Federal (USA) Autism Reform Bill Proposed

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There has been a new Autism Reform Bill That Has Been Proposed and is gaining some movement on change.org The bill could have some disastrous results to autism self advocacy and those with autism.

The hell with that, man. That bill has got it all wrong. We don't need "intervention" or ABA or anything like that. And forcing the insurance companies to pay for quack treatments will only increase the cost of insurance for everyone. Everything else seem to be oriented towards parents instead of the autistic individuals themselves. It's not necessarily true that parents are the best advocates for their disabled children, especially when they become adults. That certainly was the case with me. The only good part of it is the second part that deals with abuse. Certainly more needs to be done to stop the widespread abuse of autistic individuals, mainly because so many have it in their heads that autistics are less worthy of being treated like human beings instead of animals (and even animals have legal protections against abuse).

What we really need is to be allowed to make decisions for ourselves and have more legal protections against discrimination and abuse of the system, especially when we become legal adults. This includes informing everyone of their legal rights and providing the means to defend those rights, such as having access to advocates and/or attorneys at no cost.

I myself could have benefited from such protections, but instead people in the system were able to get away with ignoring the rights I was supposed to have as an adult, including the right to make my own decisions about my education and employment options instead of those decisions being made by people who had no right to make those decisions. That did nothing but get me held back in life and resulted in my abilities going to waste instead of being put to good use.

Of course, most people dont give a s**t what we say.

No they don't. As far as most people are concerned, we're all "retarded" or minors who have no right to make their own decisions and there's no such thing as an emancipated autistic adult. We don't know what is "right" for us and we make poor decisions on our own, so we need others to make those decisions for us. We can be of legal age and still be relegated to the status of a minor with no right to have any control over our lives.

This happens even though there is no law that I know of that explicitly denies emancipation of anyone who has a mental or intellectual disability. With me, the people who were supposed to be working with me instead chose to dance around the fact I am a legal adult and instead claimed I was not emancipated and my disability limits my ability to function as an adult. That was total B.S. if you haven't figured it out yet.
This is exactly why very specific legal protections need to be enacted to protect those considered disabled from such abuse. Again, a disabled adult is still an adult.

I also would like to see more protections against discrimination as well. It's simply not acceptable to have so many highly functional people being pigeonholed into "special needs" environments which are absolutely inappropriate for them. Everyone has the right to be in the setting the is best suited for them, instead of being dumped into whatever is convenient for the system. Many issues with developmentally disabled such as "challenging behavior" is not really because of the persons' disabilities, but actually is quite often a result of being in a setting that is too restrictive, or is not meeting their needs in some way or another.

*sigh*...

just one more reason for me not to get an 'official' diagnosis...

so, what happens to those of us who have had the (mis)fortune of an official diagnosis and don't want any sort of "treatment" and refuse to have anything to do with that sort of thing?

(I'd be open to support though...)

We are not Mentally Retarded. We know what you're talking about when you're in the room, barring perceptive disorders like CAPD. We can make our own decisions.

It does not say anything about age guidelines??
But I am assuming that this would be for Elementary age children as well as Early Intervention.
I can't see how they can "generalize" a plan for Asperger's children. Each child is so unique.

Educating the school staff is very necessary. Many schools refuse to even acknowledge Asperger's and treat the children/students as behavior problems.

Here in the states, most parents struggle to get ANY type of service via the school. Everything we have done for our son that has really helped has not been covered by insurance. Most parents that I know could never afford to do this. We are very frugal with our money so we can pay for programs.

And making more services available to parents as well.

So if this is the reformed bill,what's is the original bill?And where can we find it?

If you could read you would learn that this bill is being pushed by some advocacy office in hawaii. No wonder people think were retarded

My dear, I think you are confusing an honest question with stupidity. I am very capable of reading and the internet is a very big place to search for information. Therefore,as one intelligent person to another, I would ask that you suspend your assumptions about my character as I have had the courtesy to suspend my judgment of yours.

I will when you learn to read before you ask questions.

Then point out the mistake.You are perfectly capable of doing so without name calling.I can only hope other people are more forgiving of your mistakes than you were of mine.

Nope, people need to learn to read something before they ask quesitons -