The leap from high school to independent college life is difficult for any freshman, but it can be especially challenging for disabled students, who have spent 12 years in a fairly protected academic bubble. Ideally, their formative years were spent protected by and advocated for by not just their families, but their Individualized Education Plan teams - counselors, teachers and disability specialists. Now, they're off to independent life on a college campus and the transition can be rocky.
It can be particularly rocky for teens with certain disabilities, such as Asperger's Syndrome. Imagine getting used to roommates, dorm life, personal finance and a completely new environment overnight, when your disability includes extreme difficulty with social interaction, emotional cues, and any change of routine. Some students get around this by living at home while getting used to college. Some take the plunge into college life, only to become quickly embroiled in personal turmoil and academic problems. Some end up dropping out of college after college. And a lucky few have found transitional programs that help bridge the gap.
One such program for students with Asperger's, high functioning autism, dyslexia and attention disorders is CIP, or the College Internship Program, which has branches in Northern California, Massachusetts, Florida and Indiana. The problem, says Janet Miller, who directs the Berkeley program, is not the academics. It's everything else, from setting alarm clocks and remembering to take showers to prioritizing study time. So students at CIP divide their time between regular academia - with courses at nearby community or 4-year colleges - and independent life training. They live in a dorm, comprised of 2-bedroom apartments, cook communally and attend tutoring sessions, social peer counseling and executive functioning classes together.
