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Providing Menstrual Care Instruction to Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Adolescence is a developmental period that brings challenges to all children and parents. More extensive challenges can be experienced by children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their families. Understanding and coping with the physical, social, and emotional changes of adolescence is...
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Three Expert Tips for Realizing Your Wellness Goals
When we don’t feel well, it seeps into every aspect of our lives. Lethargy, a poor attitude, inertia, and even maladaptive coping mechanisms can be common signs that we aren’t operating optimally. Although social skills and career skills hog much of the limelight as important areas of function...
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Responding to the Changing Needs of Job Seeking Adults and Adolescents with Autism
The process of finding, applying for and obtaining employment is one that is constantly evolving. These changes often present new challenges for adolescents and adults with autism and related disabilities. For providers and clinicians, this means it is more important than ever to evaluate the...
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Walking the Tightrope: Promoting Success in the Adolescent with ASD
It is tough being an adolescent. Adolescence is a time fraught with changes at many levels. Physically, the body is growing and changing, evolving from the body of a child to an adult, and becoming physiologically capable of bearing children. There is a tremendous surge of hormones that allow for...
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Early Start: Preparing Adolescents for the Transition Years
The transition years prepare adolescents for life as an adult, including living as independently as possible, securing and maintaining employment and effectively interacting in the community. Children with autism spectrum disorders approaching adolescence and their families are faced with great...
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Parent and Adolescent Outcomes Following Participation in the PEERS© Program
As youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) navigate the complex social world of adolescence, they frequently have difficulty forming and maintaining friendships. Past research indicates that adolescents with ASD report lower quality friendships than their typically-developing peers (Bauminger...
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The Support of Adolescents and Adults with Autism in the Community – How to Establish Community and Life Skills That Will Endure
The United States is on the verge of a crisis as more than 800,000 children identified with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) enter adulthood. Consequently, there are vastly larger numbers of adolescents and adults who need interventions and services than ever before. Unfortunately, the need...
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Sexuality, the “Double Vulnerability,” and Youth with ASDs
The social deficits of youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) place them at an increased risk of experiencing physical or sexual abuse, neglect or exploitation (Gabriels, 2007). However, these same social impairments can also increase their vulnerability to engaging in inappropriate behavior...
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Summer Jobs
For most of us a first summer was a kind of rite of passage. Motivated by making some money and by trying on a more adult role way we were ready to take on the responsibilities of work. Knowing we had to commit ourselves to a set work schedule, to learning and performing unfamiliar tasks, to...
