J.R. Reed

Are your rights worth anything if you’re not allowed to use them? Too many of us (I say is because I am on the spectrum) with autism or other developmental disabilities, have the ability to make their own life choices, but have them taken from us by family members and by the system. They feel that because of our intellectual disability we don’t have the cognitive ability to make those decisions, but they’re wrong. We’ll glean information from the leading expert in the field, attorney Jonathan Martinis, who won the landmark case, giving Jenny Hatch, a young woman with Downs Syndrome, the right to make her own life decisions with the help of trusted friends and to care for herself. We’ll discuss why this is important and why, in some cases, guardianships may be the way to go, but why they are the exception and not the rule. Supported decision making does NOT mean the person makes all the decisions on their own but rather, “Supported-Decision Making,” is where people work with truste

In his late 20’s came an ADHD diagnosis, followed by anxiety and depression in his thirties. It was a tough time for someone who felt weird and odd and had no answers as to why. Autism was first diagnosed in kids when he was 31, and in adults much later. Finally, 10 years ago, in his mid-forties, during a session with a psychologist, he was asked if autism had ever crossed his mind. It had, and so the next session was testing time. The boy, now a grown man, found out that indeed he had Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of high functioning autism. While walking out to the car after the diagnosis, he remembered saying to himself, I’m not weird, just autistic. Those words would shape the future of the foundation of the next chapter in his life.