Kim Steele and Sherry Ahrentzen
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781447307976
- eISBN:
- 9781447303817
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447307976.003.0001
- Subject:
- Social Work, Health and Mental Health
Much of the research, interventions and public attention on autism has focused on children and adolescents. Only recently has there been growing concern of how best to plan for individuals as they ...
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Much of the research, interventions and public attention on autism has focused on children and adolescents. Only recently has there been growing concern of how best to plan for individuals as they age out of the school system and into adulthood. This chapter explains some of the reasons for the current momentum to discover and advance ways to create homes and communities that enhance residential living for those on the spectrum. These reasons include: increasing prevalence of autism; shift in diagnosis and labelling; deficit of research on and for adults on the spectrum; lack of viable residential alternatives in communities; nascent efforts to discover and value residential aspirations; cost and competition of care and support services; and escalating advocacy efforts in the disability rights and neurodiversity movements.Less
Much of the research, interventions and public attention on autism has focused on children and adolescents. Only recently has there been growing concern of how best to plan for individuals as they age out of the school system and into adulthood. This chapter explains some of the reasons for the current momentum to discover and advance ways to create homes and communities that enhance residential living for those on the spectrum. These reasons include: increasing prevalence of autism; shift in diagnosis and labelling; deficit of research on and for adults on the spectrum; lack of viable residential alternatives in communities; nascent efforts to discover and value residential aspirations; cost and competition of care and support services; and escalating advocacy efforts in the disability rights and neurodiversity movements.
