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Supporting Young Adults: Transitioning to Post-Secondary Educational Opportunities
This fall, I dropped my oldest child off for his junior year of college. For our family, this is always a time of excitement, but also one of trepidation. The transition from high school to higher education, from childhood to adulthood, is full of new and evolving challenges. Those challenges are...
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Aging with Autism: Innovations for Independent Living to Address the Housing Crisis
At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, a friend came down with a particularly bad case of the virus which required emergency transport to the hospital. Laying on the gurney in the back of the ambulance she panicked as they placed the oxygen mask over her face. The EMS workers were frustrated with...
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Helping Autistic Individuals Navigate Barriers to Adulthood
An adult on the spectrum can accomplish or achieve everything his/her/their cohort who is not on the spectrum has accomplished or achieved, and yet not be rewarded with that same level of independence and autonomy for his/her/their efforts (Cheak-Zamora, Tait & Coleman, 2022). Although young...
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Autism and Adolescence: For Many, the Most Challenging Time of Life
It is a well-known conventional wisdom that adolescence, or the teenage years, are a difficult time of life for everybody and that this has probably been the case since time immemorial. It is equally well known in the autism community that middle school (or, as it was known in my day, junior high...
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Transition Planning for the Long Haul – Life Beyond College
Parents of students on the autism spectrum and their neurotypical peers begin to think about college as they progress through high school. According to the Department of Labor, students with disabilities who earn a bachelor’s degree are employed at about the same rate as their non-disabled peers...
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Using Community Collaboration to Support Transition-Aged Students
In 2017, the Autism Provider Network of Northwest Ohio conducted a full scope community needs assessment which included a national best practice review, community provider audit, stakeholder focus groups, and an on-line needs assessment distributed to individuals and families. The data collected...
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Job Skills Are Skills for Life
What we learn at work can often help us in our life, outside of our place of employment, and what we learn during our personal experiences can benefit our performance on the job. Sometimes these transferable job skills and behaviors are referred to as “soft skills.” For example, after an IBM...
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Computer Science Inclusion Program Gives Marketable Skills for Adulthood
Businesses are anxious for computer science professionals. However, colleges currently do not graduate enough students knowledgeable in cutting-edge STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills (United States Equal Opportunity Commission, 2014). Computer science inclusion...
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A Transition Model That Works – Project SEARCH Autism Enhancement
Employment is a defining characteristic of adulthood, yet the emerging data regarding vocational outcomes for young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been less than optimal. Close to half of young adults with ASD are unable to secure employment after high school (Shattuck et al, 2012)....
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Empowering Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder
With the implementation of the Employment First Initiative, integrated community employment has become a nationwide focus that is affording greater opportunities for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). While we’re moving in the right direction, there is still work to be done. According...
