The transition from adolescence into adulthood involves significant planning for any family, and for autism families, it often involves additional considerations worth starting to think about earlier than many families expect.
Why Early Planning Matters
Many of the systems and decisions involved in the transition to adulthood — school-based transition planning, potential guardianship considerations, vocational and educational options, and benefits planning — genuinely benefit from being started years in advance rather than addressed only as a teen approaches legal adulthood. Federal special education law actually requires schools to begin transition planning within a student's IEP by age 16 at the latest, and some families and schools start even earlier.
School-Based Transition Planning
Once a student's IEP includes transition planning (required by IDEA no later than age 16), this should address post-secondary goals across relevant areas: education/training, employment, and independent living skills, along with the specific services and activities needed to work toward those goals during the remaining school years.
Guardianship and Decision-Making Options
As a young person approaches 18, families need to consider what level of decision-making support will be needed, if any. Options in Michigan range from full independence with no formal arrangement, to less restrictive alternatives like a healthcare or financial power of attorney or supported decision-making agreements, to full or limited guardianship for individuals who need more substantial decision-making support. This is a genuinely significant legal decision that's worth discussing with an attorney familiar with special needs and disability law well before your child turns 18, since guardianship decisions have real, lasting implications for a person's legal autonomy.
Vocational and Employment Options
Depending on individual strengths and support needs, employment paths for autistic adults range from competitive, independent employment (sometimes with initial job coaching support) to supported employment programs to day programs focused on skill-building and community engagement. Michigan Rehabilitation Services and local Community Mental Health agencies are among the resources that can help connect families to vocational assessment and support services.
Post-Secondary Education Options
For those pursuing further education, options include traditional college or university (often with accommodations through a school's disability services office), community college programs, and specialized post-secondary programs specifically designed for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, which have grown in availability at various institutions in recent years.
Independent Living Considerations
Independent living planning ranges enormously based on individual needs and preferences — from fully independent living, to living with support services in place, to various supported or group living arrangements. This is highly individual, and there's no single "right" outcome to plan toward; the goal is matching the level of support to what actually serves your specific young adult's genuine needs and preferences.
Benefits Planning
Understanding how programs like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid waiver programs work — including how employment income can affect benefits — is worth exploring well before your child turns 18, ideally with guidance from a benefits planning specialist, since decisions made without this understanding can have significant, sometimes hard-to-reverse financial implications.
Building Skills Now for the Transition Later
The daily living, money management, and community skills covered throughout this guide directly support a smoother eventual transition — starting this skill-building during the school years, rather than waiting until adulthood is imminent, tends to ease the transition considerably.
Where to Get Help Navigating This
Michigan Alliance for Families and the Autism Alliance of Michigan both offer resources relevant to transition planning, and can help connect you to more specialized local resources as your child approaches this stage.
For Mount Pleasant-Area Families
While our services focus on children and younger clients, our BCBA, Kimberly Blazer, is glad to discuss how current treatment goals connect to your Mount Pleasant-area family's longer-term planning. Our Individual ABA Therapy service is designed around exactly this kind of goal. our in-home ABA therapy in Mount Pleasant page has more information, or Get Started Today to get started.
This article is part of our complete guide, Building Independence: A Guide to Daily Living Skills. Clinically reviewed by Kimberly Blazer, BCBA.