via When Children With Autism Become Adults – NYTimes.com
As the explosion of children who were found to have autism in the 1990s begins to transition from the school to the adult system, experts caution about the coming wave.
“We estimate there are going to be half a million children with autism in the next 10 years who will become adults,” said Peter Bell, executive vice president for programs and services of the advocacy group Autism Speaks.
Services for adults with autism exist, but unlike school services, they are not mandated, and there are fewer of them. Combined with shrinking government budgets, the challenges are daunting.
“We are facing a crisis of money and work force,” said Nancy Thaler, executive director of the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services. “The cohort of people who will need services — including aging baby boomers — is growing much faster than the cohort of working-age adults that provide care.”
To help parents navigate this difficult journey, in January Autism Speaks introduced a free Transition Tool Kit for parents and their adolescent children with autism. The kit includes information about such critical issues as community life, housing, employment and developing self-advocacy skills. The tool kit can be customized by state for those who register online.
“There is a time you have to get over this hump where you are essentially acknowledging that your child is going to have autism for the rest of his life,” said Mr. Bell, the father of an 18-year-old son with autism. “Our hope with this kit is to help parents to start planning and not get frozen.”
Many young adults with autism have transitioned into large residential systems, whether group homes or institutions, offering round-the-clock services. But waiting lists can be long. And increasingly, in an effort to stem costs, states are moving away from the group home model into family-based care, a trend that started about 10 years ago.
“If an individual needs 24-hour services, the staffing ratio is one to one,” said Charlie Lakin, who heads the Research and Training Center on Community Living at the University of Minnesota. “That means fewer people will get served, resulting in long waiting lists for other families.” Nationwide, 59 percent of people who receive autism services are living with their families, according to Mr. Lakin.
