Archive for the ‘Autism’ Category
Caring for Adults with Autism
As children with autism grow into adulthood, parents can often have an increasingly difficult time caring for them. Depending on the degree of autism, an adult with autism may be difficult to manage – both physically and emotionally – especially for aging parents who may have health issues of their own. Autism treatment for adults is not standardised; a lot depends on the parents’ financial resources, the severity of the disorder and the facilities that are available to them.
Adult day care centres for those with autism or other mental disorders can be extremely valuable for weary parents. Many facilities offer transportation to pick up clients and safely transport them to centres with the help of trained personnel to avoid the tussles of trying to coax an autistic adult into the car and safely delivering him or her to a facility. Centres have activities during the day geared to the functioning levels of the clients. Many facilities also have medical personnel, psychologists and occupational therapists available.
Group homes that provide permanent living quarters for autistic adults often feature personalised attention for a small number of residents, each of whom have their own room. For adults with autism who are capable of living on their own with a small amount of supervision, a group home may be the ideal solution. Larger group homes for individuals less able to cope with life in the outside world may become necessary when a family can no longer handle the demands of dealing with a severely autistic adult.
Many autistic adults can hold jobs and relish the structure connected with having a dependable routine. That said, finding a company willing to hire an adult with autism takes persistence; as many as 62 per cent of adults with autism do not work according to Autism Europe. For high-functioning autistics, not having a job contributes to their frustration and sense of worthlessness in a society that values the holding of a job. Teaching life skills important to obtaining and keeping a job can be an important part of autism treatment for adults capable of handling the responsibility of work.
For families wishing to keep their adult children at home, home modifications can help reduce the stress on both the family and the autistic adult. For those who wander, securing the perimeter of the house with a fence may be necessary. Durable furniture, bathroom modifications, alarm systems, tempered glass on windows can make life easier for the entire family.
For some families, simply figuring out their adult child’s favourite colour and painting walls and buying carpets or clothing in that colour can decreases destructiveness. People with autism often have strong colour and tactile preferences, and catering to those preferences can have a calming effect as well as decrease the desire to destroy or damage an item of a certain colour.
Parents of an adult with autism often live in a constant state of flux. A living situation that works today may not work tomorrow, especially as health and physical issues of the parents change with age. Keeping informed of the available options in case the need for them suddenly arises is one of the essential tasks of parenting adults with autism.