What are some career opportunities that involve working with autistic children?

Would working at a camp be too much like teaching? It might be only for summer programs. Do you need it to be a full time job to support yourself?

Most children spend time in school-like situations when not at home. It will be interesting to see what other answers people come up with. Certain careers are better suited for autistic people, maybe if those are a fit for you, science, technology, manufacturing, but not limited to those, you could develop some sort of program that pulls knowledge of autism and work life together? Maybe work at helping parents of adolescents and the children themselves find a career path? Most teens need this sort of guidance, but specializing for autistic teens might be marketable? Maybe it is done already? I have no idea.

I work part time tutoring an autistic boy in his home. It’s 1 on 1, 2–4 days a week for 3–4 hours at a time. A lot of out of the house stuff, running around/playing, but teaching as well. From what I understand, parents are always looking for good people to add to their “home-teams.”

There are job placement programs that hire job coaches. They shadow people and offer an extra level of supervision. I just realized you said “children.” I guess my answer doesn’t apply to that.

It depends on where you live. Like Judy said, if you are unqualified and not a teacher, you might have a better chance with getting a job helping autistic adults.

For me, I am sick of ‘do gooders’ that think they can work with my son and end up doing more harm than good because they are under-trained and left for months unsupervised and then I have to pick up the melt downs and the mess left behind.

Become qualified in teaching and training kids with autism and there are centers and special schools that specifically built around meeting the needs of autistic children. Please don’t go in thinking ‘how fascinating’ and end up ruining months and perhaps years of training and work.

@cazzie Expanding on that, make sure if you end up going the school route, you go to one of them that doesn’t suck. The boy I tutor was at a school here locally, supposedly the best locally…. and it was awful. At home we had his self-stim behavior pretty much non-existent, and working on various academic things… At school, he would have several stims per minute, and they couldn’t get him to do the most basic of academic stuff… It was basically “free time” to the boy to just go wild. When his parents finally pulled him out of the school, it took us nearly 6 months to undo the damage.

There’s a lot of rapidly developing information on autism that is finally encompassing the behavioral component of the condition into treatment plans. The need for creative approaches to reaching these kids is overwhelming. I would think behavior therapy would be a rewarding career and very useful.

@tedd my son’s biological mother recently threw up her arms in dismay. She had all the power to sign papers and get him medical care he recently needed, but she watched him and I interact for an afternoon and has become even more determined he spend more time with me because of our relationship. It was music to my ears.

Transition program coordinators or people who work in transition programs are IN HIGH DEMAND right now.

If you really want to work constructively with autistic kids, you will have to do a lot of teaching. That’s what it’s all about. Learn more about autism and assess yourself honestly for your feelings about working with people with serious problems. Make friends with people who are very smart, but a bit inappropriate in social situations. They may be autistic and you may learn something.

Anyone who works with autistic children is, by definition, a “special-needs teacher.”

You work on social skills, behavior modification, physical therapy, occupational therapy, reading emotional cues; it takes years of training and dedication and requires energy, original thinking, a low frustration point, and endless patience.

(You do not need to choose a career at the end of tenth grade when you are not even sure how to read about some colleges or universities that may suit your interests and needs.)

If you are serious, volunteer at a day care center or nursery school and see how you do with mainstreamed kids first.

Here are some very reputable training programs in Applied Behavior Analysis, aka ABA. This is the cutting edge for working with children on the autism spectrum. It’s a frustrating job for even the best trained and most dedicated.

I’m wanting to work with autistic children and be trained just not in the teaching them aspect of it. I was thinking more of a medical or therapist kind of field of working with autism.

For jobs dealing with children, autistic or otherwise, you pretty much are limited to teaching, tutoring, babysitting/day care, or pediatric healthcare.

If you just like dealing with us people on the spectrum, go into IT or the game-making industries. Seriously, those fields seem to attract the high-functioning Autistic people like horseshit attracts flies. Sure, we may not be children, but we sure act that way sometimes :D

Thing is, it’s easier to get qualified/certified as a teacher than as just about anything in the medical field much beyond changing bedpans. And even many people who are trained with a decade or more of schooling still don’t have the training to deal with us.

Also note that there are a wide variety of autistic people. Some of us are merely a little eccentric while some of us are outright weird. Some of us are calm while some of us throw severe tantrums over the least little provocation, even something as simple as using the wrong fork or hearing a high-pitched sound that most adults cannot even perceive. Some of us are actually quite chummy while some of us are annoyed by the mere presence of people and others so trapped in their heads that they won’t even know that they are not the only one in the room. You may wind up with a talkative kid who is obsessed with dinosaurs but otherwise fairly normal, or you may wind up with one who likes curling up in a ball and rocking gently and won’t even respond to your voice.

@HeartsLove7: have you done any research yourself? Have you read any of the links that I supplied? You sound like you are asking one very naive question after another without any data to back you up.

If you want to become a doctor, if that is what you mean by “more of a medical kind of field,” that means going to medical school.

Details here

What about a therapist that deals with children who have and are on the Autism Spectrum and families with autistic children. Navigating the whole healthcare system of all the doctors and all the different teachers that you need to deal with is a nightmare for lots of families. It seems you are pulled in more directions and that does create alot of need for people whom you can talk to.

Another suggestion is becoming a Advocate for children with special needs when it comes to dealing with the school systems. I had to hire an advocate to help guide me through the whole process and advocate for what the childs needs are. It tells the school department your not playing games with them and you want your child to make progress if they are wanting to teach them otherwise they will need to pay for a private education for your child to get the appropriate education.

You don’t have to be a teacher to work in a transition program. They need job coaches or people who go on the job with the student to help them adjust to and manage their work environment.

Besides those mentioned above,
Non-teaching fields to work with children on the spectrum:

ABA, OT or PT therapist
Facilitator
Aide
HALO/Soma RPM instructor
Social Skills instructor (there are various methods to teach the most well-known for working is called PEERS)
Sensory Therapist (OT specialized field)
Equine Therapy for Asperger’s

You could go into psychology if teaching isn’t the field you wish to work in, and specialize your field to working only with children on the spectrum (this is extremely sought after in most areas of the country at this time. In our area there are only a handful of professionals that are qualified to diagnose and treat children on the spectrum).

If you are just looking to start out and get your feet wet, then I’d recommend going the ABA or OT route. Otherwise, contact your local Easter Seal’s branch and find out what they require to become a camp counselor. Easter Seal’s run away & day camps for children on the spectrum.

Off the beaten path route: Become a licensed therapist, then conduct social training groups or therapy groups. To get your feet wet, you may want to conduct an adults with autism meet up group.