I recently posted the press release for Prof. Shattuck’s latest paper. At the time, the video was only on his university’s webpage. Now that the video has been posted to YouTube, I can embed it and you can hear Prof. Shattuck telling you about the important points himself:
I apologize that there do not appear to be an option for subtitles.
Left Brain Right Brain 
I am a older adult that has found a lack of services and a poor attitude from people at state rehab agencies.
One aspect I am struggling to understand with this. Are the ‘drop off rates’ a product of a lack of services being offered, or are they the result of young adults not taking up the services? I note the particular reference to African-American populations, which leads me to think the greater issue may be the choice of Autistic teenagers to disengage with service providers, as much as it is to do with inadequate service provision.
Sharon:
The problem with my son is that he refused to cooperate. He was getting job coaching and guidance from the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. He worked with them for a while, but when they asked him to shave his beard and were pushing him into grocery store, instead of the data entry job (which he did well), he stopped cooperating.
He also needs psychological help. I did take him to a psychologist when he was in high school. It did help, it made him engage with his classes and start doing his homework. The psychologist had us drop him because my son refused to even talk to him. Sigh.
His ambitions, unfortunately, do not match his abilities. He actually wants to run his own business, but he is limited by his language/speech skills. So he takes community college classes, and we hope as the years go by his maturity level will increase.
We just cling to any glimmer of hope. Though we do realize that time is running out and that in three years he can no longer be covered by our health insurance. If he cannot be on his own we will have to obtain legal guardianship, but that may be difficult because he was rejected from the state’s Department of Developmental Disabilities. He is “too able.”
Though he may qualify in the category of mental illness. Unfortunately I am starting to see signs that he may be going down the path of a very ill relative who spent time in the psyche ward, and now resides in cemetery up the street. Now there is an area where inadequate service provision is an understatement! It has put a severe strain on our family, and I am trying to figure it all out. I just put this book on hold at the library. I also spent time in the college library reading the issue of Nature dedicated to schizophrenia (one dubious advantage of having two children attending the community college who do not drive is that I can spend time in its library when they have adviser appointments… otherwise they take the bus, a library that has subscriptions to the New York Times, Nature, JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine!).
@ Chris, thanks for your thoughful response. Your story exemplifies what I was considering when I wrote the above commment. Teenagers and young adults are notoriously difficult to engage, or keep engaged ASD or otherwise. I would have appreciated some discussion or acknowldgement of this fact by Prof. Shattuck. It is a specific challenge for service providers to think creatively about how they go about keeping these at risk people linked in somehow. Intensive, outreach programs tend to do well in my experience, but are expensive. Then again so is institutional care.
I wish you and your son all the best.
Closed captioning does seem to be available – I could click on the red “cc” and select “transcribe audio – BETA” — it brought up captions. Not 100percent accurate. But mostly.
Agreed, Sharon and Chris, teens and young adults are very difficult to engage in services. Part of what needs to happen before these kids “fall off the cliff” is that school-provided services help them to understand what these services have to offer them. And these services need to be offered in ways that respect the young person’s autonomy and dignity. When they have learned to associate services with being treated with condescension and being told what to do by adults, who would want services?