What happens when Autism Grows Up?

Capital Public Radio launched its multimedia documentary series The View From Here with a personal, in-depth look inside the lives of adults with Autism today. The whole project, including full-length Web stories, slides shows, Web-only videos and resource links, is available anytime at www.capradio.org/view.

"We've been building our documentary unit over the last year and a half, so it's exciting to officially launch The View From Here as a full-fledged series with this program," says Joe Barr, Capital Public Radio's Director of News and Information. 

Autism Grows Up was reported by former CEHJF Fellow Pauline Bartolone, Ben Adler and Julia Mitric, with multi-media producer Andrew Nixon. CEHJF13 Fellow Catherine Stifter co-produced the radio documentary with Paul Conley. It took a total of 14 team members four months to create all the content for the project.  We were inspired to to cover this topic and amplify the voices of autistic adults from the time that we found out about the lack resources for the growing number of autistics over the age of 22.

In the 1990s autism rates around the US began to rise. Each year since then thousands of California children have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. Now, these children are "aging out" of school-based special education programs. Each of them enters adulthood with a unique combination of social, behavioral and communication deficits that promises an unusually challenging life. The View From Here: Autism Grows Up follows four adults in the Sacramento region with autism who are aiming for a life of choice and opportunity.

The View From Here multimedia documentary series was made possible in part by funding from The California Endowment, the California HealthCare Foundation and Sierra Health Foundation.