between two people in a conversation or how to make gentle eye contact.

At Keene State College, in New Hampshire, fellow students act as “social navigators.” Their assignment: change their charges’ “outsider” status by introducing them to their friends. The mentors get $10 an hour (and sometimes course credit in psychology) by helping students on the spectrum make small talk, date and get consent at every level of romantic advancement. For example, says Larry Welkowitz , who helped create the program: “Would it be O.K. if I asked you out on a date?” “Would it be O.K. if I kissed you?” Some 50 undergraduates have participated in the program, which Professor Welkowitz calls “the single best intervention _ I just know it because of how I have seen their lives change.” In turn, he says, the mentors develop new understanding. “We’re learning about ourselves,” Professor Welkowitz says. “A lot of us have a dash of autism.”

At Marshall University, the West Virginia Autism Training Center operates a program in which graduate students work daily with students with Asperger’s, reviewing assignments, helping with time management and teaching classroom etiquette. They take the students on field trips to Wal-Mart, to restaurants and to the movie theater to let them practice social skills. Bottom line for parents: $6,200 a year.