Therese Erdman worries about the future of her autistic son, Ross. At 16, Ross is growing closer to adulthood and eventually will be too old for many of the school-age programs in place for autistic students, like the one he attends at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.

“I think there is a lot of research going into the younger population and therapies for them when they are young,” said Erdman, a mother of two teenage boys from Ellicott City.