Given that the school year has just ended, I know a lot of parents are wondering about their child who is about to graduate high school next year.
While this might be cause for excitement, or joy, or even relief for a neurotypical child, the parents and caregivers of the nearly 50,000 high school seniors on the spectrum might be feeling anxious, nervous, or even fearful. “What will we do” is a common question I hear.
And it’s a very good question. Nearly 50% of those who exit high school on the spectrum don’t enter the workforce or go to college within the first two years of graduation. That’s a scary number for them, and why you want to start planning as much as you can beforehand.
You’re Not Limited to Grade 12
Hopefully when you sit down for your annual IEP meeting for your child, you will want to start talking about transition planning. For us and our son, they started asking when he was going into 11th grade. One of the questions was if he was going to leave once he finished grade 12.
What some people don’t know is that you can stay in school until you age out at age 22 in the United States. Staying in longer can assist with them getting additional skills that need to be successful whatever that next step is whether it be college, or the job force, or something else.
Given his additional learning disability college wasn’t a real option for him. So we talked about job training programs. Since he was going to stay past grade 12 (what the school system called a “super senior”) he would continue on through his regular schooling, and then after grade 12 he would be focused on social skills, communication, and lastly job training.
Transition Services
Most schools should either be able to offer job training, or have a third party to provide this service. They determine what your child can do, and will train them in several types of jobs till they find one they like and can do, and may even help them find a job with an employer willing to hire them.
if you did not get this through the high school, there are external resources that you can find that will provide this service. They tend to be very regionally based, so we cannot provide a list here for every potential location.
The goal for both, whether it is in high school, or afterward, is to try to get them to be a productive member of society. This helps their own sense of self worth, and can be a relief for you as well.
An Example of Job Training
We knew someone who started job training after she finished her 12th grade. They trained her on several different skills from sorting and organizing books at a store, to setting up place settings at hotels for conventions. They evaluated her after each skill and asked if she wanted to work there or not.
When an opportunity at a doctor’s office arose, she accepted that position and no longer went to school.
At first her job was to maintain the waiting room, keeping it clean and organized. After she did that for a while, she added preparing the exam rooms before a patient came in, and now even cleans some of the medical equipment.
She was that doctor’s first special needs hire, and he has hired several more people over the years. She loves her job and getting out of the house, goes into the office caring a briefcase so she feels ready for the day.
