Autism Speaks has a new transition guide geared toward families with children on the spectrum ages 14 to 22. Check it out!

Dear Aascend Community,

Those who attended the last Aascend meeting heard my announcement that we are working on setting up a company tailored to employ the unique skills and talents of individuals on the spectrum in the Bay area. Here is a short summary:
This (as yet unnamed) Social Enterprise will be modeled after the Danish company Specialisterne, and Aspiritech which is in the Chicago area.

Our focus will be to provide software and product testing services to tech companies in the Bay Area. We will be operating in the city of San Francisco or a nearby community. The specific business details are still under discussion, but we are hoping to launch the enterprise early next year.
In terms of employees, we will be looking for people who:
• are on the Aspergers or High-Functioning Autism spectrum
• are over the age of 18
• be willing to work for at least 4 hours a day, 5 days a week
• have facility using computers and the internet

Prior knowledge or job experience of software programming and/or testing is not required – training will be provided. At this point, it is important for us to understand the level of interest in the Bay Area Aspergers community. If you, or someone you know, meet the above criteria, and would like further details as we progress, please respond to the short survey below:
• Contact email address:
• Relationship to potential candidate (self, parent, etc.):
• The Bay Area community in which the candidate lives:

The information below is optional, but will help to tailor the business structure of the Enterprise.
• Does the candidate have any social services like SSI, SSDI or MediCal (please state which):

If you respond to the survey, you will be put on an email list for updates on the progress of this project. Send reply to: mickey@aczel.us.

Thank you!
Andy Aczel

This Autism Speaks blog post speaks addresses how to best streamline services to help those with ASD.

On April 13, the California Senate Select Committee on Autism and Related Disorders presented the preliminary draft recommendations from the sub-committees on early identification, insurance, housing, and employment. Click on the issue areas below to view the draft recommendations:
Early Identification
Insurance
Housing
Employment

The Thinkers: Duquesne professor working to help autistic people work
Monday, March 29, 2010
By Mark Roth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Lake Fong/Post-GazetteAnn X. Huang, a Duquesne University professor, runs a program that helps prepare people with autism for work.A young man was cleaning an elevator at a local hotel recently when some guests entered the car.

“Say hi,” said a young woman standing near the man. She wasn’t being rude; she was just doing her job. The woman was a Duquesne University student who was assigned to mentor the young man, who had a high-functioning form of autism and was working at his first full-time employment.

Encounters like this one are a key part of the program devised by Duquesne special education professor Ann X. Huang to help people with autism succeed in the workplace.

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Ann X. Huang
Position: Assistant professor of special education, Duquesne University.
Age: 32
Residence: Ross
Education: Ph.D., applied behavioral analysis, Tennessee Tech University
Professional honors: Association for Behavioral Analysis presentation grant award, 2007; presidential scholarship award, Duquesne University, 2009
Publications: Seven papers in peer-reviewed journals

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Young men with Asperger syndrome or other forms of high-functioning autism, a neurobiological disorder that affects communication skills, can often learn the skills of a job fairly easily. What they struggle with is how to behave with people.

Dr. Huang’s solution? Pair them with mentors who will stay with them throughout the work shift and coach them on how to interact with bosses, co-workers and customers.

After getting a pilot grant two years ago from the state Department of Public Welfare, Dr. Huang has now received a $25,000 grant from the advocacy group Autism Speaks to extend the program to Wesley Spectrum Services, a local agency that works with the families of developmentally disabled children.

Although the program’s scope is modest — it will be able to help only a few children to start with — it is tackling one of the most critical and overlooked problems in the world of autism.

As children on the autism spectrum enter their teens, even those who can finish college often have extreme difficulty finding work. The unemployment rate for people with autism is estimated at 80 percent in America, and of the 20 percent who work, most are in part-time jobs, says Peter Bell, executive vice president of programs and services at Autism Speaks.

The challenge is so great that a new group called Advancing Futures for Adults with Autism was begun last year. At its national town hall meeting in November, Mr. Bell, speaking of his own teenage son, posed the questions that worry many families of young adults with autism.

“What happens when the school bus stops coming to our house? Where will he live? Will he have a job? Who will take care of him when we are not around? These questions weigh heavily on us.”

Dr. Huang said the answers to those questions do not necessarily lie with teaching such children how to perform a job, but how to treat others while they’re on the job.

“Some of them do not greet people mutually. People will say hi, but they will respond with no eye contact, or they might not respond at all,” she said.

“On other occasions, they might be too nice to other people — they don’t realize they should keep a certain distance. Some of them are very sensitive to sensory stimuli, so if they like the smell of someone else’s shampoo they might come too close to the other person and that might offend some people or scare them.”

One good way to meet those challenges, she said, is to pair the autistic workers, most of them young men, with college-age peers who understand all those unwritten rules of social engagement.

In her pilot programs, Dr. Huang has tended to use young women as mentors, because the autistic men respond better to them. But for certain situations, such as when the men are in a public setting, she prefers male mentors.

One example: on a public bus trip, an autistic man was very attracted to a young woman who had boarded the bus. “We say to these young men, ‘If you see a woman, you should keep a certain distance from her and you should not stare at her all the time.’ A lot of autistic people have good memories so they can remember those rules, but it is sometimes hard for them to generalize the behavior.”

In this case, she said, the young man told his mentor that even though he knew the rules, he still wanted to sit near the young woman, but his male mentor physically pulled him back.

Dr. Huang’s pilot program worked with the St. Anthony School Programs, a Catholic system for children with Down syndrome, autism and other disabilities. She is now trying to extend the mentoring system to Wesley Spectrum Services, which works with more than 7,000 children across Western Pennsylvania.

So far, the autistic students have worked at Duquesne’s cafeteria, law school and copying center, as well as at the Pittsburgh Marriott City Center housekeeping program and a few other work sites.

Finding willing employers is crucial, she said, but even when she can do that, there is sometimes still the issue of insensitive co-workers.

She went to observe one of her students at a local grocery store recently, where he was bagging at a checkout counter. The boy has Down syndrome and autism, she said, so he is both friendly and tends to repeat himself.

“He was saying, ‘It’s fun outside, do you like it?’ He has good verbal communication and he was trying to greet people, but the problem is he repeats things again and again and again.” It clearly irritated the cashier, said Dr. Huang, who did not let on that she knew the young man.

“The cashier was not very happy about the way he was acting. I had bought some eggs, and she asked if I wanted her to put my eggs in a bag, because ‘I don’t want him to ruin your eggs.’ I said ‘No, no, no, he’s doing fine.’

“He was doing his job very well. The only part that embarrassed the cashier was that he was very friendly and didn’t know the boundaries.”

Dr. Huang never expected to end up doing this kind of work. When she was 24, she was a successful young English teacher at an elite school in Beijing for the children of wealthy parents. Then, she happened to visit a school for developmentally disabled children, and her life changed.

“The school I was teaching in was so different from this one, and it totally changed my mind. In Chinese society, we always think out of sight, out of mind. But I decided we cannot ignore them.”

She applied for a graduate program at Tennessee Tech University, where her mentor specialized in autism, and joined the Duquesne faculty after getting her Ph.D.

Her only frustration has been that her funds for the mentoring program have been so limited. “If other agencies would like to replicate this program or other school districts were interested in developing such a program, I’d be more than happy to help them develop it.

“I hate to refuse parents. They ask, ‘How can we get our kids into your program?’ and too often, I have to say ‘I’m so sorry, the money is limited.’ ”

Mark Roth: mroth@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1130.
First published on March 29, 2010 at 12:00 am

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10088/1046417-114.stm#ixzz0ler5P81m

Check out this recent article in the Pacific Sun about autism and services for teens and adults (posted on the Autistry Studios Blog). The article features many of the Marin Autism Collaborative’s members!

At this time of year some of our children are finishing up at one particular school site.

They might be going on to a new school due to a move, a change from elementary to middle school or middle school to high school.

They may be going to a new private school.

Here is a resource that may help.

Please feel free to pass on to others

Karen Kaplan
karensupportsu@comcast.net

http://www.asperger.net/bookstore_9054.htm

My New School: A Workbook to Help Students Transition to a New School
by Melissa L. Trautman, Ms. Ed.

Check out this web site http://thinkcollege.net/ and pass on to families in the transition years and teachers at high schools

Karen Kaplan
Karensupportsu@comcast.net

The eight University Centers of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) that were awarded grants to support statewide strategic planning to support students with intellectual disabilities to go to college have been hard at work. Debra Hart and Cate Weir of Think College have been to the following states in March offering training and technical assistance to their efforts:

• The Florida Center for Inclusive Communities at the University of South Florida in Tampa hosted a very successful statewide meeting to kick off their statewide planning efforts.
• The Strong Center for Developmental Disabilities at the University of Rochester (NY) hosted regional meetings in Rochester and in Albany.
• The Partnership for People with Disabilities at the Virginia Commonwealth University held a strategic planning meeting for their statewide team in Richmond.
• The Center on Disability and Community Inclusion at the University of Vermont held a statewide planning summit.
• The North Dakota Center for Persons with Disabilities at the University of North Dakota Minot kicked off their statewide work. The meeting was featured that evening on the Channel 10 News in Minot.
Plans are underway for later this spring at the remaining grant-funded UCEDDs in Nevada, Mississippi, and New Mexico. “It is very exciting to see the level of enthusiasm and commitment in each of these states,” said Cate Weir, “and to begin to look forward to the increased opportunities for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities that will result.”
A Book Worth Checking Out
Think College: Postsecondary Education Options For Students with Intellectual Disabilities
By Meg Grigal and Debra Hart

Think College: Postsecondary Education Options for Students with Intellectual Disabilities seeks to uncover the bigger picture of postsecondary (PSE) options, before, during and after a successful transition to college for those students with intellectual disabilities (ID). The authors address how to understand the philosophical and practical purposes of bringing support for PSE options for individuals with ID. Three models for PSE are discussed within the book: inclusive individual support approach, the mixed hybrid approach and substantially separate options. Think College also provides suggestions in order to overcome the typical challenges these students will face within PSE and give effective person centered transition services for high school students as well as support students as they manage a positive PSE experience.

Think College seeks to address the future possibilities which lie within postsecondary education for students with intellectual disabilities. It prepares students and families for the sometimes difficult path to PSE, but illustrates through examples, case studies, research and various resources how to navigate the system and the lessons which have been learned over the years. To order, visit http://www.brookespublishing.com/store/books/grigal-69179/index.htm

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!

These were the issues brought to the Transition Break-out session of the MAC Annual Meeting as potential goals for the sub-committee:
• Institutional support for non regional center clients
• Hierarchical (tiered) education programs with vocational applications (see North Carolina)
• Programs need clear goals/standards in each tier for clients that include
• Necessary life knowledge
• Life skills
• SCAN skills
• Clearinghouse for funding sources for extra-remedial services
• More hands-on training and ROP programs for ASD individuals
• Workshops to train existing programs in how to work with ASD individuals
• Work with small business to encourage hiring
• Increase awareness within HR departments
• Add info to MAC site that includes feedback from committees – make site more interactive
• More information about affordable housing options
• Encourage advocacy and offer workshops on how to lobby