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
Replace No Child Left Behind With a Strong Education Policy
Independence and Services for Disabilities and Autism
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.)

It’s said to be something that parents of children with developmental disabilities experience. An article by Amy Basking and Heather Fawcett coins the terms “Empty Nest Envy,” as noted in today’s Orangeville Banner:
While most parents can look forward to children spreading their own wings, there are some who look to the future with trepidation and uncertainty. Not just for themselves, but more importantly for their adult children who have developmental disabilities. These parents, when their children graduate from high school, suddenly find themselves supporting their adult child full-time.
The reality for these parents can be daunting. In the article, the authors …read more

Actually, that title should read, “It’s just like I thought it would be,” as said by Jim. It was Saturday night and we were having dinner at a restaurant on Mott Street, in Chinatown in New York. We’d avoided the whole Black Friday business/madness and decided also to avoid the crowds going to see the Christmas tree on Rockefeller Plaza near Radio City Music Hall. We’d spent the day around home, with a late breakfast and midday nap for Charlie, and then a bike ride. And then, we drove to Jersey City and took the PATH train into the World …read more

I have been thinking more than ever about where Charlie will live as an adult since hearing about the services offered in different states at last Friday’s IACC meeting. The pressing, pressing, pressing need for staff with appropriate training, for facilities, and for much much more was more than made apparent—the November 10th death of 28-year-old Tara O’Leary highlights just how pressing these needs are.
Tara O’Leary had severe developmental disabilities and was a client in a community care residence in Hunterdon County in central New Jersey. Her death is being investigated by both the state Department of Human Services and …read more

Six deep-sea divers have been enlisted by the city of New York to repair a valve at the bottom of a 700-foot shaft in Dutchess County, yesterday New York Times reports. The shaft is located in the Rondout-West Branch tunnel, which is 45 miles long, 13.5 feet wide, up to 1,200 feet below ground” and which brings half of the water supply to New York city from reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains. For more than a month, the six divers have to live
in a sealed 24-foot tubular pressurized tank complete with showers, a television and a Nerf basketball hoop, breathing …read more

I think this is, potentially, the perfect t-shirt for Charlie.
Yes, I’ve ordered him one.

Connecticut’s Pilot Program For Autistic Adults which “adults of normal intelligence with diagnoses on what is called the autism spectrum” is in danger due to budget cuts. Today’s New Haven Register reports that Governor M. Jodi Rell has ordered all state government agencies to submit proposals that will cut up to 10 percent from their upcoming budgets. Prior to the program’s inception in 2006 (with $1 million from the state), no services were provided to autistic adults of normal intelligence (adults with diagnoses of both autism and mental retardation did receive services). The program received an additional $500,000 in July …read more

So what is autism?
Chances are, if you’re reading this, you know, and are quite prepared to explain at the drop of the hat “what autism is.”
But what if you’re asked:
Why is there this separate term, “PDD-NOS”?
What is child disintegrative disorder and what does that have to do with autism, plain and simple? (as if there is such a “plain and simple autism”)
If a child has Fragile X, that means they don’t have autism……right….no….which?
Does “high-functioning autism” mean “Asperger’s Syndrome” only?
What’s the connection between autism and ADHD? Can you have both?
Can where you are and what culture a child is raised in …read more

While studying drug abuse and addiction, researchers at the Ohio State University College of Medicine have found a link between nicotine addiction and autism. Neurexins are proteins that, along with neurologins, are thought to play a key role in the formation and functioning of synapses, of connections between nerve cells. In the new study, a protein made by the neurexin-1 gene was found to have a very particular role, as noted in today’s Science Daily:
The discovery identified a defining role for a protein made by the neurexin-1 gene, which is located in brain cells and assists in connecting neurons as …read more

The November 13th Newsweek has an article, More Than Just Quirky, about girls and women with Asperger’s Syndrome: Are girls and women sometimes not diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum because they do not have the same symptoms as boys and men do?
Girls, it’s noted, have more “socially acceptable” obsessions—”horse and books,” perhaps, rather than “vacuum cleaners or oscillating fans”:
“Girls tend to get obsessed with things that are a little less strange,” says Elizabeth Roberts, a neuropsychologist at the Asperger Institute at the New York University Child Study Center. “That makes it harder to distinguish normal from abnormal.” …read more