Since there are 1 in 94 children with autism in New Jersey…..
April 29, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
With Autism Awareness Month drawing to a close, the April 29th Courier News (New Jersey) has a series on autism that reports on:
- how much can be done to teach autistic children using different educational approaches, while also emphasizing that this is not always easy (Despite gains, autism care still a struggle)
- what the causes of autism might be (Autism can’t be prevented)
- a new and quite large autism school that is opening soon (An education of their own)
- the need for better services for and attention to the needs of adults with autism (When the cuteness is gone)
Daily life with autism—therapies ranging from music to art to ABA to OT—-schools for autistic children—-the needs of adults: These topics enter my mind constantly. Says Norman Greenberg, whose son Steven will be 32 in May:
“A little child is cute, but a 32-year-old isn’t cute anymore.”…….
Until adults with autism receive the help they need, the state is in denial, Greenberg said.
“When you’re 21 in New Jersey, you fall off the edge of the earth,” he said. “The state says they have no money, tells you to go away — and you have to fight your way through that stuff.”
I am rather partial to New Jersey, as we gave up some things to come and live here. Charlie is some 22 younger than Steven Greenberg but I know the day will come, sooner than soon, when Charlie will be an adult. There is so much to do, so much for Charlie to learn—the value of money, learning how to take care of his own clothes, making his own bed, speaking more clearly. I know that Charlie can learn to do these things and many, many more and teaching him these skills—teaching him to do things all by himself—acknowledges his abilities and, even more, his dignity, and his capacity for learning, growing and changing over the course of a long life I am always glad I share with him.
Thanks for the links and the insight. (BTW, the link for the article re: adult services points to a different story than I think you meant it to.)
We are on the early end of the lifespan and it is so easy to not think farther ahead than the next year or so. However, I know that it will pass in the blink of an eye and my cute 3 year old will be a grown man. Looks like both Niksmom and Niksdad need to do some homework to prepare for not only Nik’s educational future but for the day when we will not be here to care for him…if he needs it Obviously, our focus now is to do all we can to ensure that, like you wonderful Charlie, he learns on his own.
Thanks, the link is fixed!
Charlie being 3 seems both eons ago, and also just yesterday—–I tried not to think about what the future might hold when he was as young as Nik (and I could still carry Charlie). I tended to focus on each day at a time and on the progress, however small, that came with each day. Much of what I heard about growing up and about adulthood for a disabled child was not encouraging, not hopeful; did not indicate the one thing that has so much been the case in raising Charlie: Much is better; Charlie has grown up, can do many things on his own, and has helped me learn and grow in more ways than I could have imagined.
Charlie’s smile is still the same as it was when he was Nik’s—I’ve been reading your blog and am very glad to meet him, and you!
I was thinking today about how to teach Ely how to learn to tell time. Dad was teaching her this evening about how to use the remote control for the DVD player. She has learned how to take her clothes off (for a bath, as an example), and is working on how to put clothes on. (She’s going to be 6 in October.) She is trying her hardest to be Miss Independent….she wants to do many things on her own that she has seen us do. And she can be very adamant!!!
It IS about her dignity. She shows us what she is capable of, and we learn from her.
Oh, and her speech has gotten a little more interesting in the last couple of days….she just lost her front bottom-two teeth! (*ICK*)
Were those the first she lost?
We’ve tried to teach Charlie about telling time but he has not yet learned—-would like to know what are you doing and how Ely does! A new accomplishment for Charlie is figuring out that the tag (in a shirt) goes in the BACK.
These were the first lost teeth….and, I have to say, I am grossed out by loose teeth! I don’t know why, unless it was the masochistic dentist we had when I was a kid. I have worked in hospitals, I have watched heart-bypass surgeries with binoculars…but I cannot deal with my children’s teeth. (I’m a wimp, I know.) I was asked by the bus driver today if the Tooth Fairy had been to visit Ely, and I had to tell him, “He/She visited only if he/she knows the way around Ely’s digestive tract because she swallowed the tooth.”
I think the time-telling strategy will probably come much later (of course, Charlie is a good bit older than Ely), and we’re not terribly succesful on teaching about tags in the backs of shirts. I also find myself frustrated (I hate to admit) that I can’t teach Ely to point her toes to get her feet into long pants!
Her in-home trainer suggested this last week that we put money-counting in to her goals for this next year. I’d love to hear how you have been able to introduce “new” foods into Charlie’s diet….we’re down to a rotation of three entrees for dinner (I’d love to have her eat watermelon or sushi!).