HERE
When Lubbock resident Robin Raney took her 18-year-old daughter to visit The Burkhart Center for Autism Education and Research this summer, she felt like she was sending Katie off to college.
The high school senior with autism is not quite ready for the higher education experience, Raney said, and her family has searched for years for what her next step will be when she graduates.
?It was like she had grown up in another country and didn?t look the same and didn?t talk the same and couldn?t communicate with other people around her,? said Robin Raney, who also serves on an advisory board for college students with developmental disabilities. ?When she walked in the (Burkhart Center), for the first time in her life, she felt like she had friends. She had never really had a friend.?
According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, autism, or autistic spectrum disorder, is a developmental disorder that appears in the first three years of life and affects the brain?s normal development of social and communication skills. ?
Established in 2005, the Burkhart Center for Autism Education and Research is named for Jim and Jere Lynn Burkhart, who have made significant contributions to the establishment and supported the center.
The couple raised their autistic grandchild, and traveled across the country searching for answers.
?We have had Collin for 25 years, and 25 years ago, there was nothing at all for autism,? Jere Lynn Burkhart said. ?No one knew the word, even. In fact, Jim kept thinking they were saying ?artistic? instead of ?autistic.? We had to travel all over the United States. We had people come into Tulsa at the time, and spent a great deal of money trying to find out what to do with our autistic grandson. No one could diagnose for sure what the problem was. That?s why I didn?t want other parents to have to go through what we did. (We wanted) a place that they could go and have a diagnosis, and get help and be trained to help their child.?
The Burkhart Center?s primary objectives are to provide support and services for individuals with autism spectrum disorders and their families, train regular and special education teachers and conduct applied research that will increase the quality of life of those affected by ASD, the release states.
My comment:
Nowhere in this piece are we told why this is happening. The Burkharts claim that 25 years ago there was ?nothing at all for autism.? Suddenly today autism is being talked about everywhere in the U.S. Currently one in every 88 kids has autism, including one in every 54 boys. No one can explain why this is happening. The tired claim that it?s all just better diagnosing of a condition that?s always been around makes no sense. No one has ever been able to show us a comparable rate among adults. Officials tell us that 80 percent of Americans with autism are under the age of 18. That simple fact should scare us all. Officially, autism has no known cause or cure. There?s nothing a mainstream doctor can tell a new mother so that her healthy baby doesn?t also end up on the autism spectrum.
All of this is proof that we need to honestly and thoroughly address what?s causing this epidemic. If not, there?ll never be enough facilities or money to provide for all the disabled adults in the very near future.
Anne Dachel, Media editor: Age of Autism
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