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rattle off a list of every childWithout leaving his seat or looking around, he could rattle off a list of every child who wasn't in the room. That skill, a curiosity when he was a young child, became the basis for T.J.'s diagnosis of autism. The developmental disability, which affects interaction with others and communication, brought with it a love of repetitive tasks, a sharp memory and a knack for quick mental processing. Today, those same skills give T.J., now a sophomore at Springdale High School, and his family a clearer picture of what his independent adult life may look like. "He's happy when he has a job to do," said T.J.'s mother, Linda Bennorth. T.J. started school before a boom of children diagnosed with autism led some school districts to create autism-only classrooms and many others to expand special education services. As T.J. grows to adulthood, his parents are preparing him for the possibility of independent living. Waves of autistic students will follow T.J.'s passage through high school, creating the need for flexibility and growth in programs geared at easing their transition from school to work- place, educators said. Last year, the Springdale School District enrolled 72 students with autism, according to the Arkansas Department of Education. But when T.J. started school as a kindergartner at Parson Hills Elementary, the district had little experience educating children with the disability, his mother said. Rather than taking classes in a special education classroom or an autism-only classroom, T.J. stayed in regular classrooms, and teachers modified their behavior expectations for him. His kindergarten teacher tried to engage his interests and allowed him to get up and walk around when he felt restless and unsettled. Autism affects people in different ways. People with autism have varying levels of intelligence, and some have multiple disabilities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After completing high school, students with autism can take a variety of paths, said Rhonda Bartholemew, T.J.'s resource classroom teacher at Springdale. Some may head to college, with or without assistance. Others live in group homes to help them transition to adulthood. Others continue to live with their parents. Some students on the high functioning end of the spectrum, where autism may not be noticeable to peers, get a job or enroll in college with no assistance and transition to adulthood with minimal difficulty. The Autism Society of America estimates the number of diagnosed cases of autism grows 10 percent to 17 percent each year. Cost of treatment, education, housing and services totals $90 billion a year, with 90 percent spent on adult services for people who've "aged out" of the public education system at 21. The organization estimates the total cost could grow to as much as $400 billion by 2016, using statistical trends from the CDC and the average cost of individual treatment to generate the figure. 'WE DO IT BETTER' T.J. sat at a brown laminate table in the din of the work room at the Elizabeth Richardson Center, quickly snapping perforated Wal-Mart price signs before stacking them and sliding sets of 15 into cardboard boxes. In his first week of the Springdale High School school-to-work program, he'd quickly mastered a task that other students were still learning. While workers are supposed to fill five boxes at a time, T.J. managed two extra boxes, filling sets of seven in a steady rhythm. The Elizabeth Richardson Center is one of 97 sheltered workshops in the state, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. At the workshops, workers with special needs and limitations complete supervised pay-per-piece assembly and packaging projects, earning biweekly paychecks of a few hundred dollars. The Springdale center works with eight Northwest Arkansas school districts. In the program, students earn paychecks working two-hour shifts three days a week and complete classroom work related to living independently as an adult.
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