RE: Re: Teaching life skills -was: Cure

June 11, 2010

Sue – We live in Houston (southwest suburb). There

is an organization called FOCUS (Focusing on Children Under the Spectrum) that

was started by a young woman who had worked in a public school system as an

LSSP (licensed specialist in school psychology) and had developed and

implemented their autism program. She is truly passionate about these

individuals and decided to start her own business. It is really misnamed

as she has clients from toddlers to adults (oldest client was 62). We stumbled

onto the program when Tyler was just starting high school and did their Social

Understanding classes which were very helpful. She started this FOPI

program as she saw the need for support for the young adult. It is certainly

not cheap ($35-$50 per hour depending on your total hours – more hours of

services the better hourly rate) but we are blessed in that we can afford it.

He gets 15 hours of services per week. Focus of services is education,

nutrition and exercise (Tyler is very overweight), appropriate social

interactions, and independent living skills. We did check into the CLE (College

Living Experience) but not only is Tyler not ready to live away from home,

I am not willing at this point to pay what they want – I can’t

remember how much it was exactly but I am thinking it is around $36,000 to $40,000

per year and does not include college tuition and books, only the room and

board and supports. I’m not sure how anyone can afford that.

From:

[mailto: ] On

Behalf Of suetois

Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 12:10 PM

Subject: ( ) Re: Teaching life skills -was: Cure

, where are you sending your son? We found

a program at NYIT (New York Institute of Technology) that does all sorts of

great things like teaching older kids and young adults with ASDs to budget,

navigate public transportation (in NYC!), work on social skills, etc. It's a

live-in program and it's integrated with the university and tech training. They

have a 3-week summer session too. The only problem is the cost. When I looked

into it several months ago the summer session alone was beyond our reach. The

guy I talked with told me that school districts pick up the cost for many of

their students as part of an ESY requirement in the kids' IEPs, but I can't

imagine our district doing that. Plus, next year is my son's last year in HS

(he'll be doing a fifth year of HS in the fall). There's no time to fight the

good fight even if I did think I could win it.

Sue

>

> Sue – I was also in a lot of ways like you and thought the life

skills would

> just come naturally. For the love of Pete, why I thought that when it

> didn't seem like anything came naturally is beyond me! My son has just

> finished a year in a new program that is being offered by the same

> organization where he did Social Understanding groups for several years.

> This program is called FOPI (Focusing on Personal Independence). Even

> though his first year of college was not very successful as you have

> gathered from my earlier posts, he has progressed a lot with this program

> though certainly not to a level where I can say with any certainty that he

> will be able to be totally independent some day. Since we are seeing lots

> of progress we plan for him to continue in this program. I continue to be

> hopeful that with time, maturity, supports, etc. that he can be fairly

> independent. Without this hope I think I would just give up some days!

>

> >>snipped the previous posts in the " Cure " thread<<

June 11, 2010

I wonder if this program is the CLE program I referred to in my

earlier reply. I find it hard to believe that any school district would pick

up the cost of a program like that. LOL!!

From:

[mailto: ] On

Behalf Of suetois

Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 12:10 PM

Subject: ( ) Re: Teaching life skills -was: Cure

, where are you sending your son? We found

a program at NYIT (New York Institute of Technology) that does all sorts of

great things like teaching older kids and young adults with ASDs to budget,

navigate public transportation (in NYC!), work on social skills, etc. It's a live-in

program and it's integrated with the university and tech training. They have a

3-week summer session too. The only problem is the cost. When I looked into it

several months ago the summer session alone was beyond our reach. The guy I

talked with told me that school districts pick up the cost for many of their

students as part of an ESY requirement in the kids' IEPs, but I can't imagine

our district doing that. Plus, next year is my son's last year in HS (he'll be

doing a fifth year of HS in the fall). There's no time to fight the good fight

even if I did think I could win it.

Sue

>

> Sue – I was also in a lot of ways like you and thought the life skills

would