Michelle Diament

4 days ago | disabilityscoop.com | Michelle Diament

Autism advocates are pushing back after U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that kids who are on the spectrum will never have a job, play baseball, go on a date and more. At a press conference last week in response to new data showing that autism rates are rising, Kennedy painted a grim picture of life with the developmental disability. “These are kids who will never pay taxes. They will never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem.

1 week ago | disabilityscoop.com | Michelle Diament

Federal officials are releasing new data showing that the estimated number of U.S. children with autism has increased once again. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that 1 in 31 children are on the autism spectrum. The figures published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report are based on information collected on 8-year-olds in 16 communities in 2022 through the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring, or ADDM, network.

2 weeks ago | disabilityscoop.com | Michelle Diament

The nation’s top health official is promising to determine by this fall why autism rates have surged in recent decades. In a cabinet meeting Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services said that his agency is working to find out what’s behind the rapid rise in prevalence of the developmental disability and he committed to an ambitious deadline to reach a conclusion.

2 weeks ago | disabilityscoop.com | Michelle Diament

Federal lawmakers are seeking answers from the U.S. Department of Education amid efforts to shutter the agency and reassign “special needs” programs elsewhere. In a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, 23 Democratic senators are warning that dismantling the agency will “cause immense harm” to students with disabilities.

3 weeks ago | disabilityscoop.com | Michelle Diament

Mass firings at a federal agency supporting community living efforts for people with disabilities are fueling concerns that funding will be disrupted and programs could be forced to close.