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How Can We Make Spirituality a Permanent Part of Our Adult Son’s Life with Autism?
My son Daniel is a 31-year-old young man with autism. Like many families with an autistic member, our lives have - ahem - been interesting, distinctive, contained a certain element of surprise and provided a trail of unanticipated sweetness. I’ll take just one category of our life...
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Creating Community for Adults with Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities
Navigating the road to adulthood is rocky for many people. But for young adults on the autism spectrum, the challenge is particularly tough, particularly for creating a community for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Social isolation can pose a significant challenge for these...
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Social Activities and Communities for Individuals with Autism: Meeting a Basic Human Need
Social activities, as engagement with a community to which one belongs, are an essential part of life for most people. Unfortunately, for autistics, there are often barriers that prevent them from participating in such. Before I address these issues, however, I need to emphasize that the commonly...
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Community Engagement Through Integrated Community Living Options for Adults with Autism
With the increasing prevalence of autism documented in children over the past two decades, there is growing alarm about what will be needed for these children as they grow into adulthood (Anderson & Butt, 2018). Indeed, there are adults living with autism right now with unmet needs due to...
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Housing for Adults with Autism: A Growing Crisis
This article will discuss the need for appropriate housing for adults with Autism. New and emerging programs will be explored. In full disclosure, this writer is the president and founder of Indie Living, Inc., a housing program currently in the early stages of development in New York. Over the...
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Best Practices in Support of Aging Adults with Autism
The DSM V which was released to the public in May, 2013, took the controversial decision to consolidate the diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome, or High Functioning Autism (HFA), under the umbrella of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The particularism of Asperger Syndrome had provided a framework with...
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Older Adults on the Spectrum Face a Variety and Number of Major Challenges
In spite of being fortunate enough to have avoided many of the challenges presented by aging on the autism spectrum, I nevertheless feel that I am in a position to write about these as an older adult on the spectrum who recently became a senior citizen. I was already a middle-aged adult (age 44) at...
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Why Autism Parents Say: “I Can Never Die”
The caregiving workforce shortage is and will be a crisis for so many Americans. “I can never die.” This is the rallying call of autism parents everywhere. Why do we feel that way? Because many autistic adults live with their parents – 85%, according to autism researcher Peter Gerhardt....
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Tech Startup Daivergent Turns to AHRC NYC to Fill Jobs with People on the Autism Spectrum
Leon Campbell says he is patient, attentive, and devoted to details. “I always make sure my work is accurate within the confines of the rules that are given to me,” he explains. Leon works on “all manner of things with data—extracting it from online sources and promptly putting it in other...
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Communication Challenges in College Students with ASD
In addition to the typical challenges faced by young adults pursuing post-secondary education, those with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis face unique challenges related to deficits in social communication. These include deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, such as taking turns in a...
