Work Related Challenges and How to Help

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I am a teacher working with 18-21 year olds many of whom are autistic or on the autism spectrum (at least in school if not through outside agencies). We try to help the students prepare for entering the world of work, but for some of them it is a HUGE challenge. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when you first started working and what could somebody have done to make the transition from high school to the word of work easier for you to handle? Thanks for any help you have to offer or advice you can give me.

Ace, I would suggest you start by *reading* the many, many posts that are already here for a sense of problems that come up repeatedly, and then working with the young adults' therapists, high school aides, anyone with direct knowledge of them. The challenges will be directly related to each individual, so to have strangers say "look out for X" is likely to steer you wrong a good deal of the time. Even if a challenge is common to many with AS, it does not mean that the individual you are working with will face that particular challenge.

Also please accept right now that for some of your clients, successful workforce integration may not happen. There is a reason why AS is classed as a disability. Your job may depend on getting the numbers up, but these are people and their neurology doesn't really care about the grant or line item that funds this aspect of your position.

I was astronomically lucky, in that I fell into a career doing something that suited me perfectly, while still in High School, so by the time I graduated HS, I was already ensconced in the industry I would go on to spend another 30 years in.

For me, that was broadcasting, specifically radio, where I got to spend my workday in a closed room alone, playing music and talking to myself. A young, undiagnosed autistic teen couldn't have found a more ideal environment. In spite of that, I spent nearly 50% of that 30 years unemployed, because management types cannot abide workers who "think outside the box." Not even in an industry geared toward the creative.

My pattern was: Excel for a year, under gradually increasing stress, as management began to pressure me to function "outside my comfort zone," then begin to fall apart for the next 6 months under the psychological and emotional strain, get fired after a year and a half, then spend 8 months or more decompressing from the trauma, and go out and do it all over again. I loved my job and won awards for my performance of it, but could not survive in an environment where my superiors could not accept my limitations.

Of course, I was undiagnosed all those years, so I couldn't claim discrimination, because I didn't know I had an offical disability, but my experience since diagnosis has not been any more encouraging.

Point being, for autistic youth to have any kind of future in the workplace, it's essential to match them up individually with careers geared to accept their disabilities AND appeal to their personal obsessive interests, because that's the only way they're ever going to be able to handle the stresses of workplace socialization and stay focused on their tasks.

There was no Aspergers, there was no HFA when I was a child. Certainly people knew I was different, but my special interest was academic, and there were enough people willing to look at what I COULD do. So I second what Willard is saying, matching the person and their interests to the work is essential, both for that student you are working with to want to succeed, and because other people will only be willing to overlook deficits if they are working in something where they have some type of strength. Whatever form that may take.

What has allowed me to work is
1) people who believed in me
2) people who gave me a chance to try
3) people who chose to explain something to me rather than write me off when I did not know how to do something most people would (the supervisor who told me I seemed snotty but she thought I was shy and recommended I try to smile more, the supervisor who told me the way I looked at people might cause discomfort and advised me to look away periodically during conversations---kind people who saw what I did not know and offered calm suggestion rather than accusations about what I was doing wrong---and again, no labels, they just saw and supported me)
4) I absolutely wanted to work

The beliefs of people around me cause me enormous pain, they see that I have ASD and they don't, because to them it is horrible, it is a disability that ends capability. And I don't know how to be part of that world and survive, because to me, autism is not a disability, autism is a diagnosis related to how one's brain works that often, maybe usually, causes tremendous disability. But to my way of thinking, I can have autism and it should not necessitate others thinking less of me. But generally speaking, it does.

Don't make that mistake. Don't decide based on the label what anyone is or isn't capable of. Each student you work with is a human being with hopes and dreams of some kind. They may want to work, they may not want to work. And they may or may not be successful at working. If you can help make their experience of trying to do so as much as you can be about them, finding what they want and helping them achieve the best for them, then you should he proud, and satisfied.