What Becomes of Autistic Adults?

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In Lawrence, MA, there is a sad murder trial finishing up. A woman is being charged with the murder (via neglect) of her 9 year old autistic son. The boy died from cancer (leukemia), while his mother failed to give him anticancer drugs that were prescribed for an earlier cancer.
The descriptions of the boy's behavior are shocking-the child could not talk, was not toilet trained, and behaved like a wild animal.In addition to the autism, the boy had food allergies, and would only eat a few items of snack foods.
From what I read, the poor woman was essentially a slave-she had to quit her job to provide 24 hour care for her son. The two were living in anattic apartment, and had no assistance from the boy's father.
My question is: to autistic people like this boy ever improve as adults? Would this boy ever be able to live alone as an adult?

There is a man on this forum who describes his childhood self as "considered a vegetable".
He is quite active and smart, though obviously severily disabled.
Based on him as an example, some improvement is absolutely possible, for some it may be quite a lot of possible improvement, but don't expect a severily disabled child to grow up to be able to work full time and meet all the "standard" expectations as an adult.

I read an article of an Autistic girl who had little control of her body and could not communicate (so it appeared), until as a teenager somebody figured out she could type ----- then she went on to write books! (She continued to need significant physical support.)

I know of a man who had a stroke and could only move his eyes, and seemed unable to communicate. His family lovingly took care of him in their home for over ten years and was glad for it. His grandchildren miss him.

Helen Keller had companions who where by her side. This suits some people (as givers and receivers) and not others.

It saddens me that this parent and child could not get help. There are many free caregiver support resources where I live, including respite care.

I don’t feel all that sorry for the mom who failed to care for her son by neglecting to give him his medicine. It’s the child I feel sorry for.

I know some extremely poor parents of disabled children who receive full-time nursing care that’s entirely paid for by Medicaid. I worked with kids who have severe disabilities a couple of weeks ago. They had nurses for both the home and at school as well as various other supports in place. There are lots of services out there for families who need it. Disabled children qualify for numerous programs including case management which can help parents learn about and apply for everything that’s out there.

As a mom, I can’t imagine failing in this way. I say: “poor child” not “poor woman.” Parents need to follow necessary medical advice. If they can’t do so, they should let Children and Youth know about it.

There is one program in particular called the Son Rise program that I have looked into and contacted a couple years ago. They have had huge success in helping people like this boy be able to overcome their challenges and live productive and independent lives.

I recently finished the book Carly's Voice about an ASD-3 girl who, although remained non-verbal, became good at communicating on the computer. She has graduated college now and seemed to be doing OK until this: Carly Fleischmann Recent Sexual Assault

And now she has disappeared online. We're hoping she is OK.

The book helped me learn a lot about what it's like to bring up a kid like this and what it level of support it took to educate her.

These situations are not that unusual. I have worked with several families in similar situations and know of others without services.

There are two major crisis points.
1) when the child becomes big enough to hurt the parent, almost always the mother.
2) when the child turns 21 and almost all Medicaid services end.

CHILDREN: There are services for children through Medicaid in my state, but no respite based on autism diagnosis. Personal care assistance covers only the time needed for physical support like bathing or feeding, not supervision or respite. Medical necessity for these services has to be renewed with voluminous documentation every six months. Nursing care is covered BUT only for medical needs requiring a licensed nurse, not behavioral needs.

ADULTS: No services for Medicaid (except Medicaid health insurance). All that lovely nursing is not covered. Personal care is not covered. Etc. at age 22, school services discontinue and there is nothing to do except stay home. There is a Developmental Disabilities Waiver; it has a wait list of around 20,000 people. Every single legislative year, we have to fight for funds to maintain this program. Efforts to cut services are ongoing.

The only reason the family in the OP was noticed was because the mother was charged with murder. These are common situations and they are tragic.

The number one point is that a parent failed to give her son medication to treat his cancer.

Putting everything else aside, that’s a pretty huge deal and doesn’t look good.

^^^ Exactly. Sometimes instead of killing the child, she will kill herself. Families with children with profound autism are under unimaginable stresses. Even the mothers who somehow cope end up only loosely connected to regular reality.

I've seen some stories where the families just were able to deal with it, but they were often fairly wealthy. Low-income people who don't have support from friends and the local community are usually in big trouble.