Living Life With Autism: Has Anything Really Changed?

Source: Forbes

There’s so much talk of the origins of autism these days, it’s hard not to think of it as a childhood disorder. But we tend to forget that there is a fast growing number of adults living with autism in the country today. According to Autism Speaks, in the next decade alone, 500,000 children with autism will come of age. So we have to wonder, what lies in store for the young adults who will soon age out of the special education system? What kind of lives will they lead? Has public awareness of the disorder led to any real change?

Rough estimates suggest that there are currently between one and 1.5 million autistic adults in the country today. But because tracking the disorder is relatively recent, there aren’t a lot of good statistics on how the work and living situations of people on the autism spectrum have changed over the years.

Given the fact that autism is a “spectrum” disorder,  it’s not surprising that people with autism live lives that are incredibly varied. Jim Ball of the Autism Society says that a majority of young adults and adults with autism are living at home with their parents. Success in group homes has not been so good, Ball says, since the facilities tend to be expensive and can pose a number of social challenges for people. On the other hand, some autistic people are getting married and having kids, says Peter Bell of Autism Speaks. (And, he adds, in rare cases, some may not even be aware they have autism until they have a child diagnosed with the disorder, and their own status unfolds.)

About 56% of people with autism graduate from high school, according to Ball, but the data on how many graduate from college is less clear. One study last year looked at a group of young adults over the long term to see what they did after high school. About 18% were employed, and 14% were in college. “The vast majority were in day services, and 12% had no activities at all,” says Bell.

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