Alright – so, the autism & developmental disabilities monitoring (ADDM) report came out last week stating that nationwide autism is now at 1 in 59. This means every 59 children in the US – one has autism. The current sites of the ADDM are Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. The 11 communities surveyed in this report represent about 8 percent of 8-year-old children in the United States. It looked at about 300,000 children who were eight years old in those states within specific areas.
As you can see Minnesota is now among the states who count autism data for the first time in history mainly due to autism in the Somali community issues that we have raised for years now. Plus, the U of MN was kind enough to apply for this grant whereas MDH or the do nothing state health agency refused.
Well – so what does this data mean for autism in Minnesota and in nationwide? Nothing new here – we all knew the numbers would be higher. What was interesting was the number of minority children who were not Somalis being diagnosed increased. Some said it is due to awareness, maybe. Some said it is due to autism is hitting more minority kids now – maybe. Even though, this data specifically does not mention Somalis in Minnesota – some in the community have said it is now 1 in 26 for American children born to Somali parents in Mpls and St. Paul. Some in our community got angry and wanted what the state was going to do about this. Some even have called me asking what I was going to do about it. My response – nothing.
My goal and those that I advocated with have been to raise awareness of autism in our children. I think we did that fairly well. The next step is not ask what the state is going to do which is nothing especially the state health dept. Instead what new autism parents need to do is the following in my humble little opinion.
Gather specific data and numbers from U of MN especially Dr. Headache – sorry I meant Dr. Amy Hewitt who I saw mentioned Kristin and Jennifer from the U but not the one Somali person that also worked on the ADDM numbers – how lovely and how normal.
Then find an autism researcher who will research into why it is high in us and why it is silencing our kids.
Find where autism grants come from at the federal level – NIH, NIMH, NIEH, CDC, HRSA, etc. and see if they can allocate funding for Somali autism and causation research.
Contact your local legislators particularly Abdi Warsame and Ilhan Omar and see if they can allocate some kind of research funding for this.
Finally, make sure whatever you do there is language that says Somalis will be involved in it as the saying goes nothing about us without us.
Good luck! and always asking media coverage is helpful.
My favorite blog about the new ADDM numbers was this. Matt who was a fellow IACC member and an autism parent always writes about autism from a thoughtful perspective.
Above words do not reflect any agency, candidate or committee.
Idil – Autism Mom