Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World
From the New York Times:
People with autism, whose unusual behaviors are believed to stem from variations in early brain development, typically disappear from public view after they leave school. As few as one in 10 hold even part-time jobs. Some live in state-supported group homes; even those who attend college often end up unemployed and isolated, living with parents.
But Justin is among the first generation of autistic youths who have benefited throughout childhood from more effective therapies and hard-won educational opportunities. And Ms. Stanton-Paule’s program here is based on the somewhat radical premise that with intensive coaching in the workplace and community — and some stretching by others to include them — students like Justin can achieve a level of lifelong independence that has eluded their predecessors.
“There’s a prevailing philosophy that certain people can never function in the community,” Ms. Stanton-Paule told skeptics. “I just don’t think that’s true.”
Last month Britain’s General Medical Council completed a new two-and-a-half-year investigation into whether study lead author Andrew Wakefield & Co. followed proper research ethics in their study, and the answer was no. The 143-page decision (you can find a PDF of the report here) calls Wakefield’s conduct “dishonest” and “misleading” in numerous respects. But the bottom line is that he misled The Lancet about how children came to be studied (that is, through the attorneys), that the ethical statement in the paper (denying any conflict of interest) was false, and that the hospital where the research was conducted had not approved it. Most damning, the GMC found that Wakefield “showed a callous disregard for the distress and pain that [he] knew or ought to have known the children involved might suffer,” that he “abused [his] position of trust as a medical practitioner,” and that he brought “the medical profession into disrepute.
Here in Arkansas, there are nearly 2,500 children under the age of 10 who have been diagnosed with some form of autism, care and treatment for which will cost an estimated $7.8 billion,” [Leding] said. “Many families can’t afford treatment, and past efforts to help them—most notably Senate Bill 913—have met significant opposition from insurance companies working to protect profits.
