When Everything Isn't Shiny Anymore

Two different worlds: That's what services for children on the autism spectrum and services for adults on the autism spectrum are like, according to Shawn Lattanzio, Montgomery County's program manager of a Maryland initiative to help autistic students transition to adulthood. Today's Gazette.net highlights some of the post-school issues adults with disabilities face. Families are in "shock" when school services end and they see what programs for adults are like compared to that for children.

The outlook can be grim, advocates and officials say. The waiting list for housing and other state services can be decades long. Doctors oftentimes balk at accepting Medicaid. Jobs are scarcer than for non-disabled people.

Several county and state agencies partner to make that transition as seamless as possible for the more than 5,500 students in Montgomery County between the ages of 14 and 21. The state gives priority to people in their first year out of school. The state's "New Directions" program, launched in 2005, lets parents decide how to spend their children's funding.

All but a few of the graduates will receive day service and possibly supported employment, Lattanzio said. The state pays for a fraction of the therapies, behavioral management and family supports that most had while in school.

The anchor that can steady the transition most is finding meaningful employment, advocates and parents say. But less than half of developmentally disabled adults in Maryland had jobs last year, according to a November report by Cornell University.

So there are programs and plans to help with the transition. But the recurring problem is that there just aren't enough programs and, indeed, jobs for adults to transition into. Gazette.net describes the situation of 22-year-old Ashley Thompson of Germantown. She received a "certificate of attendance" in 2008, the diploma awarded students when they reach 21, and has been working part-time at a private preschool and has also been volunteering with preschoolers at Germantown Elementary School. But her training has not been deemed sufficient for the school system that educated her to hire her: "School officials balked at the idea because she had only the certificate," her mother, Holly Thompson notes, because Montgomery County Public Schools policy requires that paraeducators to have a full-fledged high school diploma and at least one year of college. Ironically, Thompson was regularly featured in Montgomery County Public Schools publications as an example of the success of special needs programs.

Once you leave the shiny world of services for those under 21 behind, the bloom is indeed off the proverbial rose. I think we all know what is wrong with that picture.