Intentional communities (LINCs, ICW) and alternatives to group homes Group homes run on facility schedules, not individual ones. A small number of Michigan communities flipped that arrangement, giving adults their...
MI-CARE Clinic and other IDD-affirming care models Fifteen-minute appointments and rushed exam rooms fail autistic adults in specific, predictable ways. A handful of Michigan clinics built something different. Most families...
Safety risks of idle time for severe autism Self-injury, aggression, and elopement rarely arrive without warning. For many adults with significant support needs, they follow boredom the way smoke follows...
Teaching independent living skills with realistic goals “Independent” was always the wrong word. Nobody does laundry, cooking, or hygiene entirely alone; they do it with habits, reminders, and tools nobody...
Creating sustainable daily structure for high-support adults Boredom is not a mood. For a high-support adult with long unstructured stretches, it is a predictable risk factor for the exact behaviors...
Balancing safety and autonomy: reasonable risk for autistic adults Every skill your family member has ever learned came with some risk attached. Cooking risks burns. Community access risks getting lost....
Meaningful activity when employment is not realistic Not everyone can hold a competitive job. That does not mean the day has to be television. Contribution, mastery, and connection are the...
Executive Function Support When Structure Is Resisted Four low-conflict strategies for adults who resist top-down structure: choice architecture, micro-routines, externalized memory, non-verbal prompting. The scaffolding the adult never has to...
Sensory-Friendly Home Design for Adults Five concrete changes that turn a typical home into a sensory-stable environment. Lighting, sound dampening, safe stim spaces, clutter zoning, reset corners. The connection to...
Functional AAC for Adults: It’s Not Too Late How to introduce AAC in adulthood, choose goals that matter (pain, consent, real preferences, not the color of the cat), and work...
