Vote at Change.org!
December 29, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Change.org has been running a competition to vote on the top Ideas for Change in America. The competition ends on December 31st—-yes, that’s Wednesday—and here are three ideas that I think can clearly make a difference in the lives of autistic individuals:
Fully Fund Medicaid Waivers for the Developmentally Disabled
The top 10 ideas will be announced in January.
(For discussion about the idea about the “Autism Reform Act,” see this post on autism legislation.)
Thanks for posting about this, Kristina – I’m really encouraged that this is being done to bring out important issues.
I’m a little discouraged, though, that the Autism Reform Act idea is the most popular idea in education: Although I think educational reform to benefit children with ASD is crucial, there is a bigger issue for me (No Child Left Behind). Yes, I want reform for my son so that we don’t have to fight with districts later on down the road, but as an educator myself, I see NCLB as a bigger hurdle that needs to be overcome for all students, at which point we can focus on our special needs population. NCLB affects them, too, since it impacts the ability of school districts to provide the quality services that children with special needs really, well, need – and more importantly, deserve. I would like to see the NCLB idea jump from #5 to education (its current status as of this post) to a much higher position.
I saw this and even though I think it is a great idea I didn’t really see the point. It made me wonder if these things would somehow be made to happen and how that would come into being. Ya know?
@FXSmom, I gather that the top ideas will be promoted in some fashion, so that more people would know about them—-I guess it seems quite idealistic, but there’s always hope of just getting out the word in whatever way possible…..
My idea for change is to take the poison[ARSNIC]out of the water systems that 70% of the amercains drink every day, as this may for an healther america. That is something that ever one should write about there congressman ,EPA ,fda or the CDC to see if this may not be a good idea.
I should have said that the ARSNIC comes from the free dental health care the US goverment gives you. After drinking arsnic for 25 to 30 years is any wounder that so many men may need that little blue pill,witch may be the cause for autism as how do we know what effect the arsnic has on those little swimers in older men. Sence they say that is when there seems to be when the probem seems to acur.