For Stefan, the world awaits

Stefan Kavan had to walk up to the desk, all alone. ¶ In the bustling front office of Dakota County Technical College in Rosemount, Stefan had to approach a receptionist and ask for directions.

She smiled and pointed him to a set of couches nearby. ¶ Stefan is a 19-year-old senior at New Prague High School. With just over two months left in the school year, he's faced with the question that faces many of his classmates this spring: What do I do now? ¶ But Stefan is autistic, which adds layers of complexity to the question. Autism is a developmental disability that makes social and communication skills a challenge for the one in 150 U.S. young people who have it. ¶ On this February afternoon, his search for options has taken him to a transition program at DCTC designed to help special education students make the transition from high school to the rest of their lives.

For Stefan, that means learning not just how to ask directions, but live on his own. ¶ "I think he's getting nervous," said Barb Kavan, Stefan's mother. "But maybe it's just my nervousness being projected onto him."

Stefan is bright and matter-of-fact when he talks, and he has a fairly normal teenage life. He sings in the choir, is on the Knowledge Bowl team and has a part-time job at a drug store.

As Stefan walks the halls of DCTC with tour guide Terri Trexler, an administrator in the transition program, his parents follow close behind. They urge Stefan, who can't stop smiling, to pull out his list of questions.

Stefan listens attentively as Trexler describes parts of the program, such as an apartment where students are taught life skills. Then he shows off the research he's done on his own as he recites details about their housing offerings to her.

That surprises his parents, who thought he wanted to stay home for at least a year. They learn that half of the program's students live away from home, mostly in group homes for disabled adults or in foster care.

Her concerns don't surround the academic challenges, Stefan has always been a good student. It's safety that his parents are worried about. They want to make sure Stefan knows not to blindly trust everyone who approaches him and make sure he knows what to do if the bus he takes just doesn't show up one day.

Problem solving

Stefan's parents, Barb and Jerry Kavan of Le Center, adopted him from Romania in 1991. In the 17 years since, he's gone from not knowing how to speak or chew to being an avid artist and an accomplished presenter.

In eighth grade, he stood up in front of 120 of his classmates and described to them what autism was and what it meant in his life. Since then, he and his mother have taken the show on the road, speaking to dozens of groups of educators and social workers about their lives through the prism of autism.

At a Knowledge Bowl practice this fall, Stefan and his teammates were divided into groups for a practice match. Stefan, who admits he's best at the geography questions, always had to keep his teammates from blurting out the answers at the wrong time.

"Stefan is crazy at the meets," said teammate Jayson Wolf, a senior at New Prague. "We won't even understand the questions, and he'll know the answers."

Two weeks ago, Stefan and his brother Eugen, also a senior, were waiting outside after school for their ride. Barb had recruited a family friend to pick the boys up, but she forgot.

After half an hour, Stefan was getting anxious and agitated, so Eugen called his grandmother. She called Barb and told her she was going to pick them up.

"That night," Barb said, "we did a little problem solving. I said, 'What would happen next year if you're not able to call grandma or call me, and yet the bus was late for you? How do you respond to that?'"

Stefan told her, "I'm going to call the police."

"He looks to the extreme," Barb said, "and doesn't know what steps to take to get him out of the situation ... That's something we'll have to work on if he's going to live alone: How do you plan ahead for those things that mom and dad have taken care of for you?"

Emily Johns • 952-882-9056