HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. — The students and tutors gathered around the table ready for the task at hand: 40 cheese and 40 bologna sandwiches, the meat and cheese separated to follow kosher rules.

The lesson, late last month, was on acts of loving kindness, or gemilut hasadim in Hebrew. Donating sandwiches to a local soup kitchen is a way to demonstrate kindness, a tutor, Lisa Mintz, told the young adults who were there as part of their preparation to become bar or bat mitzvah.

In Conservative Judaism, a boy becomes a bar mitzvah at 13 and a girl a bat mitzvah at 12. But for four people with special needs in a residential program called Giant Step, here in this Long Island suburb, the rite of passage that includes reciting Hebrew and learning Jewish traditions did not seem possible when they were teenagers.

Now in their 20s and 30s, the four young adults, who all have cognitive disabilities, will become b’nai mitzvah — the plural term — on Saturday. Dr. Mark Sandberg, a psychologist at Giant Step who is also on the board at Dix Hills Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue, proposed the belated b’nai mitzvah after hearing the residents’ sadness at missing a ritual they saw their cousins, brothers and sisters go through.