What happens after school? Exploring post-school outcomes for a group of autistic and non-autistic Australian youth

© 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. Young autistic Australians are less likely to attend higher education and have lower employment rates than non-autistic Australians (in: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Survey of disability, ageing and carers Australia: Summary of Findings 2018. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, 2019a). Few studies have examined post-school outcomes among this population. Using data from the first phase of a national longitudinal study including autistic (n = 79) and non-autistic (n = 107) 17–25-year olds, we found young autistic adults were (a) less likely to be employed, (b) more likely to attend technical and further education (TAFE) than university, (c) more likely to enrol in higher education on a part-time basis and (d) less likely to be engaged in both higher education and employment, than their non-autistic peers. Findings highlight a need to understand post-school trajectories of young autistic adults.