This program lists essential preparation for students with AS to find and hold a job.

Self-advocacy is a life-long endeavor, and the teen years offer a particularly fruitful moment for cultivating self-awareness, self-monitoring, and deeper exploration of what it means to be autistic, by way of peer discussion groups.

Guide to developing a future plan for children with cognitive, intellectual or developmental disabilities that provides personal, financial and legal protections for these individuals after the parents either die or can no longer provide care or support.

Information about wills and estate planning, developing a circle of support, alternatives to formal, legal guardianship, creating a home that really is a home.

Many students with special needs may have trouble seeing themselves as employees or understanding an employer's expectations of an employee. Students with special needs can learn how to work effectively and can succeed in the workplace.

Self-advocacy is realizing what one needs in order to maximize functioning in life and knowing how to arrange the environment or obtain accommodations to do so. Or put another way, it is being literate about one's own needs.

One of the most challenging times for individuals with autism and their families is when they must transition from the security of federally-mandated services through the public school to the uncertainty of adult services.

A person with autism can make a successful transition into a job or career with gradual transitions, supportive employers, mentors, educating employers and employees, freelance work, and a good portfolio.

The Transition planning process gives the school an opportunity to involve parents and professionals from other agencies in a collaborative manner to assist the young person to achieve the most appropriate service and opportunities for adulthood.

Illustrates the progress young people with ASDs can make with correct support and what can happen if support and advice isn't there for people through key transitional stages: leaving full-time education, looking for employment, leaving the family home.

Lifestyle planning is a method for supporting individuals with autism spectrum disorders in making choices which reflect preferences, areas of strength, and their own visions.

Twelve years ago, autism was not even something that happened to �other people.� The face of autism was Robert and Rainman only. I personally knew no other autistic person besides Robert. But even in my complete ignorance, I still observed him (without making much sense of what I was observing) and took mental notes. I remember how he used to crawl on the ladder on top of the swing set and wouldn't come down. I remember how he used to play in the sandbox at length, well past the age when kids play in sandboxes.

Transition in the larger sense is movement from context to context. Because people with significant disabilities experience difficulties in every transitional situation, instruction in transitioning is an educational priority.

A transition plan is the strategy devised by you, your child and all the services involved in their life to ensure that they can move smoothly into adult services, college and employment after they reach the age of 16.

The ITP should address a job, a home, friends, family, leisure and recreation opportunities, and long term life planning. The desired outcome is that young adults with autism spectrum disorder will enjoy a good quality life.

There are some persons with AS who cannot work. This is a painful message for some parents to hear. By saying this, I am not closing the door, nor do I wish to suggest that work isn't possible sometime in the future. The adult service system in this country can penalize some disabled adults in a way that makes working very difficult, often forcing the choice between whether the person wishes to remain on SSI or some other type of categorical assistance, or go off the assistance and take their chance in market-rate employment. This will be true despite the effect of the new Workforce Investment Act just passed but delayed for implementation by Congress.

There are many decisions to be made as students with disabilities prepare to leave high school and begin living on their own as an adult. One way to ensure a successful move to adulthood is to address the transition services needed.

A person experiencing autism would benefit from a transition goal in every IEP, addressing issues of transition such as moving from one level of schooling to another, one teacher to another, one building to another, one type program model to another.

I think that of all issues, this is the most challenging when AS adults are still living under their parents' roof. I won't address the issue of independent living further except to say that learning to manage money is the first of many essential life skills. It is a precursor to learning the value of work and work's instrumental relationship to one's physical survival as an adult.