State puts focus on Autism Disorder

State House News Service & The Boston Globe

Date: April 13, 2004

By summer 2005, parents of children with autism will have an official clearinghouse to find information and support services, state officials said yesterday.

At a State House ceremony marking April as Autism Awareness Month, parents cheered as Gerald Morrissey, the commissioner of mental retardation, announced the creation of the Division of Autism Spectrum Disorders to oversee services and support for families. Morrissey said the office would respond to parents and legislators concerned that services are available only after battles with state bureaucracies.

"We need a system that works for kids, families, and adults across the state," Morrissey told members of the Statewide Coalition for Autism. "We can't rely on parents finding a solution on their own."

The office, now in the planning stages, is set to open in full by July 2005, the start of the 2006 fiscal year. Still to be determined are its funding and staffing, he said.

When the state split the departments of Mental Health and Mental Retardation in 1987, "it left people with autism spectrum out in the cold," said Representative Barbara L'Italien, Democrat of Andover, whose 13-year-old son has Asperger's syndrome, a neurobiological disorder in which autistic-like behaviors are exhibited.

The Department of Public Health is working on a study, due out in December, on the number of children under 18 with autism in Massachusetts.