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Autism Vox

Archive for the ‘Adulthood’ Category

May 12th, 2008

“Open Questions” about Autism, and Vaccines, and Much More

In The “Open Question” on Vaccines and Autism, CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson interviews Dr. Bernardine Healy, a former head of the National Institutes of Health and a member of the Institute of Medicine. Noting that Dr. Healy’s credentials “couldn’t be more ‘mainstream’”—no DAN! doctor she—Attkisson writes:
According to Healy, when she began researching autism […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 24 comments

May 12th, 2008

The So-Called Autism Pandemic

There’s been plenty of debate about whether or not there is an epidemic of autism; about whether or not the increase in the prevalence rate of autism (now 1 in 150) is due to our being better able to diagnose and count cases of autism, or whether there is some actual something that can be […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 22 comments

May 9th, 2008

Where Are All the Autistic Adults?

The British government has announced that it is planning to calculate the number of autistic adults in England. The £500,000 project is the first to specifically study the number of adults who have autism, the BBC reports.
It will be interesting to see how the study is conducted: The tools for diagnosing autism in adults are […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 111 comments

May 7th, 2008

Supported Living Facility in NJ?

Herb Heflich, executive of 10 NJ properties for senior citizens, has a plan to create a supported living facility for autistic adults—”a group home without the stuffiness of an institution“—in central NJ:
Designed to give adults with autism around-the-clock care — ranging from physical and occupational therapy to “vocational rehabilitation” — the two-story building proposed by […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 6 comments

May 6th, 2008

Symposium on Employment for ASD Adults

In yesterday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, journalist Paul Nyhan writes about parents as the “invisible casualties” when a child has autism. 4-year-old Sharky Munat’s mother, Lillie Addams, recalls when the police showed up because Sharky’s screams permeated the thin walls of their apartment. After her son was diagnosed with autism, Addams went through “depression, chest-seizing anxiety attacks, […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 19 comments

May 3rd, 2008

Last Week’s Top Posts: Awareness Month Ends and an Award

Autism Awareness Month 2008 ended Wednesday; here in my state of New Jersey, Senator Robert Menendez marked the closing of the month by unveiling the Helpings HANDS for Autism Act. The act calls for the creation of “autism navigators” to assist families in figuring out services; training for law enforcement and other primary responders; and […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 4 comments

May 3rd, 2008

IACC in California Today

Today, a daylong “town hall” meeting of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) is being held at the UC Davis Cancer Center, as reported in the May 2nd Sacramento Bee. (Previous meetings of the IACC this year and last year have been held in Washington, D.C.) The meeting offers a chance to express one’s views […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 25 comments

April 30th, 2008

Job Talk

The Spring semester is almost over at the college where I teach and “getting some kind of job” is the main response from students to the question “what are you planning to do this summer?”. And—it occurs to me on this last day of April with May and Charlie’s 11th birthday right around the […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 13 comments

April 29th, 2008

The Open Wallet Policy

On Sunday I wrote about hope starting with acceptance and asked:
Does one strive to do everything one can to cure, heal, recover a child from autism with the goal of the child “losing“her or his diagnosis? Or, does one learn to accept that one’s child is different, disabled, autistic?
In Sunday’s Wall Street Journal, Jeff D. […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 16 comments

April 28th, 2008

Helping HANDS for Autism Act

Below is the press release about the new autism legislation that New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez unveiled this morning in Weehawken, in Hudson County in northern New Jersey. The legislation has three parts: The creation of “autism navigators” to help families “navigate” their way through services, treatment options, and much more; the development and […]

By Kristina Chew, PhD -- 3 comments