Autism Intervention Throughout the Lifespan-How Early Intervention Only Positions Harm Older Autistics

    

The chief position among autism prof-essionals currently is early intervention. Early intervention-only positions harm adults with autism because of the lack of services that result by adhering to early intervention only.

    Chief among those promoting this position is Temple Grandin. Temple Grandin is the godmother (so to speak) of the autism advocacy movement, and has been very sucessful as an advocate, but she is not an expert on autism. Miss Grandin is a motivational speaker at best who has promoted the early intervention-only approach

    I approached Miss Grandin about this issue and this was her response: "Dear John - There is a need for intervention through the life span.  In my talks, I emphasize early intervention because there are some young kids who get no intervention. You may like my book Different Not Less. Eighteen individuals with autism who were diagnosed later in life write about their experiences." I appreciate her acknowledgement, but I did not appreciate her plugging one of her books. This book has older adults with autism, but does not pomote intervention for those who are older with autism.

   While some promote early intervention, I promote intervention throughout the lifespan. Because of early intervention-only policies, this has produced plenty of facilities that will treat children, but very few facilities that treat adults. The few that do are not autism-friendly. Adults with autism are being harmed because of early intertvention-only policies

    We need facilities that treat autism across the lifespan. We need more specialist that treat adults. I know of only two in Tucson. I am one of them. The other person is a neuropsychologist in Tucson. Since I received my Master of Science in Counseling in the past six months, I have had two clients on the autism spectrum. 

    We need more trainers that train counselors to treat people on the autism spectrum too. Creating a trainer of trainers program will create the type of trainers we need to aid practitioners in providing counseling services to those on the autism spectrum.

    The few charities that have programs for adults with autism were mainly created by parents of children with autism. We need more charities created by adults on the autism spectrum for adults on the spectrum.