Will you hire him? I can hardly believe my son is one of the 500,000 children
with autism who will reach adulthood in the next ten years. If you want to know
what I’m concern about right now, this is it!
1 In 3 Autistic Young Adults Lack Jobs,
Education
CHICAGO (AP) – One in 3 young
adults with autism have no paid job experience, college or technical school
nearly seven years after high school
graduation a study finds. That's a poorer showing than those with other
disabilities including those who are mentally disabled, the researchers said. With roughly half a million
autistic kids reaching adulthood in the next decade, experts say it's an issue
policymakers urgently need to address. The study was done well before
unemployment peaked from the recession. The situation today is tough even for young
adults who don't have such limitations.
Ian Wells of Allentown, N.J., is
21, autistic and won't graduate from high school until next year. He is
unlikely to attend college because of his autism. He wants a job but has only
found unpaid internships and is currently working part-time and unpaid as a
worker at a fastener factory.
He's a hard worker, with good
mechanical skills, but has trouble reading and speaking, said his mother,
Barbara Wells. She said his difficulties understanding social cues and body
language can make other people uncomfortable.
"I'm very afraid" about
his prospects for ever finding long-term employment, she said. "It keeps
me up at night."
The study, published online
Monday in Pediatrics, was based on data from 2007-08. It found that within two
years of leaving high school, more than half of those with autism had no job
experience, college or technical education.
Things improved as they got
older. Yet nearly seven years after high school, 35 percent of autistic young
adults still had no paid employment or education beyond high school. Those figures compare with 26
percent of mentally disabled young adults, 7 percent of young adults with
speech and language problems, and 3 percent of those with learning
disabilities.
Those with autism may fare worse
because many also have each of the other disabilities studied.
The researchers analyzed data
from a national study of kids receiving special education services, prepared
for the U.S. Department of Education. About
2,000 young adults with one of four types of disabilities were involved,
including 500 with autism.
It's the largest study to date on
the topic and the results "are quite a cause for concern," said lead
author Paul Shattuck, an assistant professor at Washington University's Brown
School of social work in St. Louis.
"There is this wave of young
children who have been diagnosed with autism who are aging toward adulthood.
We're kind of setting ourselves up for a scary situation if we don't think
about that and how we're going to help these folks and their families,"
Shattuck said.
Government data suggest that 1 in
88 U.S. kids have autism and there's evidence that the rate is rising.
Within the next 10 years, more than 500,000 kids with autism will
reach adulthood, said Peter
Bell, vice president for programs and services at Autism
Speaks, an advocacy group that helped pay for the study.
"It's a huge, huge
issue," Bell said. "Unfortunately there are many families that really
struggle to understand what that transition ultimately entails. …They face the
reality of having a child who may potentially not be able to have enough
services to keep them busy during the day." "It's only going to get
worse …" Bell said.
His own 19-year-old son has
autism and is being home-schooled and Bell has hired therapists to prepare him
for jobs and other life skills.
Carol Schall, a special education
policy specialist, said the results confirm smaller
studies showing difficulties facing kids with autism as they transition into
adulthood, and also highlight a need for better job training services offered
in public schools for special education students.
She is involved in research at Virginia
Commonwealth University investigating whether on-the-job
training and teaching social cues to high school students with autism makes
them more employable.
Kids are taught a range of
practical skills and appropriate behavior. "It takes a much higher degree
of intensity for them to learn skills" than for other kids, she said.
Preliminary results show this
training has helped kids with autism find and keep jobs, she said.
———
Online:
http://www.pediatrics.org
———
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner
can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
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