1 in 91

For the past 6 years I have been able to rattle off Autism stats with the same accuracy as an avid baseball fan can spew batting records, career averages, game highlights.......Except, I am not of fan.

When many of my friends sons were diagnosed, back when the stats were still 1 in 10,000, there was not much out there for parents. The support was questionable and because they rallied, when the numbers got more frightening, parents just like me had organizations to turn to for information, guidance and help. In just 8 years between my friend's son diagnosis and my own son's, the stats went from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 166. Still, it didn't send chills down too many spines because apparently it didn't merit more funding towards research and therapies....When it became 1 in 150, movement started. Now it's 1 in 91....that enough would be beyond frightening, but what scares me more is the attitude many doctors and Government agencies have taken. This is not necessarily just better diagnosis. This is a very real problem, and it keeps growing. The stats on learning disability is 1 in 6, how are we addressing this very real situation in classrooms that are not adequately funded to deal with the influx of special needs and learning disabilities? What about the teachers who need more support and training to be able to be successful? This is a complete generation of people being affected. What is going to happen when these kids age out of a system that was never really strong enough or funded enough to help them fulfill their potential? What is going to happen if the stats continue to climb?

The push to scare everyone about swine flu, the hurry to put out vaccinations that have not been thoroughly tested, but the incredible dismissal of this very real disorder baffles me. When parents scream they want safe vaccines with no preservatives and a more rational vaccine schedule, we get belittled and wrongly accused of being anti vaccine. Yet,
knowing that many of our children regressed after vaccinations into this disorder, knowing that children do die because of vaccines, knowing there are too many cases of vaccine injuries (Gardasil alone is ridiculous) knowing that there has been a link by several researchers from Stony Brook, Thoughtful House and University of Kentucky, the Pittsburgh school of medecine connecting the Hepatitis B vaccine given at 12 hours of birth and brain damage in males, why then is there such hostility when a simple demand for a safe vaccine, for safe pratices come into question? Shouldn't vaccines be safe for everyone? Isn't that the purpose?

Time is running out. Our children are aging without proper support, funding, therapies and treatments available to them. The price of Autism is exorbitant, staggering, breathtaking, because it is so emcompassing, so pandemic. There is a term out there used in every IEP in every CSE meeting, basically that the education given to our children be "appropriate and meaningful" which obviously leaves a very philosophical and open interpretation as to just what meaningful and appropriate is, because as we parents have found, the school districts have a very different definition of both.

We all look for the meaning in our lives. We all question what is appropriate. We all want to matter, we all want to make a difference. Why would anyone think anyone with Autism wouldn't want the same thing? They worth the research needed and the funding needed to help them reach their potential.

Gabe was almost 5 years old when he said he loved me. We were in King Kullen and he was strapped in the cart. He barely had any language. As I was walking down the aisle, I looked down at him, he smiled and said "I love you"....and I soared. I had been waiting for so long, and I got an opportunity to hear something so many moms would have given their body parts for, and I more than heard it, I felt it....He looked at me and said he loved me, and then just like that he retreated again inside himself. But he was there....I knew it, I knew it all along, he was there......

Meaningful and appropriate.....well, the appropriate thing to do is to find a way to help this community lead meaningful lives. I would love to see the stats on that....................