Autism and Interviews: Mindless Mess

A serious Ryan, after interview

So Ryan didn’t want to go to college, but he acknowledged that getting a job or writing to support himself was going to be difficult.

We opened the door to another thought.  No college.  What else could bring Ryan to his goal of independence?  A trade school?  An apprenticeship?  Again, Ryan had a perplexing issue to face.  Really, it was impossible.

Ryan has a difficult time relating to anything without a reference point.  To name an occupation, career, job, class, or anything is meaningless to Ryan.  Unless he is familiar with it.  So we spend hours trying to find examples for Ryan.  Research on the computer amounted to little success.

We kept coming back to classes.  Any class.  One class.  Just something that might spark an interest.  No degree or career in mind.  Just a class.

I took him online, and we visited a local college website.  I brought up writing classes.  Ryan narrowed the search to include online classes only.  I asked why.  He responded that he didn’t want to talk.  He wasn’t ready to talk.

New issue.  Well, not so new.  We know Ryan doesn’t like to talk with people.  However, HE expressed that he’s not ready for college.  That was a BIG step.

We found an online beginning writing class.  SUCCESS.

Then he was interested in the scholarship, and the deadline was a few weeks away.

Published by

Unknown's avatar

sasyjohnson

I am: a) happily married for over 27 years; b) mom to five boys, three diagnosed with autism; c) a home schooling mom; and d) self-employed as a piano teacher. There is no trace of autism on my side or my husband's side of the family tree. Until nine years ago, my youngest four all had disabilities, the youngest three with autism. Five years ago my youngest did not "qualify" for the autism label, rendering him "recovered". My second oldest also "tested" out of his speech delay. My husband and I attribute these successes to the care of many family members and therapists, change in diets, not following mainstream medicine yet listening to medical advice, doing our own research, and most importantly, lots of prayer.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.