In What Happens When They Grow Up, Newsweek, to its credit, focuses on the very real adult autism residential care crisis which exists in the United States (and in Canada). Newsweek is unable to provide any real solutions but hopefully the article will help focus the public discussion of autism on the very serious crisis confronting adults with autism disorders who can not care for themselves.
Not all "autistics" grow up to become researchers, Supreme Court of Canada litigants and college students, appear repeatedly on CNN with Dr. Gupta, or start "Autistic"rights movements. Some are more severely impaired, lacking basic communication skills and an understanding of the world and how to function in it.
Here in New Brunswick we have much to be proud of in terms of autism service delivery for autistic pre-schoolers and our schools are rapidly becoming a model second to none in North America for educating autistic students. But our autistic adult services are abysmal.
In New Brunswick our autistic adults in need of residential care are placed in privately operated group homes. The homes are not set up specifically for autistic adults and the staff are not trained to deal with autistic adults. The more severely autistic adults and older autistic youths in New Brunswick have been kept on the grounds of a correctional facility, on the ward of a general hospital, left with overwhelmed parents or exported to facilities elsewhere in Canada and the United States.
The adult autism crisis is not unique to New Brunswick but, unlike our services for preschool and school age autistic children, the adult care autism crisis here in New Brunswick is amongst the serious in North America. By literally exporting our autistic adults we are admitting that we have failed some of our most vulnerable New Brunswickers.
Not all "autistics" grow up to become researchers, Supreme Court of Canada litigants and college students, appear repeatedly on CNN with Dr. Gupta, or start "Autistic"rights movements. Some are more severely impaired, lacking basic communication skills and an understanding of the world and how to function in it.
Here in New Brunswick we have much to be proud of in terms of autism service delivery for autistic pre-schoolers and our schools are rapidly becoming a model second to none in North America for educating autistic students. But our autistic adult services are abysmal.
In New Brunswick our autistic adults in need of residential care are placed in privately operated group homes. The homes are not set up specifically for autistic adults and the staff are not trained to deal with autistic adults. The more severely autistic adults and older autistic youths in New Brunswick have been kept on the grounds of a correctional facility, on the ward of a general hospital, left with overwhelmed parents or exported to facilities elsewhere in Canada and the United States.
The adult autism crisis is not unique to New Brunswick but, unlike our services for preschool and school age autistic children, the adult care autism crisis here in New Brunswick is amongst the serious in North America. By literally exporting our autistic adults we are admitting that we have failed some of our most vulnerable New Brunswickers.
autism
