The University of Washington is taking part in a national initiative called Project SEARCH, which provides people on the autism spectrum with training on the skills necessary for a full-time job. READi Lab collaborator Jill Locke, Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, is the UW contact for this innovative pilot program. The program offers a one-year unpaid, part-time internship in which participants are matched with an on-campus job, where they are trained on skills such as multi-tasking, teamwork, and taking conversational cues. It launched on the east coast in 2016, and expanded to the UW in 2017. UW was selected because of support from the university and its partners, and for its proximity to Microsoft and other large tech companies who also have autism-hiring programs. Currently, there are seven participants who are finishing up the last quarter of the experience. The interns have been assigned to many jobs, anywhere from checking out camera equipment to maintenance to retrieving golf balls from the UW driving range. Click here to read more about this exciting program!