"Get a job"

My wife and I have a son with Asperger's who still lives at home at age 23. He's also immature and may have some OCD. He has graduated community college with an AA degree in Computer Software Applications. He worked in retail for 2 years before his employment ended due to the recession. We and several family members have been prodding and cajoling him to get a new job. He even sees a job counselor thru Voc Rehab on a weekly basis. However, he is content to sit at home and not try very hard and is not motivated to follow up on any applications or interviews.

Our son does not have any concept of the value of a dollar; he has a large amount of $$ in a Money Market account that he's living off of. We've even been charging him rent.

How do we motivate our adult child to find a job in his field, or at least customer service? When we push, he usually has a meltdown and he's impossible to deal with.

Help!

Welcome to the IAN forums, Lchayim.

I am sure there are many families struggling with similar issues: young adults who are not willing (or perhaps ready?) to leave the nest.

What is so difficult with autism spectrum disorders, like Asperger syndrome, is that intellectual and academic functioning can be on an entirely different level than social-emotional functioning. One question to think about is: At what level is my child functioning intellectually? Socially-emotionally? For example, a young adult could be completely on target for their age intellectually, but far behind their chronological age socially and emotionally. A 23 year old could be more like 15 in their maturity and social-emotional development, say.

So...part of resolving such issues is trying to figure out if a child is just too comfortable at home, or anxious about leaving, totally not emotionally "old enough" to leave yet, or whatever. Sometimes families may need help figuring this out, as well as involving the young adult in decision making, incrementally adding responsibilities, etc.

A family therapist or other mental health professional who is family-focused, and who has some knowledge of the autism spectrum, might be able to assist with this. In addition, I have heard from a number of young adults that they were seeing an individual therapist to help them navigate the social world, understand when things have gone wrong and what to do, think about their future, make choices, etc.

One place you might seek additional information is the Organization for Autism Research (OAR). They focus a great deal on young adult transition issues: http://www.researchautism.org/

They offer a free guide on Transition to Adulthood: http://www.researchautism.org/resources/reading/index.asp

Well, I am seeking a job, but my parent nags me to find one. Being 20 and all, I had academic problems in college and because of that, I was denied my insurance. I showed my link to my job story (http://socyberty.com/disabled/jobs4autism-com-my-story-and-insights) to Jobs4Autism and they featured it (http://www.jobs4autism.com/my-quest-for-a-job-an-aspergers-job-story).

As my post shows, I write for those freelance writing sites where I get paid by Adsense and all those writing sites. I also blog with affiliate/ad publishing networks, but my parent pushes me to get a physical job, which I just dread and blank out. She even forced me to apply to Walmart, in which I read about the negatives of the company (being anti-union, discriminatory, etc.).

I will be meeting with DVR tomorrow in Tampa, wish me the best and read my story.

Hi Tiffany. Good luck to you tomorrow!

I think that the issue of jobs for young adults on the autism spectrum is going to be a major area of focus for advocacy groups and for some researchers. I have been told by transition specialists -- those who focus on helping individuals move from the world of high school to the world of higher education or work -- that many bureaucracies meant to serve people with disabilities are very behind in their understanding or ability to accommodate people with ASD, especially those who are higher functioning.

On the other hand, interest in this is growing in many sectors. This includes policy experts involved with vocational rehabilitation -- the disability service in states that help people train for and find jobs, provides job coaches, etc. It also includes researchers who want to find out what is really happening as young people with ASD leave high school. They are conducting what is called "service epidemiology" to learn how many teens with ASD are trying to access transition services, how many enter the Vocational Rehab system, and how many succeed or fail at getting/keeping a job. What factors help a person with ASD succeed? What barriers almost guarantee failure? Knowing this will help shape policy and improve systems supporting adults with ASD. Also - what states are doing the best job? What models are successful? How can these be implemented more widely?