Helpin our asperger nephew succeed at work....

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We hired our 19 year old nephew at our small local ranch. Our nephew is very bright and has aspergers. He usually does well but sometimes forgets to do very important things like feed the livestock and make sure that they have water, etc.

This last week we were gone a couple of days and friends were supervising. Our nephew who was told NOT to ride the horses saddled the horses within 3 hours of being told not to while we were gone and went riding. A couple of days later, he saddle them and rode off the property. This can be dangerous work and we're concerned whether or not he can do the job safely - or whether we need to use tighter guidelines or better motivations. We've tried encouragement, reward, talking about consequence and don't seem to get anywhere. Of course, the worst disability could be that he's a 19 year old boy.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

You are probably right that part of it is just 19 year old behavior. But the other part is definitely AS. I know that for me, "encouragement, reward, talking about consequence" doesn't really work. I have never responded to the carrot-on-a-stick method. I don't know why, but external rewards never really meant much to me.

One thing I would suggest is lists/schedule for things to be done to help keep him on track. And if he likes riding so much, put that on the list/schedule as a regular activity, stressing that the other "jobs" need to be completed. It just can't me riding first. It just may take some extra effort to keep him on track. Hopefully, he will adapt to a regular schedule that satisfies his desire to ride, yet complete his other duties.