What a wonderful opportunity to learn from Dr. McManmon we had yesterday as part of the Marin Autism Lecture Series!

Dr. McManmon presentation was entitled “Understanding the Post-Secondary Needs of Students with ASD.” However, he really covered so much more — he was teaching us, through his personal experience as a person with Asperger’s and his professional experience and the Executive Director of the College Internship Program, how to help our children and young adults to acquire the life skills necessary to succeed in their lives as whole people.

For me, the highlights included:
1. Of all of the challenges facing students with ASD, the key issue is cognitive flexibility (above social understanding, executive functioning, sensory, etc.) because working on this will open the door to change.
2. As students move into high school and later college, they need to be becoming independent from their parents’ advocacy and be able to self-advocate. This means having an acceptance and understanding of their diagnosis and what that means, knowing their strengths and weaknesses, understanding their learning profile, and having the ability to talk about this and self-disclose and self-advocate.
3. Along the way, parents need to enable their children to have experiences that mimic the future — community service opportunities, small jobs or internships — to enable them to learn what they like and don’t like.
4. Young adults need strategies for personal organization to enable them to live independently — they need to know how to do their laundry, take care of themselves, etc. This applies to all areas life — strategies for independent living, strategies for academics, strategies for work. Knowing their needs makes this possible — they must first know themselves.

Thank you!