Danny Combs

I think the more of those that of us that get our voices out there and together again, uniformly, I think the more likely we are to get some people higher up that can really join us in making that change.

And I would like to see that take place if possible.

That's such a great question on so many levels, because one of the things that's a very real

I don't want to say fear, but a very real train that's coming down the tracks.

I don't know what a better way to say it is what's happening now is for the autism community.

There's a large number that live at home with aging caregivers.

This is the first generation of autistic individuals that for a lot of them or a large group of them did not end up in institutions, which in my mind is a good thing.

However, we have not in that same period of time built up the infrastructure to support them outside of institutionalism other than their parents.

And when you look at how parents are getting older, and in a lot of cases, parents are in their 70s or 80s and still taking care of their autistic child, what happens next?

And for some reason, that's another elephant in the room that no one is talking about.

So I think using that as an example for the current parents of younger children, recognizing they have to start looking at programs like this and investing in real opportunity for their kids for the future, because another generation of parents trying to take care of their life, while awesome, is not going to be sustainable.

What that looks like, I don't have the answer for that one.

I think that's a whole other nut that needs to be cracked, you know, housing and living situation.

But it's something that is going to be, I'm guessing, very regularly talked about here in the next couple years, because I don't know what's going to happen to those individuals when their parents really start passing.

And there's going to be a lot of them that's going to start happening.

And there you see little pockets of housing initiatives or inclusive housing initiatives taking place, which is great, but it's certainly not enough that's going to capture everybody at that point.

Good for you.

Congratulations.

I think I would love to leave the listeners with a thought that our kids can do amazing things when we give them the opportunity to do those amazing things and to not limit their scope of what they think is achievable.

I mean, you talked about autism level one, two, three, or if you were talking about cis levels one through seven, our kids and ourselves get put into boxes.