The best laid plans...

We all know that none of us can predict the future. But when you are responsible for another person's welfare, that unpredictability must figure into your plans. And everyone needs a back up plan for the unforeseen events that can wreak havoc in anyone's life. For no matter how fabulous your intentions may be, if you are not able to implement them - for whatever reason - your good intentions are lost.

This has been brought home to us once again at Morgan Autism Center. Here's the story. A forty year old autistic adult client has lived all his life with first both his parents, and when his mother died ten years ago, his widower father. His father, out of respect for his wife's dying wishes, promised his wife and  that he would never place his son in a group home. And until a week ago, the plan was the two of them, father and son, would live together until.....until what? No contingency plan was thought about nor talked about to prepare this autistic man for the traumatic change he would have to face should he suddenly need care away from his father. And because he has some health issues, let alone behavior and anxiety issues, this care is not easily done by anyone.

Now his father is suddenly very seriously ill and needs to be hospitalized. Its Memorial Day weekend. The Regional Center has a crisis team, but no home ready on such short notice for this client, who is traumatized by the uncertainty and shocking change to his life. A cousin who lives locally (but who has his own two year old and had no expectation to take this on) is stepping up for a few days. But then what?

Everyone needs a contingency plan. We all have to cover our bases for when the unexpected happens.

Autism Epidemic/Flu Pandemic?

In a study released this week by the Department of Developmental Services, the number of children  with autism served by the California Regional Centers from 1987 to 2007 increased from 2,701 to 34,656, a 1200% increase. The state's general population increased by only 27 % during that same time span. Not all children with autism are being served by the Regional Centers, so these numbers are understated.

Compare the recent response of the CDC and local public health agencies to the swine flu and the possibility of a worldwide pandemic to the complacency of the autism epidemic news. Because autism in individuals unfolds relatively slowly over the first year of life, for some reason, there does not seem to be same urgency or sense of emergency that we get from the possibility of a flu pandemic.  But why is that? Is it because autism is a chronic condition? 

According to the Autism Society of America, autism costs are about $90 billion each year. Shouldn't this be as compelling as any flu epidemic, effecting so many fewer people?