Why Diagnosis and Services Matter as Your Teen Prepares for College/Adulthood
As your teen approaches the transition to college or adult life, you may be asking yourself some hard questions:
“She’s doing well academically—does she really need that label?”
“We have the diagnosis, but does he really need services at this stage?”
“I don’t want her to be treated unfairly or seen as less capable.”
These feelings are real and come from a place of love and wanting to protect your child’s future and to see them thrive in their own right. But here’s the truth: a diagnosis and the services that come with it aren’t about lowering expectations or making excuses. A diagnosis doesn’t change who there are and always have been and service aren’t about lowering the bar or lowering expectations. They’re not about your child being less than others. They’re being honest about who your teen is, how their unique brain works, and holding the systems around them accountable to being accessible to all brain types. It’s about equipping your teen with the tools, confidence, and access they’ll need to thrive in the very different world of adulthood.
College and adult’ing are very different than life in the high school years
While your teen is in their high school years they have a formal and an informal safety net and scaffold around them . These are provided by both the school and by parents. Parents manage the student’s school services and do much of the information sharing and advocacy. They also scaffold day to day life flow from making sure there is a structure to the day, socks in the drawer and milk in the refrigerator. They remind, schedule, balance, monitor, manage, and yes, nag to ensure things are done. Teachers may do some of the same if a neurodiverse student has any kind of special education – from ensuring service delivery, accommodations, progress, and convening team meetings if the student starts to slip. None of this will be happening from the college staff, and much less from parents, in the college environment. It will be incumbent on the student to do all of this themselves, and if they didn’t have practice doing it in a transition phase before going off to college there may be challenges managing it all. A diagnosis helps orient those around the teen that they may need support to prepare for the transition and the services provided during the year(s) before the transition to college helps to build those skills.
College and Adult Systems Require Documentation
In high school, schools sometimes provide informal supports without much paperwork. Teachers go over syllabi, remind students of due dates, reviews are provided to prepare for exams, sometimes exceptions are provided for late work, and other informal accommodations are offered to high school students. Once your teen enters college, vocational training, or adult services, things work differently. Colleges, workplaces, and state agencies generally require formal documentation of a diagnosis—and often a history of services—to grant accommodations or support. Without it, even very capable students can struggle unnecessarily with things like managing deadlines, navigating group projects, or handling social stressors.
Diagnosis is Information, Not Identity
Your child is still the same person before and after a diagnosis. The difference is, now you and the professionals around them have a kind of “user manual” to better understand their needs. Just like glasses help someone with vision challenges, a diagnosis helps guide the right strategies and supports.
Services Build the “Life Skills” That Matter Most
By the end of high school, academics are often the least of the worries. What matters more are the practical skills that allow a young adult to live independently and succeed outside the classroom:
Time management and organization
Managing money, meals, and self-care
Navigating social and roommate relationships
Advocating for themselves with professors, bosses, or landlords
How and from where to access support
Self-insight and knowing when and under what conditions they may need support, and what kind of support is most effective
Services during high school and the transition years are designed to strengthen these very skills. They don’t hold your teen back—they give them practice and support to build knowledge and skills in the areas that truly count for independence.
It’s About Equity, Not Special Treatment
Parents sometimes worry that services feel “unfair” or like their teen is getting an advantage. But adult systems don’t see it that way. Every system is structured around some arbitrary norm in some way. And not all people will fit into that norm. If your teen doesn’t fit into that norm then it’s their right to be accommodated so that system works for them. Each person should of course be expected to work as hard as others, but they should not be expected to work twice as hard, four times a hard, or ten times as hard to access the same system and produce the same result as others who fit in with the arbitrary structures and expectations, whether that be an education environment, a work setting, or a recreational activity. Accommodations and supports level the playing field so your teen can participate fully, access activities, and show what they’re capable of without being tripped up by challenges that come from a neurology mismatch, not effort.
Confidence Through Self-Understanding
Many neurodiverse teens know they are different but don’t always have the words to explain why. Although not everything that is associated with a given diagnosis may completely fit, there is often a clarity that can come with a diagnosis. Diagnosis and services provide language, tools, and strategies they can carry into adulthood. Instead of feeling like they’re failing, they learn to advocate:
“I need extended time because executive functioning is a challenge for me.”
“I do better with written instructions than verbal ones.”
This kind of self-awareness is a strength, not a weakness, and it often makes the difference between floundering and thriving in college or work, and in the larger world of adult life, including friend/romantic/professional relationships, recreational activities, and navigating systems like that are part of independent living areas.
Stigma vs. Missed Opportunity
Avoiding diagnosis or services doesn’t protect your child from stigma—in fact, it can leave them more vulnerable. Without supports, professors or employers may misinterpret struggles as laziness, lack of motivation, rudeness, or immaturity. With a diagnosis and the right accommodations, those same differences are reframed and understood, and your teen gains the support they deserve. Receiving accurate understanding and guidance or services while still in high school allows your teen to build awareness/insight and skills that are subsequently built on and, like compounding interest over time, will result in a much larger skill base and reaching much higher levels of independence much earlier than could happen if support starts later.
You Still Hold the Reins
Saying yes to diagnosis or services doesn’t lock your family into a particular path. It simply gives you options. You and your teen can choose when to disclose the diagnosis to others, which services to use, when, and how. Having the door open is always better than realizing later (if/when problems start to happen) that it’s closed.
In my experience, the biggest mistake neurodiverse teens and young adults and their families make is to have the “everything will be fine” mindset about what they can do and be resistant to get the help in place. Or to have the “wait and see” attitude. But by the time there is a challenge it’s often too late to build the skills needed to address the issue at hand and/or get the supports in place in time. Just use the time you have before real adulting expectations kick in to get the supports in place and begin laying the adulting skill foundations. Think of this plan like insurance, and then when adulting is happening the now young adult/college student can use (or not use) what makes sense as it’s needed.
Keep these points in mind:
The Transition From High School to College (and Adult Life) Can Be more Dramatic than You Think it Will Be.
One of the most important things for parents to understand is that high school and college/adult life operate on completely different sets of expectations.
In high school:
Teachers often provide reminders about homework and deadlines.
Parents can communicate directly with teachers and advocate for their child.
Assignments are broken into smaller, more manageable steps.
Support staff (case managers, counselors, aides) are usually checking in.
Home life and day to day flow is still supported by parents.
In college and adult life:
Professors may assign major projects with little structure and no reminders.
Parents are no longer allowed to intervene—students must advocate for themselves.
Deadlines are firm, and extensions require formal accommodation.
Life responsibilities like cooking, laundry, transportation, and budgeting are added on top of academics or work.
Home is now part of their independent college life.
The gap between these two sets of expectations is wide. Many students who excel academically in high school find themselves overwhelmed in college, not because they lack intelligence, but because they haven’t had enough practice with the independence and executive functioning that adulthood demands.
That’s why it’s so important to use the high school years as practice time. Services and supports during this stage provide a foundation while your teen builds skills in:
Gaining self insight and learning how to structure their life and environment in a way that works best for them
Managing time and breaking down large projects
Advocating for accommodations and support
Balancing academics with self-care and daily living tasks
Taking ownership of responsibilities without constant reminders
Preparing now—while mistakes can still be caught and corrected—gives your teen the best chance to succeed later, when expectations are higher and safety nets are fewer.
Services Teach Self-Insight, Self-Assessment and Self-Advocacy
Another benefit of accessing services during the teen years is that it gives your child the chance to practice understanding themselves and speaking up for what they need.
Many teens—especially those who are bright and academically successful—struggle to accurately self-assess. They may:
Overestimate their ability to juggle responsibilities (“I don’t need help—I’ll remember it”).
Underestimate the impact of their challenges (“Everyone else is stressed too”).
Feel embarrassed to admit they’re struggling.
Services create a structured way for teens to reflect on what’s working and what isn’t. With the help of professionals, they learn to connect the dots:
“I notice I get overwhelmed when I have multiple deadlines.”
“I work better when instructions are written down.”
“I need more time on tests because I process slowly.”
This kind of accurate self-assessment is the foundation of self-advocacy. A teen who can name their needs clearly is far better prepared to succeed in college or the workplace, where no one else will be prompting or checking in, and no one else will be stepping in to monitor the situation and advocating for them.
The teen years are the ideal time to practice these skills while supports are still available. That way, by the time your teen steps into adulthood, self-advocacy feels natural—not like a brand-new skill they have to learn under pressure.
Remember: every new skill they have to learn how to do takes emotional and real physical energy for a new neurodiverse college student/young adult. And this energy takes away from the total available to do all the tasks that are necessary to be successful in a new college or other adulting environment. So by helping them learn some of these skills before they leave high school and your home you are making sure they have more energy available to succeed.
A Final Thought
As you prepare your teen for adulthood, ask yourself:
What supports would make the transition to college or independent living smoother? Then access them.
What skills could my teen still benefit from practicing now, while there’s a safety net? Then Support your teen to build them.
What doors might be closed later if we don’t have documentation and a record of services today? Make sure you apply to everything your teen is eligible for, then decide if the supports are still necessary.
Your teen is capable, intelligent, and full of potential. Diagnosis and services don’t change that. What they do is give your young adult the best chance to step into college/work/adult life/independence with confidence, support, and opportunity.