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| Voice of the Environment's mission is to educate the public regarding the transfer of public trust assets into private, mostly corporate, hands. | ||
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Ukiah office: 1330 Boonville Rd Ukiah, CA 95482 707-467-0329 |
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Marin office: 270 Beach Rd Belvedere, CA 94920 415-435-2007 |
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| For two decades, Voice of the Environment has stood up for the people and our communities against the avarice of corporations and the misguided policies of the corporate-dominated state. |
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Print This Article Sunday, April 13th, 2008 The autism alarm The rise in diagnoses is a warning that we must work together to do more for our children Doug Richards/The Register-Guard What if you lived in a country where one child out of every 150 was kidnapped? There would be national outrage on all fronts, and we would see unprecedented action. In America, one in every 150 children is diagnosed with autism, and the dreams that came into the world with these children are kidnapped from their parents. For many parents, these dreams never return. Sadly, even though autism affects so many children, there is no national outrage; consider that this lifelong neurological disorder is 20 times more prevalent than polio was at its peak in the middle of the last century, when this country mobilized to find answers. In less than 20 years, autism has gone from a rare condition affecting one in 10,000 to an epidemic that traps children in their own worlds. As of now there is no smoking gun — but there are many suspected culprits, ranging from genetics to childhood vaccines and exposure to mercury and heavy metals. I suspect there are different types of autism with different causes or combinations of causes. The lack of national outrage stems from a number of factors. First, our children who are affected by autism look no different from other children; they do not have leg braces or spend their time in wards on an iron lung. If you took a group of 20 children, including one with autism, and lined them up against the wall, it might be hard to identify the child with autism just by looking at them. These children’s differences are most obvious in social situations as they flap their hands, or run on their toes, or chirp and screech in unintelligible babble. Many children with autism have extreme difficulties with social skills. Due to some of the extreme behaviors exhibited by children with autism, they are often kept in the shadows of our society. Because of the dramatic rise of the incidence of autism, you might know someone affected by this challenge. If not, you have probably seen a child “misbehaving” in public. Maybe you have had disparaging thoughts about parents needing to control their children. Looking back, I can remember a trip to the grocery store with my youngest son, and he fell apart in the checkout line. For him things were going too slow, and he melted down — falling to the ground shrieking and screaming at the top of his lungs in very obvious distress. Looking around I noticed the growing chorus of disapproving looks from the other shoppers. So I loudly cleared my throat and said to my son for everyone to hear, “I agree with you completely, and I am not happy about our foreign policy decisions, either.” People sometimes don’t get my humor. According to researchers at Harvard University, the lifetime costs of caring for a child with autism can exceed $3 million. In part this is because autism has no effect on a person’s life expectancy. Doing the math, it becomes apparent that we have a multi-trillion dollar challenge facing this country in the decades to come. Applying these figures to Lane County, the cost of autism may eclipse $2 billion. For Lane County, this is a significant challenge. First, it’s a challenge because the per-capita incidence for autism is higher in Lane County than the national average. It would be interesting to find out why. Second, the immediate outlook for Lane County families of children with autism is not good because of the steady decline of timber revenues, the questionable status of federal payments to counties offsetting the lost timber revenue, and the strained funding that local school systems have faced for years. To be sure, there are organizations that are doing a great job in trying to meet these challenges. EC Cares is on the front lines, providing early intervention services and support. EC Cares does a tremendous job, but is being flooded by newly diagnosed cases of autism. To help manage this overflow for EC Cares, the Willow Learning Center is working hard to help provide educational services, and does a great job working intensively with autistic children from all over Lane County. I am proud to be affiliated with another organization, Bridgeway House. At Bridgeway House we work to provide intensive therapies via our home program as well as socialization opportunities for children with autism through our social groups. However, as our children age and mature, they are facing an uncertain future in the public school system. Rural school districts have perhaps a greater challenge. They serve large geographic areas, and in some cases their enrollment is declining. An increase in the proportion of school-aged children who have autism is straining many school districts’ budgets. It is past time to be outraged — looking to the future, we need to consider new solutions. More than 100 years ago, this state made a commitment to educating students who were blind or deaf. Perhaps a similar commitment should be considered for those with autism. For a number of reasons Lane County, in my mind, is the ideal home for a regional center to address the challenges presented by autism. First, as already mentioned, there is the high incidence of autism in our county. Second, there are already strong potential partners in this community at the University of Oregon through the College of Education and through the UO’s developing partnership with Oregon Health & Science University. In conjunction with these two world-renowned research institutions, a regional center could help unravel the mystery of some of the causes of autism while also finding the teaching strategies and possible therapies so that we could start exporting hope to families not only in our community but around the world. Third, as a community we care about children. We are the home of the Great Rotary Duck Race and have developed some unique programs, responses to challenges and opportunities for children to have better lives through programs such as the Relief Nursery and Kidsports. Children with autism are capable of incredible things when given the chance. People had a glimpse of this potential Saturday at the Wildish Theater, when a production of “Alice in Wonderland” was staged with a cast of 10 children, all with autism. As a community we need to find ways to provide more opportunities for these children to become integrated with our society. As the numbers of new diagnoses for autism continue to grow, it will become increasingly apparent that our current response is not appropriate. We know that intensive early intervention and educational services provide our children with their greatest hope. It was Albert Einstein who defined insanity as doing the same thing and expecting different results. April is Autism Awareness Month, and I hope that as a community we will rise to address this challenge and come together to do something different to help our children. SOURCE Print This Article |
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Voice of the Environment is a 501 (c-3) not-for-profit Montana-based corporation formed in 1991.
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