Where Do You Want Autism Funding To Go?

I mean selfishly I would say towards reducing the social isolation of interlectually able autistic adults. I apreciate there are many other good, arguably more worthy, causes. But we are the cinderelas of the autism services world. We are basicly treated as if we are invisable.

Well, we are a minority and we have lesser need for support. I had seen high support people, and I can accept the fact that they will get priority. Some of them were unable to take a shower or get an haircut without extensive help from a support worker.

yes I have heard these arguments before. but when you factor in depresion and sucide rates into it you need to reasses things. Suporting people to feel like life is worth living is as inportant as suporting people to live. And again autistic people of normal or abouve average inteligence make up the majority of autistic people.

yes I have heard these arguments before. but when you factor in depresion and sucide rates into it you need to reasses things. Suporting people to feel like life is worth living is as inportant as suporting people to live. And again autistic people of normal or abouve average inteligence make up the majority of autistic people.

Here's an article that might give you guys a bit of food for thought.

www.longdom.org/.../gabr-genes-autism-spectrum-disorder-and-epilepsy-2165-7890-1000131.pdf

There is no value in acknowledging the way the world is now unless you have a plan to make it better.

You are talking about how the world should be. I agree with you, by the way, but I know that there is no hope to see it happen.

I am talking about how the world is now.

We are just talking about different things.

so your argument in a nut shell is that autism specific funding (which pays for things like sensory rooms and day trips) should be cut and spent instead on basic care needs for disabled people in general (like pip and social care)? Because that's what it sounds like you are saying.

If not lets look at it this way? Isn't a high functioning (as measured by IQ) autistic adult having he opportunity to have a social life as important as a low functioning autistic kid having a sensory room?

Lol, that's the usual impasse that I meet when talking with ASD people. They drone and drone about how the world should be. They ignore any argument about how the world effectively is. For the sake of discussion:

I agree that there should be funding allocated for high functioning people and their needs. Too bad that in the real world, the NHS has no money to spend for that. I met parents of severe needs children that were forced to pay for private carers due to the abysmal quality of NHS care. Hoping that NHS would ever allocate funding for somebody like us is wishful thinking. I spent about one year trying to get NHS assistance, every single time I was told: "we have nothing in place for people like you. We can barely provide assistance to people with complex needs." 

Peter said:

we can assume these needs have already been addressed.

Well, they are not.

That argument has several failings.

in particular low functioning people do not roll in their own filth, at least not for very long. Individuals with that level of need are either  cared for by their families or institutionalised. Now there may be some autistic people who struggle with day-to-day functioning who live in dirty houses and eat unhealthy meals, these are the kind of individuals who would qualify for PIP payments. Again this is not autism specific funding, this is general social care funding.

most of those who have these extreme every day care needs will have those needs met out of funding which is for disabled people in general not specifically for autism. When we are talking about how autism specific funding should be spent we can assume these needs have already been addressed.

The kind of things autism specific funding is spent on with regards to low functioning people is things like sensory rooms or carers to facilitate special day trips. That is the kind of funding we are talking about here and discussing how it should be spent.

Peter, you are overtly optimistic, a common trait in ASD.

Social services are stretched beyond any breaking point. There is barely enough to give some support to people that just cannot survive on their own. If you can live without rolling in your own filth, then NHS has no resources left to help. They can barely keep the low-functioning people alive. People like us have priority zero.