Why are military families losing health services – PB/TK
Albert’s world: Living with autism (US military families with autistic children fear for the future as a programme that provided respite care is cut) – By Dorian Geiger / June 25 2017
Kami Kondik stared at the door of her North Carolina home. It was wide open. And her four-year-old son, Albert, had vanished. She frantically searched the house but there was no trace of him.
Kami, who was six months pregnant at the time, called the police and then left the house to look for Albert.
“When you lose sight of the head that you know from every angle you want to break down and cry,” she recalls.
“I was sick to my stomach. It felt like my heart was beating out of my chest … I was scared to death.”
Although the family had installed multiple locks on their doors and sensory alarms, Albert, who is autistic, had recently become adept at escaping. Trying to manage that had become a daily fact of life for Kami, but it was one she feared others wouldn’t understand.
She eventually found Albert three or four blocks away from their home, walking towards a neighbourhood park, but the police, unaware of her son’s autism, accused her of child neglect.
“[I felt] insulted, like I was unfit to actually be his mum,” she says.
That was in 2013.
Continue to Aljazeera.com article: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/albert-world-living-autism-170615083345549.html
