Navigating the maze: Local programs tackle the "service cliff" of autistic adulthood

May 4 2026

SAN DIEGO - David Rivera felt like special education failed him. When he integrated into general education in elementary school, he noticed that something was off. His peers were learning on a different level compared to what he learned in special education like the alphabet at a first and second grade level.

When he got transferred to The Winston School of San Diego, a recognized school for neurodivergent learners thanks to a lawyer his family hired, he said he was able to catch up academically and is now on his way to graduating from UC Berkeley this spring. His experience led him to found Mentoring Autistic Minds in 2022. Rivera said he sought to create a platform for change as autistic adults struggle with the transition to adulthood.

When autistic individuals reach adulthood, they reach a “service cliff” which means that once they leave high school, they lose access to services that were once available to them. Researchers and healthcare providers define service cliff, also known as disability cliff or autistic cliff. It goes from a one stop shop to expecting the individual to look for the services that best suit them.

According to the Life Course Outcomes Fact Sheet from Drexel University, 26% of young adults received no services in their early 20s.

While half of families reported needing some or a great deal of effort to find and access services when the youth was 17 years old, after high school this number jumped to more than 70%

With the world expecting autistic individuals to make decisions once they graduate, most aren’t ready to make them without help. When the “service cliff” comes, they can’t access the services they once had in public schools.

Mentoring Autistic Minds is one of the organizations working on fixing the gaps brought by the service cliff. The nonprofit was originally founded as a means to set up meetups during COVID-19 for other autistic individuals to mingle, but after the first in person meetup in 2021, Rivera saw an opportunity to build something different.

What if instead of this being an organization just socializing, it does a lot more than that? Because platforms are vehicles for change. Platforms also include nonprofits and something I want is change in how special education works… So I thought, what the heck, like Mentoring Autistic Minds should not just be a meetup group, but it should also be a nonprofit

After being funded by parents after asking his high school (The Winston School of San Diego), it would gain more funding and be sponsored by organizations like Autism Society San Diego.

Rivera said that each meetup is different from how a clinic would operate. He said that he keeps each meetup informal where he will pick a topic to help drive the conversation and let the people who attend take over. 

For those who are nervous to join in, he will get their attention and bring them into the conversation by asking them questions. It slowly helps them to feel comfortable in the group and when they come back for more meetings, they are more confident in speaking.

Aside from Mentoring Autistic Minds, there are other programs that help autistic individuals transition to adulthood.

Baker-Ericzen said she has heard from the participants that they feel life-changing confidence, even if they’re not driving. It gives them a sense of independence that they can do activities like getting a job or going to the ice cream shop.

Gaining Independence through community integration

The Arc of San Diego is a program that helps autistic individuals with their independence into adulthood. One of the programs offered is Community Inclusion Services where the clients choose what they want to do like volunteering at a local community center or engage in social activities. Depending on the client’s ability, they include caretakers who help autistic individuals get out and help them perform activities like learning how to ride public transportation.

Two clients are a testament to it. Wayne Carr and Carriyn Dorsey have been with the program for at least a decade. They are accompanied by a caretaker named Linda Pruitt who has been with the program for 11 years. She helps Carr and Dorsey learn how to handle difficult situations, help establish boundaries and safety, and how to help them achieve independence. They find places to volunteer like cleaning tables in public places or hangout at locations within San Diego.

Carr and Dorsey like going out into the community. They both love to go to Old Town, but Carr also likes to go to Mission Beach while Dorsey also likes to go to University Town Center (UTC). When they go to those locations, they walk, eat and socialize with each other. When they visit UTC, Dorsey loves to see people play ice hockey at the ice rink. Their message to other adults who struggle to transition is to be independent, be comfortable around your surroundings, get out into the community, and stay hydrated.

Barbara Melendez, CIS Program Manager, helps with making sure they meet the client’s needs. She sits down and works with them to make sure that they are okay with what they want to do, like if they want to volunteer, socialize, or build up their independence. Sometimes, Melendez has trouble getting a location like PetSmart or a dog pound to accept volunteers, even when she takes the client to the location to ask.

Cognitive enhancement

Baker-Ericzen, who is a research professor at San Diego State University, is also involved with other programs like SUCCESS (Supported Employment, Comprehensive Cognitive Enhancement and Social Skills) and College SUCCESS. Both have the same goal of helping autistic adults learn different cognitive enhancements and social communication strategies.

SUCCESS is tailored towards helping autistic individuals with finding employment and/or work activities, while College SUCCESS is geared towards helping autistic students transition into postsecondary education.

In her published work for The Carlat Report: Child Psychiatry journal, Baker-Ericzen said that it’s a dramatic shift in expectations and support when autistic individuals reach adulthood.

During childhood, schools provide a one-stop shop of academic support, speech, occupational therapy, and often mental health counseling. Adult services are fragmented, with separate eligibility criteria and procedures.

She has reported that 30% of autistic adults pursue postsecondary education, 85% are unemployed or underemployed, and about 5-15% live outside their family or residential group homes. Young adults stay at home and get absorbed in their special interests. They do engage in their community or work, but they don’t have the support needed like skill-building.

Postsecondary education support

For those who pursue postsecondary education, there is a program at SDSU that autistic adults can use to help them with studies. That program is TRiO which is a federally funded group of outreach programs that help students with disabilities with academic support like tutoring services (in-person and online), and peer mentors. They also have an Instagram account and they launched a new program called Coffee Chat and Connect in Spring 2024. TRiO participants can come in and connect with the team, mentors and socialize through food and games. They also offer weekly workshops that teach students how to do various tasks like time management, essay writing, networking, etc.

Marlene Razon, Academic Advisor for TRiO, had experience working as a mentor when she was a former undergrad and has seen a fair amount of students work up self-advocacy with their mentors. She works with the mentors to help them build their advocacy skills that they can take to their lives like learning how to write a proper email to professors or searching for clubs on campus.

Razon trains her mentors on how to help the students build their advocacy skills. They teach them how to use the tools they need to get through their post secondary education. Razon says that their guidance can help students learn how to build up their advocacy skills to take into their lives like learning how to get a DMV license.

The Barriers to Transition

The services discussed are effective, but there are obstacles that need to be acknowledge. The big ones are the systematic barriers to transition when they reach adulthood.

Teresa Girolamo, assistant professor of speech, language and hearing sciences has established that there are three barriers to transition. In a conference at SDSU, she explained her findings on the service cliff. In her video of her findings, she said that one of the barriers for the transition to adulthood is systematic barriers. There were three that were presented.

The first barrier was when autistic individuals are out of public schools, they are given a hard time to access more services because families are given the burden to prove that they need continued care.

The second is when navigating services to find one suitable for each individual, it can be a legitimate maze because of the overwhelming needs and navigating bureaucracy.

The third was community members not knowing how to interact with autistic individuals. Girolamo brought attention that it’s prevalent in post secondary settings.

While the “service cliff” will not go away, that does not mean that there are services available to help fill gaps when they lose access to the services in public schools. Whether it be through learning social skills, being mentored, learning how to self-advocate, or learning cognitive skills to help them develop their confidence. The cliff can be seen as an opportunity to autistic individuals and their families to help them transition into adulthood.

The Five Takeaways

1. Autistic adults reach a “service cliff” when they leave special education from public schools. Organizations like Mentoring Autistic Minds help with bridging the gaps that public schools don’t teach to the students. They offer social interactions and mentoring sessions through meetups and they help provide a social space to grow connections with the community. Their meetups are informal and more natural.
2. Despite the organization helping with filling in the social gaps, there are other programs that help autistic individuals with their transition to adulthood. Mary Baker-Ericzen has helped provide some crucial services with remarkable success. STEER helps them work on learning how to drive using group classes to teach skills like sustaining attention and calming actions behind the wheel through an AI driving simulator.  SUCCESS and College SUCCESS helps them succeed in learning different cognitive enhancement and social communication skills to help them succeed in their goals. While the curriculum for each program is different, the participants gain confidence in themselves and can do activities like apply for jobs and succeed in college.
3. Arc of San Diego helps autistic adults gain independence through volunteering in the community and learning how to integrate themselves into society through learning public transportation and locations around the city of San Diego. Wayne Carr and Carriyn Dorsey are two clients that go out into the community and choose to volunteer or hang out at locations like Old Town or UTC with Linda Pruitt. Barbara Melendez helps with organizing a client’s needs by sitting down with them and making sure they are okay with what they want to do whether it’s volunteering, socializing, or helping them live independently.
4. TRiO helps students with their postsecondary goals. They offer mentors that can help them build their advocacy skills like learning how to write a proper email to professors, offer activities like Coffee, Chat and Connect, and workshops that teach students how to write an essay or manage time. Marlene Razon’s experience with the program has helped her understand the community and she trains her mentors to understand their needs and help them advocate for themselves.
5. While the services are helpful, it does not hide the fact that the services feel fragmented and hard to find. The numbers reveal that 85% of people on the spectrum are unemployed or underemployed and most of them don’t know how to transition into adulthood. The three barriers that are present in finding those services range from navigating a confusing maze, families having the burden to provide continued care for the individual, and community members not understanding how to interact with an autistic individual. With the services listed, they can help individuals on the spectrum overcome the “services cliff” and provide them an opportunity to become independent adults. It will not go away, but it should not stop individuals on the spectrum learning how to transition into adulthood and help them feel like they belong in the community.

AI Disclosure

This project was produced as part of the Spring 2026 capstone class for journalism majors at San Diego State University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies. As part of the course, students were trained in the use of several generative AI tools — including Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, Google Gemini, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT — to assist with some aspects of journalistic work.  These tools were used only for support tasks such as generating and refining story ideas, organizing outlines, conducting preliminary topic research, transcribing and summarizing documents. Reporting, interviews, fact-gathering, news judgment, and the final writing and editing of this story were done by students. All facts included in the story were checked against human-curated sources (such as interviews, documents, and reputable news organizations) before publication. AI tools were not used to fabricate quotes, sources, or images presented as documentary evidence. Throughout the semester, the class examined the ethical and professional implications of using AI in journalism, including accuracy, bias, transparency, copyright, and the protection of sources, drawing on professional standards such as the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. Students were required to treat AI output as unverified material: they had to critically review, correct, attribute, or discard AI-generated suggestions and could not cite AI tools as primary sources. We acknowledge the ongoing ethical questions around generative AI and support clear labeling when AI contributes to journalistic work. For more information about class assignments and the classroom use of generative AI in this project, contact Professor Lourdes Cueva Chacón at lcuevachacon@sdsu.edu.