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Dear Families and Friends:

Please see below article that appeared in the LA Times.

We as parents need and must ban together to work with our communities to put together support and services that our children will need once they become adults.

It is never to early to think about the future. We need to work on employment,housing and transportation now. Just like in CA right here in Georgia we are dealing with the same issues.

Heidi Fernandez Parent and Advocate "Knowledge is Power" "To the world, you may be one person, but to one person, you may be the world."

State must cope with autistic adults BY SUSAN ABRAM, Staff WriterLA Daily News Article Last Updated:09/18/2007 11:35:17 PM PDT CANYON COUNTRY - As a child, Dan McQueen had trouble coloring inside the lines. As an adult, he still works hard to fit within the lines of acceptable behavior drawn by society. Diagnosed as a teenager with Asperger's syndrome - one of the less-severe disorders on the autism spectrum - McQueen, 26, has found that the world around him isn't as forgiving as it was when he was a kid. "As soon as you turn 18, it's different," said McQueen, now 26 and living with his parents in Canyon Country. "Society is generally more forgiving of a normal person who has a bad day than with the person with autism who has a normal day." McQueen's experience will be replicated more frequently in the years ahead as the increasing number of children diagnosed with autism grow into adulthood, according to a state report released Tuesday. "Throughout the state, there is an intense need to plan for and address the impending housing, transportation, employment and educational needs of the tsunami of young people with (autism) who will soon transition into a community setting," according to the 70-page draft report by the California Legislative Blue Ribbon Commission on Autism. The report notes that the state is ill-prepared on many levels to handle the increase in autism cases and that there isn't enough money to pay for what needs to be done. After years of working with a formal support network of teachers, social workers and advocates, adults with autism - and their families - often find themselves foundering as they try to adapt to a world in which "normalcy" is a key to success. While no one really knows how many U.S. adults have autism, a survey released early this year estimated that about one in every 150 of the nation's children has at least one disorder on the

autism spectrum. And experts say society will have to become more forgiving - and more educated - as these youngsters and teens enter adulthood. "There's a grave concern about the programs and services now in place, because the numbers are growing, and increases in those diagnosed with autism is more real than it was in the last 20 years," said Rick Rollens, a former secretary of the state Senate and the father of a 16-year-old boy with autism. "We are faced with a tremendous pressure for what's going to happen down the road." The situation is especially critical in California, where the number of youngsters diagnosed with autism has soared, Rollens said. Just two decades ago, between two and five children per 10,000 statewide were diagnosed with autism. Today, it's closer to 66 per 10,000. "All the money and efforts are going into research with regard to genetics and environmental factors," Rollens said. "But, in the meantime, the f

ire is at the door and we now have thousands and thousands of kids, many of them with families at their wits' end, that are going to be affected." Up to now, services for adults with autism have been limited because of a focus on cerebral palsy and other more prevalent disabilities. As a result, families have been left to care for their adult children with little help from the government, with 97 percent of adults with autism living with their parents. Without more life-skills training programs, residential units or more opportunities for jobs, the cost to care for this population over a lifetime would be $5 million per person, Rollens said. The growing number of children with autism has turned many parents into advocates for more services, research money and community education. "There's this huge wave coming through and these people are going to need options," said Iland of Saugus, whose 24-year-old son has autism. Working clo

sely with the 500-member Los Angeles chapter of the Autism Society of America, Iland has started support groups for parents of children with autism in the Santa Clarita Valley. The author of several books, she also has developed training to help Los Angeles Police Department officers better understand and communicate with those with autism. The state commission's report released Tuesday dedicates an entire chapter to increasing autism awareness among police and other first responders, encouraging more training. Iland has been called upon several times by parents of adult children with autism to help with police interviews and to make sure they are not incarcerated with the general inmate population in jail. "There's so much escalation when a person with autism is arrested, because they may not follow every direction," Iland said. But learning those skills also takes time, experts say, and adults with autism have the most difficulty fitting in

.. "People have expectations of how someone should behave because of their own life experiences of what someone should be able to do," said Norma Vescovo, executive director of the Independent Living Center in Van Nuys, which trains people with various disabilities to live on their own. Vescovo said she is concerned about the growing trend of elder adults trying to live longer to support their adult children. "We have a young man who is autistic, 40 years old and has never worked. His family has always protected him from the world," Vescovo said. "We're just getting him to put out job applications." She and others fear that without learning independence and without more resources, many of these adults could become homeless or end up in jail. "We have parents who come to us when they are in their 70s, and they say we want to place our son or daughter with you because we're going to die," Vescovo said. Kaufman, 43, said h

e was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome only last year. But it explains why he has trouble getting a job, talking to people and understanding why he gets upset so easily. "I kept doing things that people thought were very odd," he said. "It's difficult because in a way, yes, I do have some oddities. It's like you're not normal, but you can fake it." Meanwhile, some universities are starting new programs to deal with students with autism. Working with the L.A. chapter of the Autism Society, a support group for adults with Asperger's syndrome has been established at California State University, Northridge, said Ivor Weiner, a professor of special education and the executive director at the Family Focus Resource and Empowerment Center. "We've become alarmed and what we're trying to do is meet the social and psychological needs of these adults," Weiner said. "Right now, society's focus is on kids, but when kids are out of the school system, we t

end to forget them." People such as McQueen. He excels at math and history, but dropped out of college because he had a tough time balancing more than one class a semester. Now, he works at a gas station, where he tries to maintain eye contact with others, to emulate their mannerisms and voice tones, to soften what some see as a stubborn streak. "I've never been fired from a job, but I do have to pretend to be normal," he said. "Left to my own devices, if I don't put on a face, I could get into trouble."