Once defined by a profound lack of contact and extremely ritualistic behavior, the definition has since broadened to acknowledge a wide range of characteristics, with different manifestations and levels of severity.Īccording to the National Institute of Mental Health, autism is “a brain disorder that typically affects a person’s ability to communicate, form relationships with others and respond appropriately to the environment,” symptoms that begin to surface only after the first few years of life. The report warns, however, that there are also more people living in California now, period.Ĭhanges in number may reflect changes in the definition of autism, and improved recognition of the disorder as well, cautions the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Tallying Upīut does that make Brick the latest cluster in a nation of at-risk communities, or simply indicative of a greater trend? A 1999 report by the California Department of Developmental Services cited a 273 percent increase in the number of people receiving autism services between 19. “If I took you on a walk outside I could take you to 12 children with autism in 10 minutes,” says Bobbie. When Bobbie and her husband Billy first started a parents group called POSSE to get special services for their children, they began to realize just how many families in their community struggled with autism. He prankishly changes the color of all the icons on the family computer to black, and downloads screen savers from mysterious locations.īut Allana and Austin are hardly the newest, or even most challenged, kids on the block. Like the Rain Man’s ability to memorize phone books and count at near-warp speeds, Austin, too, has some savant skills. I can’t ask her how her day is-she doesn’t even know I’m asking.” Her eight-year-old son, Austin, is non-verbal. “She is very limited in her ability to speak. Unfortunately, the same could be said for many of her Brick Township, New Jersey neighbors.īobbie’s nine-year-old daughter, Allana, has infantile autism, the most severe form of this developmental brain disorder. “That was all a lot of people knew about autism for a very long time.” Her limited perception of the disorder, which Dustin Hoffman’s K-Mart- and Judge Wapner-obsessed character brought into the public’s consciousness, was about to change drastically. “My first introduction to autism was Rain Man,” says Bobbie Gallagher of the 1989 movie.

Brick township autism