When my son graduated high school, he wasn’t ready for college — and we knew it. Instead of moving into a dorm that fall, he spent the next three years in an 18-to-21 transition program, splitting his time between community college classes and a curriculum most schools don’t offer: real life.
His teachers, outside therapists, and our family spent those three years working through skills that had nothing to do with a diploma. One of the first ones on the list: crossing a downtown street safely. It sounds small. It wasn’t. For a kid who could build his own computer but walked across a busy street without looking, that skill mattered as much as anything in a textbook.
Regardless of the path after high school — college, employment, a day program — every young person needs a set of soft skills to navigate adulthood. They need to organize their own schoolwork, remember their medication, cross the street safely. As families plan for graduation, it’s worth balancing academic preparation with these very practical, everyday skills.
Some autistic learners, like my son, tend to hyperfocus on academics and don’t naturally pick up the rest along the way. They may need direct, concerted instruction on real-life skills — the kind other teens absorb almost by osmosis. Communication and social interaction are often an area of challenge, too, which means something as ordinary as talking to a boss or a professor can take real, deliberate practice.
19 Real-Life Skills to Practice Before Graduation
- Teach them to wake up on their own and go to sleep without a nightly reminder — an alarm clock is a life skill, not a luxury.
- Make sure they know their address, phone number, and email by heart. Extra points if they also know their Social Security number and a parent’s phone number.
- Have them carry a card, physical or digital, with an emergency contact and any medical conditions listed — in case they can’t explain that themselves in a crisis.
- Get them taking their medication independently, on schedule, without a reminder from you.
- Practice ordering an Uber together until they can do it solo, from typing in the address to recognizing the right car.
- Walk downtown with them, again and again, until they can cross streets and read signage independently — the way my son’s team did with him.
- Rehearse a simple greeting — a smile, a handshake, a “hello” — until it becomes automatic when someone is introduced.
- Teach them to ask for help calmly, without the panic that can come from feeling stuck.
- Practice expressing strong feelings in an appropriate tone of voice, rather than shutting down or escalating.
- Coach them on when a conversation is over, and it’s time to stop talking.
- Get them using a calendar app to track their own appointments, not just yours.
- Let them order their own clothes and toiletries online, even if you approve the cart at first.
- Hand them a debit card and let them make small mistakes with it while the stakes are still low.
- Set up reminders on their phone for daily tasks like showering, taking medication, or leaving for work.
- Practice ordering dinner from DoorDash so takeout doesn’t require a phone call they dread.
- Teach them to do a full load of laundry, start to finish, without you checking in.
- Practice self-advocacy — a simple script for asking a teacher, boss, or doctor for what they need.
- Talk through how to handle a sudden change of plans before it happens, so it isn’t a crisis when it does.
- Give them permission to say “no” to a request or invitation without over-explaining themselves.
None of these skills show up on a report card. But three years into my son’s transition program, I can tell you they mattered just as much as anything in his coursework. If your teen isn’t ready for total independence at eighteen, that’s not a failure — it’s information. Use the years you have to build toward it.
Recommended Resources on Transition to Adulthood
The Loving Push: How Parents and Professionals Can Help Spectrum Kids Become Successful Adults, Temple Grandin & Debra Moore, 2016
How to Teach Life Skills to Kids with Autism or Asperger’s, Jennifer McIlwee Myers
Life Journey Through Autism: A Guide for Transition to Adulthood, Organization for Autism Research (free guide, researchautism.org)
Autism Speaks Transition Tool Kit, Autism Speaks (autismspeaks.org)
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