Transitioning Back to Post-secondary Environments After a Long Summer Break

Without the structure of school or a job, students may lapse into a more relaxed routine which involves staying up late, watching YouTube or playing video games. What can parents do the ease the transition?

BY ERNST VANBERGEIJK, PH.D., M.S.W.

Summers change after a young adult with an autism spectrum disorder leaves high school and attends a post-secondary program. For starters, the summers are generally longer. Most colleges and universities are only in session for two 15-week semesters.

This means they often end school in early May and do not return until after Labor Day. Without the structure of school or a job, students may lapse into a more relaxed routine which involves staying up late, watching YouTube or playing video games. Consequently, they wake up later and later as the summer progresses. This makes the transition back to school all the more difficult. The question is, what can a parent do ease the transition back to a post-secondary program or college?

easing the transition back to a post-secondary program or college

1. Prevent the lapse or loss of routine.

How can a parent prevent this? Find summer activities that provide structure. Summer employment provides that structure. Getting up and going to work each day during the summer will help the student when they return to school, plus it gives the added benefit of giving them practice with their employment skills, the sense of pride from earning a paycheck, and will help build their resume. It also increases the likelihood that they will be employed for pay after completing the post-secondary program. If your student cannot find paid employment, then volunteering for an organization can be an excellent place where your student not only has structure and routine, but can still practice important pre-employment skills like arriving on time, dressing appropriately for work, collaborating with supervisors and colleagues, etc. Make sure your young adult gets a favorable letter of recommendation from his or her supervisor at the end of the summer. This will help build their portfolio and can lead to future employment. Check with your local civic center, food bank, hospital, senior center, or community garden for volunteering opportunities.

If paid employment or volunteering are not options, then consider summer camps. There are many special needs summer camps across the country. Colleges and universities have specialized summer camps that often have a theme or special interests like marine biology, computers or astronomy. Summer camps need counselors or counselors in training (CIT). If your son or daughter was a camper at a particular camp as a younger child, then the camp may be inclined to hire them as a CIT or as a counselor. Generally, camps are highly structured with planned activities from sunup to sundown. The structure of working at a summer camp will help ease the return to college.

Some colleges and college-based transition programs offer summer semesters. Here, students on the autism spectrum or other types of learning disabilities may continue to take college classes for credit which can help lighten the student's course load during the academic year. The caveat is that these summer semesters tend to be accelerated. The classes meet more often each week, for a shorter number of weeks, and assignments are often due back to back. Missing classes or falling behind on assignments can happen easily and quickly during a summer session with devasting results. Selecting this option must be done with careful consideration. Most students will take only one or two classes during a summer session. For those students who attend a college-based, post-secondary transition program during the academic year, check to see if the college offers a summer program. There may or may not be an opportunity to take credit-bearing classes.

However, the certificate-based programs will offer opportunities for these students to practice their pre-employment skills though internships. They also will provide opportunities for the student to practice their independent living and social skills which can regress over the summer if a student goes home. This option provides a student with the easiest transition back to a post-secondary environment in the fall. Typically, the students will live in the same residence halls and eat in the same cafeterias as they do during the academic year. The familiarity of the surroundings and routine can be very comforting to young adults on the autism spectrum.

2. Expect push back.

When your son or daughter returns from their first year of post-secondary education, you may be surprised at their new-found level of independence and confidence. They are used to living on their own and have perhaps given little thought about curfews and letting any one knowing their comings and goings. This will need to be a negotiated process that both parties are comfortable with. In the long run, this is what we want for our children with disabilities; we want them to be independent. Establish minimum standards for safety, communication, and acceptable behavior in public and at home.

3. Have them practice their activities of daily living (ADLs).

The successful daily completion of activities of daily living is a better predictor of employment post-high school than I.Q. or academic ability. ADLs provide structure, routine, and predictability and will ease their return to school. Setting alarms on smart phones or alarm clocks is an important life skill and pre-employment skill. It will be tempting to fall back into old habits of expecting mom or dad to wake them up in the morning. Resist the urge. Being in the habit of cleaning up one's room and making one's bed is something many young adults fight, whether or not they have a disability. For students on the autism spectrum, this can be especially difficult as their impairment in executive functioning can inhibit their ability to organize. However, by continuing this habit during the summer, it will help them when they return to college and have to share a dorm room with a roommate. Cleanliness of a shared room is a frequent source of disagreements between roommates. Establishing this habit is also a life-long skill that will help your student when they move into an apartment after college. Make sure your son or daughter continues to do their laundry once they return home. When he or she returns to school, no one will do his or her laundry. This can be a tough transition back. They put off doing laundry upon their return until they no longer have any clean clothes to go to work or school. The pile can be so high that he or she becomes overwhelmed, and this creates a crisis.

Establishing a summer laundry day that is the same day as when he or she would do laundry at school just makes the return that much easier. Having a personal hygiene schedule that mirrors the academic year will also ease the transition back to school. Meal preparation and planning is another habit to continue during the summer. Having them make their own breakfasts and pack their own lunches helps promote independence. Occasionally, have them make the family dinner. Better yet, if they are able, have them grocery shop for the meal. This will give them the added practice of navigating to the store, using checklists for the groceries, and money management skills. Practicing these skills will help them ease back to school.

4. Establish good sleep hygiene behaviors.

Students on the autism spectrum need their sleep. Vacation can lead to variable bedtimes and waking times. Good sleep hygiene is more than simply going to bed and waking up at the same times and ensuring that a young adult gets 8-10 hours of sleep a night. It also means limiting screen time on computers, iPads, smart phones, and gaming devices before bedtime. Experts recommend stopping usage of these devices two hours before bedtime in order to not interfere with REM sleep which is associated with deep sleep (Chang, Aeschbach, Duffy, & Czeisler, 2015). The use by adolescents of electronics at night is also linked to depression (Lemola, Perkinson-Gloor, Brand, Dewald-Kaufmann, & Grob, 2015). The negative effects on electronic media at night has a significant effect upon children and adolescents on the autism spectrum (Mazurek, Engelhardt, Hilgard, & Sohl, 2016). Likewise, people should limit caffeine in-take, hours before bed (Drake, Roehrs, Shambroom, and Roth, 2013). Also, students should not exercise less than two hours before bedtime.

5. Exercise regularly during the summer break.

The benefits of exercise are well documented. What most Americans don't realize is that the average American gains one to two pounds a year after college. This means the average American will have a Body Mass Index (BMI) that places them in the overweight and obese range in middle age, even if they are in the normal BMI range during college. Establishing an exercise routine during the summer not only helps with the transition back to school in the fall; it also helps to develop a lifelong habit that will help stave off weight gain. The benefits do not end there. Most people know that exercise improves cardiovascular health and that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., but perhaps not many know that exercise before learning academic material also leads to better concentration, better retention of the material, and higher test scores. This is true for both students with and without disabilities. It also leads to better sleep, reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as less reliance of psychotropic medication. In fact, the Boston Higashi School incorporates regular exercise into their daily curriculum for their students, all of whom are on the autism spectrum. They report their students are medication free as a result. For an entertaining and wonderfully written synthesis on the benefits of exercise for both general education and special education students, readers should refer to the New York Times Best-selling book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John J. Ratney, M.D.

Children with autism and other developmental disabilities are more likely to be diagnosed as obese (Egan, Dreyer, Odar, Beckwith, & Garrison, 2013). They are also less likely to participate in team sports due to problems with fine and gross motor coordination issues, proprioception, and understanding the complex social and nonverbal communication that often accompanies team sports. Think about how complex a behavior of performing an alley-oop in basketball, or stealing a base in baseball can be.

Alternatively, there are a number of adaptive sports leagues across the country that take the students' disabilities into account. Running, swimming, hiking and biking are excellent physical activities that can be done individually or in groups, and do not necessarily require a high degree of non-verbal social communication. Additional research shows that spending time in nature exercising leads to a plethora of physical and mental health benefits (Barton, Bragg, Wood, & Pretty, 2016; Barton & Pretty, 2010; Gladwell, Brown, Wood, Sandercock, & Barton, 2013). It can also lead to exercising more than simply hitting the gym with less perceived exertion (Lahart, Darcy, Gidlow, & Calogiuri, 2019; Rogerson, Gladwell, Gallagher, & Barton, 2016).

6. Have the students practice their social skills.

Help them stay in contact with new friends from school and arrange their own social get-togethers over the summer. This enables them to practice their chit-chat skills and strengthen the friendships they made during their previous academic year. This will help with decreasing the anticipatory anxiety they may face about re-integrating into the social scene back at school. It could also help build excitement for the upcoming year.

7. Travel skills are essential to practice over the summer.

Being a little rusty at using public transportation can undermine a student's confidence in being independent and returning to school. Have the student practice trips at home using public transportation. If possible, a field trip mid-summer to rehearse travel to a new internship site or class location will help immensely with the transition back to school. Furthermore, the lack of reliable transportation and the inability to use mass transit severely limits the employment opportunities of an individual with a disability (Belgrave, & Walker,1991; Lindsay, S., 2010; Magill-Evans, Galambos, Darrah, & Nickerson, 2008).

Even if your family did not start the summer with some of these structured activities, it is not too late to begin. Institute what you can, when you can, to make the transition back to college or a college-based post-secondary transition program easier for your student with a disability.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ernst VanBergeijk, Ph.D., M.S.W. is a professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA and is the Director of the Threshold Program which is a postsecondary transition program for students with a variety of disabilities. lesley.edu/threshold. He also oversees the Lesley University Threshold Alumni Center which provides life-long support for graduates of the Threshold Program. Beginning Summer 2020, the Threshold Program will be offering a 6-week summer program for students ages 16 years old and up.

References

Barton, J., Bragg, R., Wood, C., and Pretty, J. (Eds.) (2016). Green Exercise: Linking Nature, Health, and Well-Being. Routledge. New York. Barton, J. and Pretty, J. (2010). What is the Best Dose of Nature and Green Exercise for Improving Mental Health? A Multi-Study Analysis Environmental Science& Technology.201044103947-3955. doi.org/10.1021/es903183r Belgrave, F. Z., and Walker, S. (1991). Predictors of employment outcome of Black persons with disabilities. Rehabilitation Psychology, 36(2), 111-119. dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0079076 Chang, A.M., Aeschbach, D., Duffy, J.F., and Czeisler, C.A. (2015). Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112 (4) 12321237; Retrieved from: doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418490112 Drake, C., Roehrs, T., Shambroom, J., and Roth T. (2013). Caffeine effects on sleep taken 0, 3, or 6 hours before going to bed. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 9(11):1195-1200. Egan, A.M., Dreyer, M.L., Odar, C.C., Beckwith, M. and Garrison, C.B. (2013).Obesity in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Prevalence and Associated Factors, Childhood Obesity, 9(2): doi.org/10.1089/chi.2012.0028 Gladwell, V.F., Brown, D.K., Wood, C., Sandercock, G.R., and Barton, J.L. (2013).The great outdoors: how a green exercise environment can benefit all. Extreme Physiology & Medicine,2(3). Retrieved from : extremephysiolmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2046- 7648-2-3 August 16. 2019. Lahart, I.; Darcy, P.; Gidlow, C.; Calogiuri, G. (2019). The Effects of Green Exercise on Physical and Mental Wellbeing: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16, 1352. Lemola, S., Perkinson-Gloor, N., Brand, S., Dewald-Kaufmann, J.F., and Grob, A. (2015). Adolescents' Electronic Media Use at Night, Sleep Disturbance, and Depressive Symptoms in the Smartphone Age. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 44( 2): pp 405–418. Lindsay, S. (2010). Employment status and work characteristics among adolescents with disabilities. Disability and Rehabilitation, 33(10): pp.843-854. Magill-Evans, J., Galambos, N., Darrah, J., and Nickerson, C. (2008). Predictors of employment for young adults with developmental motor disabilities. Work, 31(4): pp. 433-442. Mazurek, M. O., Engelhardt, C., Hilgard, J., Sohl, K. (2016). Bedtime Electronic Media Use and Sleep in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 37(7): pp. 525-531. doi: 10.1097/DBP.0000000000000314 Ratney, J.J. and Hagerman, E. (2008). Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. Little, Brown, and Company: New York. Rogerson, M.; Gladwell, V.F.; Gallagher, D.J.; Barton, J.L. (2016). Influences of Green Outdoors versus Indoors Environmental Settings on Psychological and Social Outcomes of Controlled Exercise. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 13, 363.