Young Adults

A collaborative effort to improve the outcomes for youth with autism spectrum disorder transitioning to adulthood has been awarded a total of $1 million over the next three years from the Cleveland Foundation. The grant will help to support the work of a three-year pilot in which The MetroHealth System, Autism Speaks and Milestones Autism Resources will partner to build a model of coordinated medical, behavioral and social transition planning that can be scaled and replicated in other locations, within Ohio and beyond. "Transition services and supports are critical for young people with ASD to be successful and participate to the fullest extent possible in the broader community. Transition planning should start early." The first seed for the collaboration was planted when Autism Speaks reached out to the Cleveland Foundation in the spring of 2021 to talk about the looming service crisis precipitated by the unprecedented number of adolescents with ASD leaving high school and flooding the adult disability system. The Cleveland Foundation recommended the national autism organization collaborate with MetroHealth to leverage their complementary strengths to build an autism transition model focused on planning for adulthood.

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A recent poll has found that 1.8 million people in the UK are self-medicating using cannabis, a 29 per cent rise from 2019. The number of people using weed to self-medicate is rising too, up 29 per cent since 2019, with Brits spending roughly £3.57 billion a year on cannabis for health reasons. As of March 2023, there are roughly 20,000 people in the UK using medical cannabis - but there should be so many more. "Patients are eligible to get a medical cannabis prescription if they have tried two traditionally prescribed medications that have not worked. Once you have proof of this, including your medical records and patient history, you will need to speak with a specialist or be referred to a specialist." Essentially, it's a long, drawn out process - so it's easy to see why some people choose to just hit up their dealer, in spite of the risks that come with it. Eve no longer self-medicates - she stopped once she discovered Sapphire Clinics, the UK's first private medical cannabis clinic - and now, she gets her weed prescribed. There's a reason people have been using cannabis for its medicinal reasons for centuries. There's still a long way to go - in terms of decriminalisation, legalisation, and improving access to medicinal cannabis - but the writing's on the wall, as more and more research seems to suggest that cannabis has the potential to transform the lives of neurodivergent people.

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Parents across the UK are forming partnerships with local councils to build pioneering supported-living homes for their severely autistic children. With growing numbers of parents increasingly unable to find suitable, safe and secure residential accommodation for their young adult children - and cash-strapped councils having to pay exorbitant costs when already expensive placements break down - the two are coming together to forge a solution. They then formed a charity, raised £250,000 and worked together with the council to create the 10-bed Linden Farm, which offers accommodation, activities and specialised care for severely autistic adults. Peter Lawrence said it was an "automatic response of social services" to send young adults out of county but it was potentially a recipe for other problems such as poor or inappropriate care. Sarah, the mother of a severely autistic young adult, recently submitted a proposal to her local council. Another parent who is also working on a proposal for their council, who asked not to be named, said: "The current situation [in my area] is unbelievably bad for profoundly autistic adults. "This is an area which is generating very significant financial pressure for both adults and children's social care services. The growing volume of children and young people with complex needs is outstripping the ability to commission arrangements."

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Odin, a remarkable 20-year-old, has defied expectations after being diagnosed with autism as a young child and being given a grim prognosis. Through sharing Odin's story, his family aims to encourage and uplift other families who have children with special needs, inspiring them to maintain a positive outlook despite the challenges they may face. "For us, we feel that people like Odin have been left out of conversations because of his disability," Tim told Yahoo Life. "The reality is he understands every single thing that's going on, his neurons just fire in a different pattern and he can't communicate the way he wants to. There's no disability that can stop Odin from seeing the world, and it's been really cool to see." Recently the family shared side-by-side photos of themselves, posing in front of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas in the same outfits and poses 20 years apart. "We wanted to showcase Odin's perseverance," Tim said. Last year Odin graduated with his best friend Jordon and the photo of the two of them years apart had gone viral.

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In continuing to examine how autistic individuals use Medicaid, recent research from Drexel University's A.J. Drexel Autism Institute has identified a trend in intellectual disability diagnoses among autistic young people that is likely indicative of a system-wide problem that makes it difficult for them to maintain coverage into adulthood. To examine this more closely, the Drexel team decided to look at whether autistic young people who experienced disenrollment from Medicaid were actually more likely than autistic young people who had not experienced disenrollment to be diagnosed with intellectual disability in adulthood. Led by Meghan Carey, a doctoral student in the Epidemiology and Biostatistics department in the Dornsife School of Public Health, the research team examined national Medicaid claims data from the 2008-2016 to study the probability of autistic young people, who did not have an intellectual disability diagnosis in their first year of Medicaid enrollment, receiving an intellectual disability diagnosis later. She also noted that while the co-occurrence of intellectual disability among the autistic population enrolled in Medicaid is common-about 25%-intellectual disability is most often diagnosable in early childhood, especially as children enter school when cognitive testing is delivered more frequently. Because most states don't have autism-specific criteria for Medicaid eligibility, Carey noted the research team hypothesized, and found, that autistic individuals who experience disruptions in Medicaid coverage-or periods of disenrollment-would be more likely accrue an intellectual disability diagnosis later, because in their home state, their autism diagnosis alone was potentially insufficient for retaining Medicaid coverage. A change to states' waivers that ensures adequate coverage for autistic people without a co-occurring intellectual disability diagnosis, and ensures continuity in coverage through adulthood, could be an effective approach to mitigate these disruptions to Medicaid coverage-and the need for people to be reexamined for intellectual disability diagnoses in young adulthood, according to the research team. More information: Meghan E Carey et al, Short report on navigating access to care for Medicaid-enrolled autistic youth and young adults: Examining accrual of intellectual disability diagnoses in adolescence, Autism.

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18-year-old Kymera Mitchell chose to go that route, and it seems she has plenty of options to choose from. According to ABC 7 Chicago, Mitchell was formally accepted into 19 colleges! Beyond that, she received eight full-ride scholarships. Mitchell was diagnosed with autism as a child, but she didn't let that slow her down. Mitchell maintained a 4.0 GPA as a student at Alcott College Prep. According to ABC 7 Chicago, Kymera Mitchell said: "If someone or a group of people try to stop you, don't let them do that, because you are way better than that." According to Good Morning America, Mitchell is planning to attend Columbia College Chicago in the fall. As the leading platform for native advertising and content recommendation, Revcontent uses interest based targeting to select content that we think will be of particular interest to you.

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