Media Mention
Today someone reposted a FB comment of mine along with a link to link to one of my columns in the Daily Cal . http://www.dailycal.org/2018/04/19/o-body-where-art-thou/
"I ran the explanations by my neuroscience Prof at Cal (David Presti) to make sure there were no factual errors. He thought I had correctly pulled in a lot of theories on the neuroscience of autism along with a wealth of data and analysis from my experiences and told a compelling story. In final article, had to cut out a couple more concepts due to word limit."
Quite serendipitous that this article was written during an Intro to Neuroscience elective with Prof David Presti (this course was for all majors so nothing like the extra-tough Cell Neuroscience this sem). At that time I was happy I got to go to college at all and soaking it all in. Who knew that I would end up even making it to grad school (today is end of year 1) and getting to do contribute to research in that area too!! Deep gratitude to all who supported me this last year.
"I ran the explanations by my neuroscience Prof at Cal (David Presti) to make sure there were no factual errors. He thought I had correctly pulled in a lot of theories on the neuroscience of autism along with a wealth of data and analysis from my experiences and told a compelling story. In final article, had to cut out a couple more concepts due to word limit."
Quite serendipitous that this article was written during an Intro to Neuroscience elective with Prof David Presti (this course was for all majors so nothing like the extra-tough Cell Neuroscience this sem). At that time I was happy I got to go to college at all and soaking it all in. Who knew that I would end up even making it to grad school (today is end of year 1) and getting to do contribute to research in that area too!! Deep gratitude to all who supported me this last year.
Autism after 21 Day
Does Autism Magic away in adulthood?
Where are there pediatric Autism Clinics in all hospitals but no Adult Autism Clinics?
Why is there a Services Cliff at Age 21, when any services (even if they are inadequate) received during childhood comes to an abrupt end with no replacement or continuation of supports and services.
IDEA protection end, with no equivalent replacements and supports
There is URGENT NEED for translatable solutions and supports for the ever increasing numbers of autistic adults.
End of IDEA protection afforded during the Ed years. The yellow school bus stops coming.
- Approx 1/3 of autistics who got access to mainstream ed are put on a diploma track in high school and have the opportunity to make their way to 2/ 4 college, at age 18. They join the swelling ranks of other late-dx autistics and face challenges and barriers that come with adulthood.
- Almost 2/3 of autistics who are dx in childhood remain in the special education all through their ed years.
- At age 18, they get another 4 years of what is called Post Secondary Program; located either in segregated facilities/schools, in the school district itself or more recently as programs run on university campuses so they happen in the same space as college-aged peers; though the programming may be different. At the end of the programming, they receive a Certification of Completion.
- IDEA protections end at this point. This is also the services cliff where all previous services.
- Their options are a series of adult day programs, upto age 50 and then 50+ years. These day programs again have a range of quality - from real job coaching to mere babysitting but there is far less state oversight of quality. There is a shortage of good programs. And as usual, much like special education itself, programs only want the "easy autistics". So where do the rest go?
- This is a HUGE problem, as families are suddenly handed back their adult child and told to go figure out what to do, from caretaking to daytime programming to housing and staffing, funding to figuring out pretty much everything. Many YA autistics have signifiant medical and other communication needs which can get aggravated with age with no real supports. The onus pretty much falls to the family to figure out what to do.
- The challenges faced compound for autistics who have higher support needs yet had somehow managed to access mainstream education and even make it to college. Its like straddling two world, as they face barriers in both world - neither of which knows how to support you or wants to include you. Its almost assumed you must be in one of the other other. I have to question this assumption. Instead why can we find solutions?
- Some of these barriers and challenges are unique to each space while others are common across the spectrum. The point being that adulthood in autism is not easy and we need to be thinking of solutions that helps each group and across the board.
The Grandmother of the Disability Rights Movement turns 103
Zona is the mother of Ed Roberts, who started the very first Disabled Students Program at UC Berkeley as well as starting the Independent Living Movement.
So if Ed is the father of the Disability Rights Movement, she is the grandmother behind it all.
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