Life Skills & Transitions

Teaching Autistic Children to Follow Simple Directions

Teaching autistic children to follow simple directions is an important skill for them to learn. The ability to follow simple directions allows opportunities for your child to gain independence, regulation skills, communication skills, productivity in daily routine tasks, and pra

Follow Your Passion: 5 Steps to Finding the Best Career Match for a Young Autistic Adult

1. Follow Your Passion I love flying! All my life I have been interested in anything aviation-related: airports, travel, planes.

Benefits and Strategies for Teaching Art to Children with Autism: Help for Art Challenged Adults Why Art?

Art therapy provides many benefits for children with autism because it promotes emotional and mental growth as well as independence and collaboration skills. As an outlet for self-expression, imagination, and creativity, art can contribute deeply to improving a child’s fine moto

Top Work Places Supporting Autistic Adults

Autistic individuals too often have been underrepresented and discriminated against in employment. A 2017 report from Drexel University found that only 14 percent of autistic adults held paid jobs in their communities. Another study found that employment rates for autistic indiv

Young Adulthood on the Spectrum: An Interview with a Friend

7 Tips for Teaching Your Child with Autism to Cook

I can still remember when I was a child watching my mother cook. Her face always beamed with a smile so big that everyone could tell how much joy she had in preparing a great meal for my family. It seemed cooking was not only a hobby that she enjoyed, but also one of her passion

Work Environments, Adjustments for Autistic Employees

Advice for entering the job world It is common knowledge that people with disabilities tend to experience higher rates of unemployment and underemployment. Many employers seem to be unwilling to give disabled individuals a chance when they feel that their company’s success is at

A New Education: Teaching Coding to Students with Autism

Although many students with autism possess incredible talents and abilities, especially related to spatial reasoning, only about 10 to 20 percent of adults with autism are employed (Born, 2011; Kavilanz, 2016). Providing code education to students with autism is not only critica

6 Strategies to Prepare Your Child for Back to School, Haircuts, Hospital Visits, And More!

Preparing Your Child with Autism for the New Year Activities that are comforting, thrilling, or intolerable to people with autism can vary considerably from what a neuro-typical child or adult may experience in the same situation. For example, haircuts or birthday parties can be

Transition: A Guide to College Readiness and Applications for Students with Autism

Tips and Strategies for Transitioning to College with Autism Of the roughly 50,000 young Americans with autism who graduate from high school each year, less than 7,000 end up with a college degree (Wei et al 2015). This discouraging statistic has given rise to countless transiti

Career Choices for Autistic People: First Hand Advice

Finding a Job That Matches Your Skills Many people struggle with finding a job and establishing a career for themselves. In addition, there are often multiple applicants for only one job vacancy, which can be discouraging to any jobseeker. However, for autistic people, this sear

Raising Money for Autism? Find Out Where Your Dollars Go

Guidance on Raising Money for Autism Support If you are helping raise money for autism research, advocacy, or other programs related to autism, it is wise to follow the advice of Charity Navigator: Your Guide to Intelligent Giving. They recommend, at minimum, that at least 50% o

Pushing the Envelope: The Importance of First-Person Autism Accounts

Autistic Adults: The Importance of First-Person Accounts Many parents of autistic children wonder what will happen when their children grow up – what will their adult lives be like? This is true of all parents, but likely more so for parents of autistic children. And just like n

Autism Parents: How Do You Rate on Self-Care?

As a parent our needs are often the first to be postponed or set aside. Sometimes there is no choice: we have to attend to the immediate needs of our children. But in the long run we could be doing significant damage to our physical and emotional health by not attending to our o

Effective Treatment for Autism: It’s Never Too Early to Start

There are many promising treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Decades of research and a recent synthesis of 6 major research reviews indicate that the therapies listed below are all based on solid research.

Talking about Puberty with Children with Autism

All bodies go through puberty, regardless of the developmental "age" of a child or the level of their cognitive or academic skills. It can be startling for parents to see their child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) begin to develop an adult body and characteristics when t

How to Modify Chores for your Child with Autism

When you have a child with autism or other special needs, chores are often overlooked or parents don’t consider it a possibility for their child. Just as modifications are needed in the classroom, small modification or supports can be developed to not only make chores a possibil