You made IT!

If you made it through my first post of an article I found on line about a mother trying to find a place for her autistic son where he can thrive and learn  the basic skills of life and you still want to keep reading....

                                                                                                          WELCOME...

I posted that article because the story is so typical of moms of all races I meet with children who have autism and the frustrations are even more intense for African American moms mainly because most often we do not have the family support, financial resources, nor the information about the signs of autism to have the benefits of early diagnosis and treatments.

On top of that, in the African American community we are usually uninformed about disabilities in general and many times those in our families that are disabled are often ignored or their disabilities are made light of.  He/She is just a "little slow"...

As you can see from the statistics in the first post, Autism is more common than we think and affects more boys than girls, almost two to one. Each year 24,000 children that are born will be diagnosed with Autism.

So if we think of that number in terms of the year my son was diagnosed which was 2003, just 9 years later there have been 216,000 more children diagnosed with autism.

What will happen to these children whom majority of parents have a middle class incomes and cannot afford the services and private schools mentioned in the previous article?

Will they grow up to be able to work, to contribute to Social Security?
I think not.
Yet, funding for Autism research, healthcare and therapies for these children seem to be at the bottom of the priority list for this country.

I decided to name my blog Autism Odyssey because an "Odyssey" is by definition a LONG and EVENTFUL  Journey.
That is EXACTLY what my travels through the Autism puzzle has been for me A LOONG and Very Event FILLED Journey....

I am hoping that by sharing some of my personal stories, my high and lows, I will help someone else along their own Autism Odyssey.

Hope you are ready for a long and bumpy ride!