Opportunities to interact
This parent found the solution to her high-functioning autistic adult child’s inactivity.
HER daughter’s autistic behaviours worsened six months after high school.
Austen Wheeler was screaming more. She was crying. She was biting herself and watching Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues, TV shows that the 18-year-old hadn’t watched in years.
Jamie Wheeler-Matlock was beginning to see the answer to a question she had long feared: What would happen when her autistic daughter graduated?
Austen loved going to high school. She sang in the choir and performed in theatre. She had so many friends that her mum called her the school mascot.
Then, Austen graduated. Choir and theatre stopped. Her friends left for college.
What was once a full day of activities shrunk to a daily twohour autism transition programme that was meant to help Austen find a job, but less than 16% of autistic adults find full-time work, according to a 2016 survey from the National Autistic Society. The survey also revealed that 51% of autistic adults who work have jobs beneath their skill set.
That’s what happened with Austen.
She cleaned tables at a nursing home. She blacked-out magazine addresses in hospitals. She ripped out hard-drives in a windowless room at a computer repair shop.
The menial jobs frustrated her. Like many autistic people, Austen is creative. She once taught herself how to read and loves talking with people. Both Jamie and her husband worked, so every week, it was a challenge to find someone to watch Austen. They tried a dayschool programme but those can be expensive and cater to low-functioning special needs adults.
Jamie was running out of options. Last December, two years removed from high school, Austen was spending her days alone in front of a TV or computer.
No organisation existed for higher-functioning autistic adults, one that was affordable and provided a group of friends and daily opportunities to interact with the community.
So in January, Jamie created one: Austen’s Autistic Adventures.
Out in society
On a recent Tuesday morning, seven months after she started the non-profit, Jamie was pulling out of her driveway on her way to the zoo.
She quit her job as an adjunct professor in May to pursue Austen’s Autistic Adventures fulltime. The non-profit schedules daily activities for high-functioning autistic adults, which typically means they can communicate, use a restroom and follow requests.
“Instead of trying to hide their behaviours or prevent their behaviours, which are different no doubt, we need to take them out into society every day,” said Jamie, who suggested that many people have never met someone with autism.
The activities differ, from a movie with bottomless popcorn to dance parties. They go rock climbing and visit museums. They learn how to create papier-mache puppets.
The daily events cost US$20 (RM86) to US$25 (RM107) each and are listed on Jamie’s website. They last roughly three hours, mainly because social interaction is challenging for people on the autism spectrum.
Jamie has about six to 10 regulars, ranging in age from 16 to 28. She caps every event at 15 people. Multiple volunteers tag along, with a ratio of at least one aide for every two autistic adults.
Search for solutions
Jamie isn’t the only parent of an autistic adult that sought a solution in North Texas. A Dallas couple is planning to build a US$12mil (RM51mil) community for young adults with autism.
Leslie Long, vice president of adult services with Autism Speaks – an organisation that promotes solutions for people with autism – said this is a growing trend across the country.