Kids with autism struggle to adapt to adulthood. One doctor is trying to change that

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/12/ [login to see] /kids-with-autism-struggle-to-adapt-to-adulthood-one-doctor-is-trying-to-change-t
"Alexander Roodman was packing up his room, preparing for a gap year before college, when I met him at his family's Washington, D.C., townhouse.

The room was a typical teenage disaster zone, with clothes and books strewn everywhere.

Then, Alex picked up an origami sculpture that rippled with dozens of ridges and depressions. "It's kind of a repetitive pattern," he said. "First, you make the diagonal folds and these lateral folds to cut the paper in half."

It's pretty complicated. Alex, a slim teenager with long black hair and penetrating eyes, is gifted with the focus for this. But the way his brain works can be a challenge.

Alex is autistic.

And like many parents of children with autism, Alex's mother and father have spent years trying to find a doctor or school or therapist who could help.

"It's a little bit like hot potato. Is the school supposed to counsel me? Is the pediatrician supposed to counsel me? ... Am I supposed to figure that out?" said Dr. Mai Pham, Alex's mother. "I think he always believed we were on his side. But he could also see that we were sometimes helpless.""