When Turning 22 Is a Catch-22

Anne Dachel writes about author Susan Senator's recent experience with a son who has "aged out" of school services and the difficulty she faces in crafting a safe, meaningful adult life for him. She has been screaming from the rooftops for years "The adults are coming! The adults are coming!" and few have listened.

This story started with the Washington Post and it was picked up by the Albuquerque Journal. Susan Senator talked about her mission advocating for her son now that he's aged out of the school system. It's mammoth task and she's had to write her own job description.

It brings back so many memories. My son is 25. How he survived in school until I started to homeschool him, I'll never know. In the second grade, the school system got a psychologist to come from Minneapolis (a hundred miles away) to figure out what was the matter with this weird acting kid. She told us, "Your son has autism. I don't know if he'll ever be able to live independently or hold down a job. We don't know much about autism--it's such a rare disorder. There's probably not another child in Chippewa Falls who also has autism."