While the notion of a degree leading to a great job in the end is nice; my goal for her at this point is to have an enjoyable, meaningful and stimulating experience with true peers that inspire her and lift her up while experiencing sheltered independence as we wait for the executive functions to catch up with the rest of her. The degree at the end is the bonus.
The executive function may not catch up without therapeutic work of some kind. To be honest, there are plenty of bright autistic adults who don't reach the ability to hold jobs.
The fact that she thinks she's going back next fall without acknowledging that she's failed demonstrates that she's not thinking realistically. I don't see that sending her back to college at this point would work.
Well, this is the first I have heard of this program, on the one hand it seems great but the price YIKES! Also, the testimonies sound very much like my DD but the pics and descriptions seem to indicate a much higher-need population and that would really upset her to be put in an environment of higher needs students.
I'm probably being too frank here, but I feel it needs to be said. I think job 1 is for you and your DD to use professional help to understand what the disabilities entail. She *is* a higher-needs student. She is just very intelligent. The whole "high functioning" thing with autism is routinely misunderstood. It only refers to intelligence being unimpaired; it has absolutely no relevance to the severity of the disability. One can be both very intelligent and severely disabled by autism OR ADHD. Both is a very hard deal, but if she won't admit what's hard, she will never be able to take responsibility for her own performance.
This is where I am leaning as far as wanting to help with therapy/meds/remediation but I would have to find a way to support this without allowing her to fall back into her old ways (i.e. she moves in and lies about going to work/school/therapy, becomes bed-bound and depressed).
Yes. For this I would want serious professional therapeutic help. And a social services agency may be able to fund someone to check on her when you are not able to, for instance.
The school is apparently pretty lenient on students who petition to return when they show they have worked to address the issues that prevented them from returning the previous year. It seems that it is quite common for students to take a year off to sort personal stuff out and there isn’t a lot of stigma. She will most likely still get credit for the whole freshman year if she turns the paper in before returning and provided she didn’t get “F’s” this semester.
I think that because she loves it there, it's the best carrot to get her to work on the issues she has. I'd make it a condition of her returning there at some point.
I hope you find a good solution.
DeeDee
