last night at about 10pm my phone rang. rarely, if ever, does my phone ring that late at night. as i reached for my purse to fish it out i looked down at my jammies and hoped it wasn't someone from the church to say there was terrible accident and could i come to the hospital to pray.
but it was my teacher-friend (tf) who had earlier yesterday watched a story on the news about autism. she often calls when she sees something pertinent to my family's situation on the tv so that i can check it out.
apparently, governor corzine (NJ-D) just signed a bunch of bills into laws having to do with autism. why? because while the national autism rate is 1 in every 152 children new jersey's rate is 1 in every 94 children.
this is pertinent to me because both kids were born in new jersey and the silent prince was diagnoised with pdd-nos (pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified). pdd-nos became autism when we moved here and finally saw a developmental doctor.
i did some googling this morning and found this article about what took place.
first, it made me happy that i voted for corzine back in the day. my tf told me that he had said something to the effect of not being this affected by events since 9/11.
the new laws include helping doctors make earlier diagnoses and putting money and programs into place for children with autism who eventually become adults and are left-behind by the school system.
these two things, in and of themselves, are almost enough for me. it takes long periods of time to even get to see a specialist who can give an autism diagnosis (sometimes over 1 year) and i worry about what will happen to my silent prince once he is 21 and can't go to school any longer.
secondly, it broke my heart. hubby and i always joked that we hated the fact that are children are from new jersey. (growing up in philadelphia can give you those feelings about new jersey.) i know that i can't ask questions like: what if he hadn't been born in new jersey? because that's just a dumb thing to do. i can however be frustrated by the fact that so many children from new jersey are autistic.
and that's exactly how i feel.
God's peace y'all
1 comment:
I'm late in catching up with posts, but, check into your state's Department of Developmental Disabilities. There are many programs available for adults with disabilites, after they've finished school.
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