A Charlottesville man with autism takes steps toward self-sufficiency – a project with family and community support

By Justin Ide

The Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO

The road to adulthood begins for most when they graduate from high school and move on to a first job or college, to paying bills and living on their own. But for people with cognitive disabilities or autism, leaving high school is a more monumental step, one that will transform their relation to their families and the community that supports them.

That monumental step has been on the minds of Andrew and Barb Baxter, both 57, of Charlottesville, Va. for years. Their 24-year-old son, Peter, is on the autism spectrum and has an intellectual disability.

“Every family that has a young adult with significant disabilities, while they're in a school system, are accelerating towards a cliff. And that cliff is, what am I going to do with my now young adult with a disability?” Andrew Baxter said. “The bigger sort of existential question that you're really asking is what happens when I'm gone? What happens when we're gone?”