Program Eases Transition to Adulthood

Special education occupies a large part of the mission — and budget — of many school districts. With learning disabilities such as ADHD and dyslexia each estimated to affect more than 10 percent of the school-age population, special education teachers have their hands full helping those students navigate increasingly rigorous, state-mandated curricula.
An equally daunting challenge, though, is how to serve a growing student population with more severe learning problems, from intellectual disabilities (the term officially established in 2010 by Congress to replace mental retardation) to autism, a spectrum of cognitive and behavioral conditions that affects an expanding number of youngsters. 

Aging Out: 'Like Falling Off a Cliff'

Sad but powerful story focusing on the lack of adult services. It's not just Michigan. All states need to address this and the numbers demonstrate the need.

TROY, Mich. -- Nick Gammicchia knows exactly what he's going to do in the future.

Nick Gammicchia uses a driver
simulator at a driving school.

"I'm going to Hollywood to help out movie producers, storyboard artists," Gammicchia said.
He already has drawn several storyboards and even sent a storyboard and screenplay to director Steven Spielberg.
"He's got big dreams," his mother, Carolyn Gammicchia, said with a smile.

Autistic and Seeking a Place in Adult World

MONTCLAIR, N.J. — For weeks, Justin Canha, a high school student with autism, a love of cartoons and a gift for drawing, had rehearsed for the job interview at a local animation studio.
As planned, he arrived that morning with a portfolio of his comic strips and charcoal sketches, some of which were sold through a Chelsea gallery. Kate Stanton-Paule, the teacher who had set up the meeting, accompanied him. But his first words upon entering the office were, like most things involving Justin, not in the script.
“Hello, everybody,” he announced, loud enough to be heard behind the company president’s door. “This is going to be my new job, and you are going to be my new friends.”
As the employees exchanged nervous glances that morning in January 2010, Ms. Stanton-Paule, the coordinator of a new kind of “transition to adulthood” program for special education students at Montclair High School, wondered if they were all in over their heads.

Preparing for Life After High School

McKenzie Tavary is on a mission to prove to the world that people with disabilities are smart.
Although she doesn't speak, "Mokn," which she calls herself, communicates by typing on a computer and once wrote, "God put me on this Earth to be an Angel to show people how smart I am and other people with disabilities."
The world may soon find out.
Tavary, 19, has been working for the past year since graduating from Capital High School to learn life skills. This fall she is set to start college at University of Montana–Helena, where she’ll be the first nonverbal student with autism to attend the two-year school.

Autism's Challenges After Graduation

SCARBOROUGH, Maine -- David Bouchard is, without a doubt, looking forward to graduating from high school next month.
He says so with wide eyes and a big smile even before he types Y-E-S on his DynaVox, a hand-held communication device tethered to his belt.
Debbie Bouchard, on the other hand, is starting to dread the end of her son's public school career. After years of special education programs to prepare the Arundel man for work and life in the community, David Bouchard -- and other young adults with autism across the state -- may have nowhere to go but home.
The generation of children who experienced the first wave of an ongoing autism epidemic is now reaching adulthood. Public support programs that used to provide continuing education and care for virtually all adults with development disabilities now have hundreds of Mainers are on waiting lists that are expected to keep growing.

All Grown Up and No Place to Go

Terri Hancharick knew it would be a challenge to find a medical home for her special-needs daughter, Brigitte, in the adult health care system. But she never expected the process to be so frustrating.
Brigitte had been receiving care at Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children since infancy. But the hospital limits treatment to patients younger than 21, so Hancharick had to assemble a new medical team two years ago.
Hancharick soon discovered that few doctors were taking new patients and the ones who were did not feel confident treating a patient with a medical history as complex as Brigitte's. The 23-year-old has severe cerebral palsy and seizures and is visually impaired and nonverbal.
Transitioning children from pediatric care to the adult health care system can be difficult for any family. But for the parents of a child with special medical needs, the responsibilities are greater and the challenges more complex.