"Aging out" with Autism

NBC News recently published a news article, 'You Don't Outgrow Autism': What Happens When Help Ends at 21?.  The article includes video from a Dateline NBC news stories of two families dealing with the transition from youth to adult services for their young adults with Autism.   

Below is an excerpt from the article.

As adults, their sons are eligible for Social Security and they can apply for services funded by Medicaid. But they were warned by parents and other advocates that many of the programs offered would not be tailored to autism. And even for programs that they didn't think were ideal, there are waiting lists. Every state decides how to spend its Medicaid dollars and so there are great variations from state to state. In Florida for example, there are waiting lists that contain as many as 20,000 people.

Autism prevalence rates have more than doubled over the last decade. And according to Linda Walder, Executive Director of the Daniel Jordan Fiddle Foundation, an advocacy group for adults with autism, an estimated half a million young people with autism will age out in the next ten years.

"It's a tsunami of children who are aging to adult life," Walder said. "And we really have no safety net for them, or very few safety nets."


Questions:

Do your programs work with adults identified with Autism?  If so, what is your experience - both challenges and lesson learned? If your program doesn't currently serve learners with Autism, how are you preparing to work with these individuals in the future?  What information or support do you feel is needed to serve these learners in your existing program?

I look forward to hearing your experiences and opinions on this important subject.

Mike

michaelcruse74@gmail.com