If you had $10 million to spend on autism research, what would you use it for…..
September 28, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
New Jersey’s Governor’s Council on Autism has $10 million to allocate in grants for autism research, as reported in the September 28th Bergen Record. State has millions to spend on research is the north Jersey paper’s fifth article in its weeklong series about autism. Governor Joe Corzine has given public schools $15 million for educating autistic students and for training teachers for 2007. Corzine is quoted in the Bergen Record as noting that not only does New Jersey “have a bigger focus than almost any place in the country,” but also that it is imperative to think now about the needs of a future population of autistic adults, some of whom (and perhaps many) will still need various services throughout their lives.
Other New Jersey legislators with their own autism bills sense that it is the time to turn these into law. One bill calls for health insurers to cover such autism-related therapies as speech therapy, occupational therpay, and physical therapy. A second bill would call for $500,000 to be dedicated to creating an autism registry; physicians would be required to report diagnoses (such a registry already exists in Delaware, West Virginia, and elsewhere). The third bill—which, I admit, I am particularly interested in—calls for the creation of the “Autism Education Council,” that will “award grants to public schools, encourage the hiring of specialized school aides and start recreation and social programs.”
Said Corzine:
“This is a cost-benefit issue. Generally, physical health is strong in these individuals. They are going to live long lives. It is at a very high cost of failure that we try to do the best we can to integrate and to provide a pathway for full participation in everyday life.”
It is a lot of money that New Jersey, the state we live in and that we moved back to in 2001 to get the best education for Charlie, has dedicated to autism research. It is a lot: Our kids, who will one day be teenagers and adults, are always worth at least this. This is why I put a great store in training teachers to teach autistic children, both in special education and in mainstream classrooms, in the ways that are best suited to their cognitive learning styles and their sensory needs. Teacher-training initiatives and character education for students do not sound as newsworthy as the discovery of a cure for autism—but it is through educating our educators and the general public about autism that we can make a real difference in the lives of autistic persons. And in all of our lives.
And to do that would be worth a couple million plus. At least.
I am so with you on this one. The terrible toll in our schools because teachers and others – many parents, too – have no way to make the leap across the bridge between the autistic world and ours. Awareness-raising to prevent discrimination, ways to communicate across the divide. I’d vote for that.
Plus we know so much already about autism – but it’s not reaching the service providers who have the power to make a difference. Too many people with autism end up in mental institutions or prison because not enough people know enough.
And I keep seeing more and more stories in the news regarding autistic individuals who are in legal trouble, or have had violence committed against them.
There’s a danger in citing long foreseeable lives as reason for educational funding, of course: other kids whose diagnoses may indicate shorter lifespans (statistically) also have a right to an appropriate education, whether or not it “pays off” in a strictly cost-benefit analysis. Just because it’s what a good society gives its children…all its children.
Penny, thanks for pointing that out—-yes the “pay-off” (not the best word, I guess) for any child’s education is that the child is educated, in and of itself.