Special needs young adults often lack sufficient educational resources and opportunities to meet their needs. Many have few options for gaining an adaptive college experience despite having some of the skills to do.

Please join me in the fight to call on US cities and states to allot educational resources -- and to create university classes -- for college-age special needs young adults who can benefit from a modified college experience on public university campuses with the necessary educational facilities.

Many special needs families are tax-paying residents whose children will never benefit from the funds going to state colleges and universities. It’s time we end this disparity and give special needs families and young adults equal educational access and opportunities.

I've watched and grown up with a sister suffering from PDD-NOS. Throughout her childhood, my sister attended several non-profit autism organizations in order to learn to socialize, acquire educational skills, and to participate in daily activities. When she reached adulthood, she increasingly showed independence. However,  she was also trapped in a body and mind that made it difficult for her to communicate typically. Yet she has always responded to learning. She loves classical music and identifies musical compositions readily. She has some strong and unusual computational skills. Even though she was told that she should not study other languages, she understands and communicates as well as she can in English and Spanish. In other words, she is more capable than many think (or thought). And she is not alone. There are thousands of other capable special needs young adults who are being needlessly deprived of higher education and appropriate learning opportunities.  They, along with my sister, may have challenges, but that does not mean they should be restricted from finding their passions and from pursuing their interests as any other college-age young adult does.

What harm can come from adding a few 45-minute, or even hour-long, classes to the college roster, so that special needs young adults can develop additional skills that support their social needs, as well as their academic and vocational interests? None, but the benefits will be enormous.

Local public universities with high acceptance rates should create some classes dedicated to special needs learning. EVERYONE deserves the right to receive an education, and this opportunity should not be closed to special needs individuals. Autistic adults, especially, are rarely given the opportunity to attend college or even to learn higher level skills once they reach the age of 18, This bias needs to end. If universities would be willing to dedicate a few adaptive classes to special needs young adults, they would be giving a generation of people the chance to live a more fulfilling life.

Please sign today and make a difference with me.