Today is National Autism Awareness Day. The links below will connect you with a Good Morning America story about the high cost (over a lifetime) of providing services to individuals with an autism spectrum disorder. The story also talks about how essential it is to diagnose and access early intervention services for young children in order to mitigate the affects of autism over the lifespan. Unfortunately, as the story goes, early diagnosis and intervention services for poor, minority and non-English speaking families are difficult to access thus exacerbating the affects of autism for their loved ones.
The two other links are to AutismNJ and Autism Speaks. These are two organizations that advocate on behalf of families and persons with autism and point people in the right direction to gain the critical services they need.
Finally, a question: What kinds of systemic changes are needed to enable families and persons with autism to gain greater access to comprehensive, competent and compassionate services from early diagnosis through the lifespan?
And well, another question: After World/National Autism Awareness Day is over, what did you learn?
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=7229778&page=1
Noble Paths 