Intern model

Autism Speaks estimates 500,000 teens with autism will reach adulthood over the next 10 years.
Nearly half of 25-year-olds with ASD have never held a paying job.
Ninety percent of adults with autism are unemployed or underemployed.
Houston nonprofit Social Motion Skills.
The organization offers T3 (Transition, Training, Taxpaying), a program that pairs a job coach with young adults with autism and similar special needs.
Workers are either permanent employees or interns. Both arrangements expose them to direct deposit, banking and paying taxes.
The intern model is low risk: Memorial Hermann, for example, adds to its pool of 275 volunteers while Social Motion Skills pays its interns minimum wage (tuition to the nonprofit to participate covers the job coach’s salary).
Accommodations save much more than they cost by reducing turnover and down time, he said.
Businesses with $1 million or less in gross receipts or 30 or fewer employees qualify for a tax write-off for making accommodations.

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