Hugs, take a deep breath; you’re doing a great job!! It’s hard as a parent to watch them struggle academically, but even more so socially and emotionally. One thing that really helped DD with skills was theater class, especially the improv activities. It forced her out of her routine and comfort zone in a fun way. She was a swimmer (great sport for an autistic teen); we originally put her in it for physical therapy, but she quickly found it helped things like her anxiety and adhd, so she kept doing it. She’s a robotics kid, but theater really helped with her speaking and conversation skills like answering people, making eye contact, using “appropriate” facial expressions. Her part time/summer jobs have always been teaching swim lessons or being a camp counselor. She found it much easier to practice communication skills with kids; they don’t mind her info dumping about Marvel, Anime or gaming. It was really good practice for her. She still practices all phone calls with me before she makes them; she creates a script to follow each time. Same with emails to profs or admins, she often sends them to me to review and discuss how she could improve, especially the tone. Her writing can come across curt or angry, even though that was not her intent. They’ve gotten much better over the years. The thing that worked the best for her was me walking her through each new encounter, letting her do it her self the next few times with me reachable by phone. She had to practice everything from calling to make doctor’s appointments to calling the police. She still calls me EVERY time she pulls up to a gas pump before she gets out of the car to ask if she runs her card as debit or credit. She’s been driving for 4 years 
Does he have a 504 or IEP, ask them about creating a transition plan, which spells out steps to help him take over things like managing his email accounts (he needs to do this himself, if he doesn’t already), filling out his own forms, advocating for himself and his accommodations with teachers. See if they have an academic coach and an EF coach if he has an IEP. If he’s 9n a 504, check for references from your school’s SPED teacher. Once he’s in college, you won’t be able to communicate with professors (with some exceptions at certainschools), and he will be responsible for providing his ADA accommodations to professors and advocating for himself when they forget or aren’t as cooperative. The transition plan should work on those skills to prepare him for next fall. What school/major is he considering? DD is MechE; her lab assignments are frequently 10+ page pages, so writing skills have been crucial. She specifically chose a school with a strong writing center; she also uses the paid premium version of Grammarly with plagiarism check. It’s been a life-saver in college. Since interview skills are not her strongest, she also wanted a school with a strong, well known career center.
Feel free to reach out with any questions, happy to help brainstorm ideas.
No 504 or IEP yet. He was able to coast through for quite a few years before it all caught up with him. When we looked into it before we got the old “we’re not obligated to help students reach their potential” line.
Now that he has an ASD diagnosis, the school is suddenly asking ME when we can schedule a meeting to look into a 504 or IEP - even though the suggestions his counselor has made so far are all to help with the anxiety piece which was diagnosed in middle school. I figured I’d give it the weekend before responding so I could hopefully come at this with more of a “teamwork” attitude instead of the resentful “sure… but where has this help been the last six years?” that wells up in me.
Was the theater class a hard sell? He’s so horrified by having even a figurative spotlight on him that a literal one seemed out of the question.
He’s looking at either computer science or engineering. At schools that offered an Undeclared engineering option, that’s what he applied to, but if forced to pick, he said mechanical. Currently accepted at Clarkson, Western New England, and Alfred. Also applied to Champlain, WPI, and RIT.
Trying to pick a school is going to be hard, and trying decide on a field is hard, so he told different schools different things, figuring that it would add one more layer of difference between one school and the next.
Thanks.
We do have one other semi-local family we get together with every other weekend, and have since the kids were in kindergarten. One of the silver linings of covid is that although this friend was a year ahead of him, she decided to wait out the pandemic and take a gap year before leaving home, so we got an extra year with her.
One of the ugly gray clouds of the pandemic, though, is that when gathering with others in person was off the table we relaxed a lot of our limits on socializing with people online and reining that back in has been a big challenge. I wish I could just figure out a way to make his discord chatting transfer into an ability to text a classmate about an assignment he can’t find the link for!
@CMD2228 I would ask about a transition plan, EF coach/help, extended time quizzes and tests, separate room for testing (if he gets distracted by others), technology assistance like speech to text, getting written instructions (no verbal), being able to record classes and take pics of anything on the boards or slides. Some will say extra time for written assignments or reduced homework load, but he’s a senior and that accommodation is usually not permitted in college. Livescribe pens can be helpful for some. I’d call the ADA office at a few of his schools and see what assistive technology they use and what accommodations they support to help you plan his 504/iep. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know 
I’d get them to give him a 504 plan rather than the IEP An IEP is for Pre3-12, so technically ends with hs graduation (some colleges will allow the accommodations but they don’t have to). A 504 is more of a life skills/accommodations plan, and not just for education.
You might have an uncomfortable few months, but he really needs to learn to advocate for himself. I remember teaching my kids to fly alone when they were 13 and 14, and we’d be at an airport and they had no idea what to do next and I kept repeating “ASK”. I said I wouldn’t be with them so they needed to ASK someone if there was a gate change or delay or they couldn’t find a bathroom or the next place they were supposed to be. They were both shy so it was hard, but they had to learn it if they wanted to go to visit their friends or grandmother.
Have your son practice at home. Have him buy his dinner and pay you the bill at the end. Have him plan the next weekend get together with your friends. Maybe he and the friend could sit at their own table at a restaurant and order and pay (with you nearby).
If you don’t start, he’ll be overwhelmed with all the changes at college. My friend’s daughter who is 2E was very capable of the academics but when she went away to college, it was all just too much - her medications, the social things, regulating her sleep, the food… she had to do it all and just couldn’t. She finished the first year, took a year off, and then went to a school in town. Her academics returned to a high level because she no longer had the pressure of the social, the food, the medications. If she needed help, her parents could help. Honestly, the social piece just went away and she was fine with that. She had a few friends from her childhood and she preferred them to making new college friends.
And add to this- getting cash out of the ATM (or monitoring the balance on the debit card for “cash free” kids; keeping track of the room key, the ID, etc., being aware of your surroundings so taking the van from the library back to the dorm instead of walking if it’s midnight, etc.
All of these are skills which you can be practicing right now. The lockouts at college are very common- but it involves a lot of steps which might feel uncomfortable-- going to the RA, having him/her call the housing office, signing in at the security desk, whatever the college’s procedure is. Practice, practice, practice. And the main dialogue- “Hi, I’m a freshman, can you help me?” is the name of the game. So many resources to help- counselors, RA’s, deans, expert librarians who can locate anything anywhere in the world- but you need to be able to ask for help!
Jumping in to say that you and your son sound like amazing people. The frustration you’re feeling with the mixed response from his school is real and relatable. While your situation is unique to you, you are NOT alone in feeling it.
As you think about what next year will bring for him, wanted to share my son’s experience with accommodations in college for what it’s worth. My S21 deals with severe anxiety, tics and slow processing speed. He had a 504 in high school and my thought was that it would carry through to college because it’s a 504 (disability accommodations) vs. an IEP. Every college is different. The school he chose doesn’t accept a 504, IEP or any written accommodations from previous schools because they were developed for a different environment. What they require is a recent (within 3 years) neuropsych eval. Fortunately we had that available. Without it, things would have ended there.
After receiving that and reviewing they had a 1:1 conversation with S21 over the summer where talking about what he felt would help him (we did prep together for that call) and they were super supporting in approving it all. There was no pushback at all but he had to do the asking.
One other dynamic that is different between K-12 and college is that in college the student is expected to meet with every new prof, every semester and talk about their approved accommodations and how a particular class might need to change. There is no central repository that profs are expected to access and manage for their students. So for students who are uncomfortable with drawing attention to themselves or having a 1:1 conversation with someone they don’t know well, this is another area that’s worth role-playing with them. And it happens every semester.
Good luck with the process. You’ve got this!
Thank you all so much!
I have a CSE meeting scheduled for next week, so I really appreciate the suggestions. And weirdly, being so far behind on getting him diagnosed means that we’re AHEAD of the game for once because we have a brand-spanking-new eval to show the colleges.
It’s a great checklist, too, for the practical life skills to go over. I wouldn’t have thought about the ATM.
One other question - is there any way to find out what the reasons are for a post being pulled? I don’t think I said anything out of line, but I got a message that one of my comments here was removed, so apparently I did? I shared more here than I would someplace like Facebook where my child could be easily identified, but re-reading the guidelines, I’m not finding any lines that were crossed.
@happy1 @skieurope
Perhaps one of you could PM @CMD2228 about her question on a flagged/removed post?