Tag Archives: college

Looking Not-So-Far Ahead

A quick look at my Amazon Wish List conveys what’s been on my mind lately: my son’s future. I mean, it’s obvious when you look at the titles –

Now that Neil is fifteen (and a half), we really need to get going on his transitioning plan. But how? How do you do plan for adulthood when your high schooler has the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old? He talks about wanting to go to college, which is great. But how can I realistically plan for that when he can’t handle the modified workload of his freshman year of high school?

Yes, Neil can progress. He has proven that over the years. He is handling things now that I would have never thought possible, even three years ago. So it is within the realm of possibility that three years from now, he could be going through the admissions process for college. But as much as I believe in my son, that’s a big maybe.

You see, Neil lacks executive function skills. And I don’t just mean that it’s challenging for him. I mean that they’re pretty much nonexistent. This is why he requires one-on-one assistance in his classes and two study period pull-outs every day to do his regular classwork (with constant assistance). Every advancement he’s made in Boy Scouts is because an adult (usually me) has walked him through it, outlined the work for him, and kept him on track. He is unable to do it himself.

And so, I worry if college is a realistic goal for Neil. He is certainly intelligent – he’s just not able to do the work, nor is he motivated to. And college is a lot of work. There are no IEPs in college, no educational assistants hovering over him to keep him focused. There’s no modified curriculum. I know that there are programs to help people on the autism spectrum navigate college as far as housing and living independently. But they don’t write the students’ papers. They don’t do the work for them. That’s what executive function is for. Either you have it or you don’t.

I suppose that it’s something he could be taught, but that’s one of the things I tried to do when I homeschooled him for a year and a half. I taught him how to do math problems step-by-step, how to write essays, organize his thoughts, and outline. And it didn’t take. I don’t think his brain functions that way. Perhaps he wasn’t ready for it at the time, but it wasn’t that long ago, and at this point, time is of the essence.

All I’ve ever wanted for my children was for them to feel loved and to lead happy, fulfilling lives. I know that doesn’t have to involve college, but Neil’s dream of being an astronaut does. And there are times when I wonder if all the years of therapy got him to a really good point, but it’s not good enough. We got him to the point where he can communicate verbally and go to restaurants and grocery stores and interact with people and make a grilled cheese sandwich and ride his bike to school and back independently, but he can’t work independently. And while I am so happy and proud and grateful that he is able to do all those things that were impossible for years, that glaring difficulty remains. Once more with feeling: he can’t work independently. And I don’t know what that means for his future.