Respite Support From Adolescence to Adulthood in Families of People With Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Tafolla et al. (2025) tracked respite support for families raising teens and young adults with neurodevelopmental disorders. They looked at who got respite, how often, and whether it stayed steady as the youth aged.

The team focused on caregivers of transition-age youth. They compared respite use between families whose son or daughter had lower verbal skills and those with stronger verbal skills.

Families of youth who spoke little or not at all received respite more often and kept it longer. Their respite did not drop off as the teen became an adult.

Household-member respite—help from relatives or friends living in the home—faded as the youth got older, no matter the verbal level.

van Schrojenstein Lantman-de Valk et al. (2006) first showed that service gaps widen during the teen years. Maira’s numbers now prove respite is one of those gap-prone services, especially for youth who speak well.

Gur et al. (2020) found caregiver stress and loneliness rise after high-school exit. Maira links that stress to a real drop in day-to-day help inside the home.

Samuel et al. (2024) showed peer support lifts quality of life for older caregivers. Together the three studies build a timeline: respite slips, stress grows, then peer programs help—if you can find one.

If you write transition plans, check verbal level when you list respite needs. Youth who speak well may look “low priority” on paper, yet their families lose help fastest. Add a line that keeps in-home respite on the plan even after age 18. One extra sentence can preserve hours of relief that parents count on.