What to expect when they are adults?

As you said, there is no cystal ball and everyone is different. I do worry a lot about Jade and her future. I worry about all of my children's futures, but Jade's most of all. She currently recieves SSI because it is assumed that she will never be able to hold down a job and per evalluations of three different drs she cannot be schooled by 'traditional means'. She will be reassesed when she turns 18 and again when she is 25. If she still cannot hold a job she will be perminantly adressed to SSI, and Disability. She has aspirations of attending MIT and they have said that they do have a Virtual Docorate Program that was specifically designed for people like her, but they do not, as of yet, have the facilities to handle a student with her special needs there on campus. Stanford, her second choice in colleges, also has a quite extraordinary Virtual University that is available to everyone. We expect that she will never be able to really live 'alone', but you never know. She has made significant progress in the last two years, since she started on SSI. So it very well may come to pass that she is able to achieve her life long (almost 9 ys....she thinks she's getting old) ambition of working for NASA as a teraforming engeneer. But, I do have to say that I worry so much about her because she is so low functioning in most areas. She has an IQ of 72, which puts her just beyond the relm of Mental Retardation. However, many of her drs and I agree that the only reason she scored that high is because she is an autistic savant in the areas of Earth Science and Cosmology. Her scientific and mathmatical wording abilities 'distorted' her cognative testing to make it show higher than it actually is. We like to say she is boarderline between AS and HFA.

My other Aspies will probably turn out more like DH though. He leads a relatively normal life. He has his own family, complete with wife and children. He has a 'normal' job just like everyon else. He goes fishing with a buddie every so often and likes to play cards with my WP, Scott, and his wife. He says that since he found out he is autistic that he doesn't feel so lonely anymore because he knows that there are others out there just like him. We know quite a few other adult Aspies, and to tell you the truth, I can't see how the APA and ASA got their numbers that say only one in fifty Aspie men will get married and that Aspie women inevatably become housewives. Where the heck did they get this stuff from? ALL of the Aspie men we know are married and half of the Aspie women we know are proffessionals, some married and some not. (shrug) Personally, I think it takes an extraordinary person to be married to an Aspie. I am in awe of my MIL (who's DH is AS) and I feel sorry for my last two BILS....my sister (AS) has been married a few times.

I don't know how life will turn out for any of my kids. With my luck Jade will get several Phds and get launched into space on a a generational mission and my NT dd will end up in a car crash that will leave her halfway vegitablized. You never know, all you can do is pray, keep working with them, and pray some more.

peace,

Candes