I especially loved learning about innovative programs around the country that find ways to employ people with IDD in ways that harness their strengths (obsessive attention to detail for example). I am fascinated by the history of special education and institutionalization and this book does a great job exploring the ways the current laws help and hurt families. I love how much of the book is focused on ways that parents can help their autistic children or other children with IDD make decisions for themselves. Her writing flows beautifully and she writes about her own family’s experience and the experience of other families w kids who have IDD (intellectual/developmental disability) with compassion, humor, and love. What I loved: I love McGovern’s writing! I am a big fan of her YA and MG fiction. I won this ARC in an Instagram giveaway from the author! She asks the tough What should parents prioritize as they ready their children for adulthood? How do we redefine success for our children? How can we sustain a hopeful attitude while navigating one obstacle after another?Īs Ethan makes his way into the world, McGovern also looks into the hardest question of How can we ensure an independent future when we're gone? Hard Landings will serve as a renewed beacon of hope for parents who want to ensure the fullest life possible for their child's future. McGovern spent a year traveling the country and looking at the options for work and housing-and to her surprise discovered reasons to be optimistic.

Here, McGovern expands on her #1 New York Times piece, 'Looking into the Future for a Child with Autism,' a future that often appears grim, with statistics like an 85 percent unemployment rate for people with ID. The catch is These resources, limited as they may be, have trained Ethan in skills for jobs that don't exist and a life he can't have. Once Ethan turns twenty-two, he will fall off the 'Disability Cliff.' By aging out of the school system, he'll lose access to most social, educational, and vocational resources.

A game-changing exploration of what the future holds for the first generation of mainstreamed neurodiverse kids that is coming of age.Īfter sleepless nights, intensive research, and twenty-one years of raising a child, Ethan, with autism and intellectual disability, Cammie McGovern is approaching a distinct catch-22.

Hard Landings by Cammie McGovern