Capital Area Autism Network

April is Autism Acceptance Month.

Not Awareness Month — Acceptance Month. And there's a difference that matters.

Awareness means knowing autism exists. Acceptance means actually building a community where autistic adults can live, work, and participate fully.

Baton Rouge is good at the first one. We're still working on the second.

In our latest NeuroPulse, we introduce Jordan — a 26-year-old who aged out of the school system five years ago, has been on the NOW waiver waiting list for four years, and is figuring it out largely on his own. He's employed. He's capable. The system still failed him.

Jordan is what happens after Marcus. And he deserves a community that was built with him in mind.

Read Issue 3 at the link below. And if you're an autistic adult in the Capital Area — or if you know one — we want to hear from you. Your experience is what shapes what we build.

👉 https://shorturl.at/8stxe

Families raising a child with autism in the Capital Area do something most people never have to do. They become the project manager of their child's care.

They coordinate between the pediatrician who made the diagnosis, the school that runs the IEP, the therapists who provide services, and the state agencies that control what support is available as an adult.

None of those systems talk to each other.

The family carries the weight of connecting them.

We call this the Silo Tax.

Capital Area Autism Network exists to fix the systems side of this equation. Not another therapy provider — the organization that gets all those systems in the same room. We’re doing that work right now. And later this year, we’re publishing the data that shows exactly where things stand.