Headline: Some joy and trepidation – The Boston Globe
Here, in a blank brick building in a suburban office park, is an autism quite different from the high-functioning version we’re accustomed to. And a glimpse of a future for which we’re woefully unprepared. These kids are not the hyper-focused math whizzes, or the ones with encyclopedic knowledge of transit systems, who have trouble communicating or reading social cues. They’re at the other end of the spectrum, their limitations more profound. The number of people with autism in this country has exploded over the last two decades. Twenty times more children are diagnosed with some form of autism now than in the 1980s. A whopping 500,000 will enter adulthood in the next decade. We’re nowhere near ready to deal with them.
