hi–we are the parents of a high school junior with Aspergers syndrome. I guess this is an intro of sorts. I am looking for any words of wisdom in a general way. We are pretty sure he can go away to school and be independent. He’s been away to camp many times and in other settings and has enjoyed it and grows from it. He isn’t every one’s best friend but he finds his way and his people. But we are concerned about finding the right school, at the prices of today, with a kid who we love but can be his own obstacle–really has no idea about career path.
Our son is super talented in music and is in many high level bands. He is also very good at science and math as far as the courses go, but can’t visualize any sort of career in those fields at this time. Not sure if this is due to immaturity (which can be part of ASD), lack of exposure or lack of interest, we don’t know. He hasn’t had any exposure to music tech either at this point. Hard to see him in music education since I don’t think his personality is going to be the most conducive to caring for others. He says he is interested in majoring in music, but we don’t know that he knows what that means in terms of career actually. He certainly knows lots of professional musicians and we’ll encourage him to talk to them about the realities of music as a field. We have lots of anxiety ourselves about how he would make it in this field–he is very talented but so are many others. Does he have the drive? Not sure.
I’d also love ideas about how to get him to explore math/science majors that would be suitable for a talented, bright person who will have some of the social issues that come along with ASD (not as a great a team player, except in music). Are there such majors/careers that are going to be more amenable to a person like this who is talented but quirky personality to say the least? In other words, helping him develop a plan B to the music as far as career path.
I know this is an unfocused post–I would love to hear from any similarly situated parents if anyone recognizes their son or daughter in this post.
thank you.
ASD Parent,
I am so glad I happened upon this post. I normally post or check post in the forum for music parents as I have a son who attended conservatory (grad and undergrad) and is now a working musician -or at least attempting to be. I highly recommend you check out the music parent forum as you will get lots of amazing advice about his potentially going on a conservatory/music track.
But I am also the parent of a very bright young man (not ASD but his issues overlap) who had his share of challenges and I now work to support parents with similar challenges (both as an advocate and a volunteer). He is now in graduate school to get a doctorate in math.
My first bit of advice (which it sounds like you already know) is that often children with special needs are a bit less mature than their neurotypical peers. They may be academically on track but sometimes other skills (especially social skills) which are needed for them to thrive in college are less developed. Because of this I am a HUGE advocate of gap year programs. You are lucky because when our middle son (the one with issues) was in high school, gap years were not nearly as popular. In my son’s case he did a program called SEA (www.sea.edu) which was fantastic as it allowed him to be challenged academically and socially but also provided a structure so he could grow in the areas he needed to grow in. For some reason kids like your son tend thrive with the structure that comes with sailing on a tall ship. But there are also many other programs. Dynamy in Worcester is a fantastic program that pairs students up with internships based on their specific interests.
It is better to start a year or two later than to enter college and fail. All too often parents underestimate the emotional and social cost of failure in those first two years of college. Waiting gives your child a chance to mature and sort out why they want to go to college and get real life experience to help guide them in college.
The other recommendation I would make is to not necessarily look at a college which is the most competitive school your son can get into but rather to think about a school that has good support and ideally a student body that is bright and intelligent but perhaps a bit less mature than an equivalent student at a prestigious school. Small Liberal arts schools like Lawrence, Wheaton in Norton MA, Clark University, tend to attract other children like your son. Depending on your state you might find that Community College is a great way for your child to begin and then later transition to a university.
Please feel free to private message me. I am more than willing to share our experience and make suggestions.
Have a S18 who is giving us agita at the moment. ASD, but hard to tell unless you know it. We are totally looking into gap years but afraid he will fail out of his honors classes senior year 
Our normotypical son almost failed out of college, but luckily he was turned around by a strong support program at his college. I’m thinking our S18 might need an ASD or other support program in place.
We saw that Drexel has an autism support program, but are not sure about other colleges. We are looking within a few hundred miles of NYC. At least he has gone to residential camp once, but they were quite supervised when outside of their halls.
Dynamy sounds great, I’ll try to find something like that near NYC. Our ideal gap year for him would be either living at home and working in the area in culinary or computers (like an apprenticeship).
There is a monkey wrench in our situation (not just that he has a new GC this year and a new case manager too!). It may be a huge problem for him to live at home as our next child in line and he have a difficult relationship. We are thinking even of me taking six months off of work and traveling with him.
What I’d like from CC folks is to put together a resource for parents of kids with special needs and/or learning disabilities and/or medical issues. We have a very few colleges like Drexel on our list that would be a good match due to their programs, but I’d like to be able to say “No, College X does not have much support” or “Yes, College Y will assign a counselor for students who had an IEP in high school”. Right now we have a few that we just don’t know about - maybe I should start making some phone calls in a general manner “what kind of support do you have from day 1 for students with learning and social differences?”
BTW, I work at a college, and self-identification is necessary, then further the student needs to keep making appointments and attending them. But if you’re an athlete, you get a ton of academic support!
Have you looked at Adlephi’s “Bridges Program,” since you asked for suggestions in the NYC area? I looked into it and others on CC have mentioned that the program was very helpful in preparing for transition to college.
Sorry for the typo. I meant Adelphi University’s “Bridges Program.” Best of luck!
I actually came across many other posts that are related to this from a while back by searching aspergers and ASD, aspie, etc. They are all about crash and burn scenarios where smart, accomplished students failed once they got to college. Not pleasant to think about this at all for my very smart and talented son, but very sobering. There are many schools listed in those posts as providing support such as RIT for example, and then honestly they seem to be all over the place because people’s definitions of “quirky” vary tremendously. I personally know some ASD kids have done well at Carnegie Mellon and Cornell, but obviously it really depends on what your kid’s issues are. My son at this stage wouldn’t want any extra support at all (and he doesn’t get any in high school). That in and of itself may be an issue–that unwillingness to ask for help. In the other posts, a big factor seemed to be whether or not your student has executive functioning issues that affect performance in school per se. My son does not have those issues (or he hasn’t yet). Other concerns are about room mates (though singles are seen as isolating). In our case, we also need to worry about our son OVER extending himself. He is in all honors and AP classes in high school but in general, the academics in his high school are not super demanding. He loves music and is in many high level ensembles–that’s an area where I can see potential issues in college. Trying to do a double major and not prioritizing right. Anyway http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/profile/rhandco you should search for aspie and aspergers and you will find those posts (and I am sorry I am not currently adept enough to give you a link).
Just a few examples of how this has worked in my family-I am a Mom of an Aspie young high schooler and I have an aspie nephew and aspie older sister. My nephew just graduated college and is teaching high school math at the high school he graduated from. He went to big in state U a few miles from home. Lived on campus in a single and came home weekends or whenever for support. He actually made it through in 4 years while his neurotypical cousins did not. Our plans for our D (sophomore HS) are community college for 2 years (our local one has a special program for ASD called "Navigators Program) the state flagship which is commutable from home. We aren’t certain she could reside at school at this point. Both my sister and daughter are musical. My sister is a successful software tester-she works at home for a start up but has worked for national companies as well (always at home office). I might add my sister was an English major and has a masters in criminal justice but found that she had a knack for software (was never a great math or science student). Her accuracy rate in testing is astoundingly good, There are a few organizations that help ASD people find jobs in tech industry. Also too many ASD people are excellent at software testing. Microsoft has a division set aside for hiring them. Not sure if this helps but knowing a few positive outcomes gets me through the day sometimes!
Parent of an ASD son here.
We have just had to find his passion and feed that for him to even want to finish any sort of schooling. He also has some LDs, so that complicates things. He has been in our local community college in the game design program for 2 years, 1 of those as a dual enrollment student. He finally found his passion. He is an artist, always has been, but he didn’t know what he could do with that. He is now going into an animation program at one of the top art colleges in the county and we wouldn’t be happier, although now we worry about other things…like him living away from home.
He was in a therapy group once a week for a few years with other ASD teen boys. Most of them have now graduated high school. A few of them have gone into engineering and seem to be doing well at their college (no specific ASD program), and a couple are in the local community college with my son.
One issue we have is that my son refuses to tell anyone he has ASD. He wants to “just fit in” as he calls it, but then that creates other issues, where people don’t fully get why he is behaving the way he is. Hopefully your son is more open about it.
I don’t know anything about colleges up in your area. We are in Charlotte, NC. It looks like my son will be going to SCAD-Savannah, GA, in January.