College and Beyond
By the time your child graduates from high school, a lot of his sensory integration issues may have resolved due to time and therapy. The rest have likely become part of his unique personality. If you've been working with him to strategize ways to compensate, he may be handling things well. Or he may have just decided to go with the flow and take things as they feel right to him. Either way, your job as the administrator of your child's sensory integration program will most likely be coming to an end.
That doesn't mean sensory integration challenges stop at this point. Your child may always need extra time to adjust to new routines. If she's going away to college, there will be things to deal with that she may not have experienced before — loud music from somebody else's dorm room during study or sleep time, unfamiliar food, a large campus to find her way around without much assistance, long lectures, and lots of notes to take.
When your child comes to you with lots of generalized complaints and unhappiness about the college environment, you may be able to use your knowledge of her sensory profile to help her make constructive changes and adjustments.
If your child has had an individualized educational plan (IEP), that protection will end with high school. But he may still be able to have accommodations in college under a 504 plan. This may be worth pursuing if your child has learning disabilities or significant problems with the physical process of writing.
Being a resource for solutions and a source of understanding is the best thing you can do for your child as she grows up and travels through all phases of development. And it's the best thing you can do for your adult child, as she moves on into her own life. Independence may be just one more challenge your child struggles with, and she may need some final assistance from you even at this phase. When she achieves it successfully, it will be a triumph for both of you.
