One Transition After Another

Legislation proposed in New Mexico by Senator Clint Harden would be focused on helping students on the spectrum transition from elementary to high school, yesterday's Daily Lobo reports:

"What we know now is that early intervention and early treatment will help by the time an autistic child reaches eighth grade," said Harden, a Republican from District 7. "It's just really key to their progression and their performance as they get into adulthood. It can make a huge difference if we do this early."

If the bills pass, it could affect UNM, as the number of autistic students attending the University has tripled in the past two years, said Joan Green, director of the Accessibility Resource Center.

"Any legislative package that is going to be helping with intervention and early proactive things is going to ultimately be positive for us as well," Green said.

Harden's bills call for Medicaid coverage for early diagnostics and intervention for children through age five, a health insurance mandate to cover autism treatment for children through high school and an autism registry.

I'd even say that, while we do know much more about early intervention and educational programs for preschool and elementary aged students on the spectrum, we still need to know much more about students at the intermediate level, at the middle school level, at the high school level, at the college level, and after, and at each transition from one level to the next. In the case of my son Charlie---even though we felt confused and uncertain about what to do after he was diagnosed in 1999----what sorts of school programs and how to teach him have been even more difficult to discern as he gets older.

We've all heard the phrase "if you've met one person on the spectrum, you've met one person on the spectrum." Charlie's in a public school autism program created and overseen by a number of professionals (specifically, behavior analysts, psychologists, and teachers with a background in more than "special education") in teaching autistic students. It's taken months to help him transition and some days have been as tough as the time when he was first getting diagnosed, with Jim and me looking some very hard questions in the face. After some miscommunications earlier this year, we've been working hard to work in partnership in all respects with Charlie's teacher and all those professionals and, after an emergency IEP meeting the week before last, this past week was much better.

It's a long road ahead; even after we get through the murky difficulties of adolescence, they'll be the transition to high school, and then to a job and the end of school, and then to finding a place for Charlie to live.

If you live in New Jersey, please complete the online survey created by the New Jersey Adults with Autism Task Force (NJAATF), if you haven't yet. Wherever you live, take a look at what your state or region has (or doesn't have) in regard to supports and services for adults on the spectrum. Certainly my son, all of us, are adults for much longer than we are children and that's why we need to think ahead and think proactively, today and now.

Here's what Nick Perry, a junior majoring in Urban Studies at San Francisco State University says in today's SF Gate (Perry was diagnosed with autism when he was five years old):

"It's not easy. It is difficult to stay on task, but I think I'm handling it................I like to learn. I've gotten in the swing of things. The next big transition will be moving from the university, to getting a job and supporting myself. I want to do big things."

Image by mccready.