From U.S. News & World Report:

As children with autism are growing up and looking to the future, innovative programs are popping up around the country to help them move from high school to adult life.

The aim: give them the chance to go to work, go to college, or even start a business rather than collecting disability benefits and being limited to a sheltered workshop.

Some options include:

• “Supportive and Customized Employment,” in which school systems and state vocational rehabilitation programs work together to help teenagers move into the workforce while still in high school.
• “Employment First” programs which help shift the priorities of social service agencies so that the first step is placing people in a paid job in a regular workplace rather than collecting disability benefits.
• Resource ownership, in which job-training funds and Social Security work incentives are used to buy tools or equipment that a person with a disability will then use on the job.
• Small business ownership.

See also:

How 1 Autistic Young Man Runs a Business — U.S. News and World Report. A young man with autism and Down syndrome runs Poppin’ Joe’s Kettle Korn in Louisburg, Kan., with the help of his parents and five part-time employees.

(U.S. News & World Report photo)

From Education Week:

More than three decades after the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, transition planning continues to be a challenge for students, parents and educators.

With about half of students with disabilities planning to pursue postsecondary education, many are finding it tough to navigate without the active IDEA-mandated support that was provided in high school.

Transition planning can vary widely from locality to locality, which leaves parents to piece together what they can. “Here’s what I’ve learned: It’s all about networking,” said one mother. “You have to tap every avenue you can possibly identify.”

From the Washington Post:

Impending budget cuts in suburban Fairfax County are threatening to close a program that helps adults with intellectual disabilities build independent lives. The 20-year-old program has a $1 million annual pricetag.

Mary Yates, 22, and her parents had been planning on using the program to help launch her into a new life when she graduates from Fairfax High School this year. Now families like the Yates’ are being faced with difficult choices about how they will care for their children.

Bill and Elizabeth Yates fear their daughter’s hard-won educational gains will slip away, and that one of them might have to stop working to look after her. “It’s very possible she may be graduating to the couch,” said Bill Yates.

(Photo from the Washington Post)

From the Washington Post, a feature on the growing number of students with learning disabilities who are entering college. Twenty years ago, only one in 100 students with learning disabilities would graduate from high school and go on to a four-year college. Today, that number is about one in nine.

For many, the transition isn’t easy. Many colleges have programs to assist students, but …

what colleges must do is far less defined legally, and professors and administrators at some schools seem to remain skeptical about the needs that students might have. Schools must provide assistance to students, but only if the students disclose their disabilities.

… The students who are most successful, experts say, are the ones who adapt quickly to independence from their parents and become their own advocates.

Writing in the [UK] Guardian, Janet Murray says the UK needs to provide more options for young adults with learning disabilities after they finish school.

Too many of these young people find themselves stifled by inappropriate adult day care centers that do nothing to help them gain skills and independence, she says. Less than five percent of them find employment.

The government has promised to provide funding to support young adults in their quest for jobs, Murray says, but employers are reluctant to hire them.

From the Associated Press in the Washington Post:

For some students with disabilities, the end of high school can mark an abrupt end to support services that have helped them since early childhood. Advocates say young adults with disabilities face waiting lists and tight funding for needed services, impeding their ability to lead independent lives after they leave school.

Among the problems cited: schools that focus on academics at the expense of independent living skills; lack of coordination between schools and service providers, and a lack of student-centered planning. “It can feel like sinking into an abyss,” said one parent.

From the New York Times, a feature on the Center for Transition Planning, in its second year at Mamaroneck, New York, High School. The center helps students with special needs to develop skills that will help them lead purposeful lives when they leave school.

This year’s goal was to help students draw on personal interests to make money. Some started their own businesses under the guidance of job coaches, while others found jobs in the community.

“I view my job as linking them to their happiness — trying first to help them find it and then linking them to their community to make things happen,” said Mara McGowan, a special education teacher who developed and oversees the program.