Monday night we also traveled to one of the Autism society buildings where we had a meeting with the staff from the Health Care Initiative to find out how we were helping with the event. We soon found out that we were basically running the event! We were thrilled! The event was called Colorado consumer health initiative day and there were so many activities to do in such little time.
We planned to set up the breakfast and then lead lobbyers to the Capital building to lobby and then afterwards set up a rally and cupcakes to distribute and celebrate the two year anniversary of the health care act being passed. This was planned for Wednesday. In order to get to the Autism building for this meeting we got to ride the light train and learn to purchase a ticket. We also went downtown and saw 16th street, which is kind of like Mass street and did a little shopping and sight seeing.
Tuesday was our day to go to the office and do some things around the office and during lunch we went to an autism presentation where lunch was served and we learned all about the disorder and got to meet with people who were personally affected by this.
In the office my duty was to call those who had been to this presentation and ask what they thought about it, what they would have changed or added and if they would continue to stay involved with the Autism society of Colorado. This was a really insightful experience for me because of the reactions I was receiving from these people personally affected by autism.
One man I called told me that him and his wife just found out that their child has autism and they didn’t know where to begin and just became so overwhelmed with the fact,that they panicked. I became involved in his ad her situation and began to feel what they were feeling. He told me that he couldn’t sleep at night and that the presentation was overwhelming looking at all of the costs and expenses as well as the time and pressure. He said that when he was looking at the pamphlet handed out in the lecture, that it said that his child may not have many friends. This really affected him and he was in total shock, but said the Autism society is his only hope.
Some of the things that I found out about Autism in this lecture were:
- Autism affects brains normal development of social and communication skills
- The Autism society of Colorado was found in 1970 by parents fighting for their children
- The annual cost to the us economy from autism is $60 billion dollars
- Treatment is affective, but there is no cure
- It is 44% unexplained
- Screening for autism needs to occur at 18-24 months and can potentially be in 1st grade normally
- In Colorado the average age of diagnosis is 5 years, which is not good.
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