Hundreds of Maine children and young adults with developmental disabilities are on a waitlist to receive support services in their home.
These services help kids learn independent skills so they can function in daily life. But the wait can be so long, sometimes extending years, that some families say their kids regress to the point where they have to be placed in residential group homes. Critics say this lack of support during critical childhood years sets kids up for a life of dependency.
Each day when Cathy Dionne returns home from work, her son Ben is sitting with his iPad in their living room. Ben is 24 and has autism. He’s nonverbal, so he uses the iPad to communicate.
Ben is not only able to work a few hours a week at Paris Farmers Union filling bags of birdseed, he’s able to be on his own for a few hours each day after he gets dropped off from a day program. Achieving this kind of independence was a painstaking process, Dionne said.
“Everything that we’ve taught Ben, it’s not just — going to take a couple months,” she says. “It’s always years. Seven years to potty train. Six years to tie his shoe. It took a year and half for him to learn to unlock the doors.”
The County is pleased to feature content from our sister company, Bangor Daily News. To read the rest of “Hundreds of Maine kids with developmental disabilities on waitlist for needed services,” an article by Maine Public reporter Patty Wight, please follow this link to the BDN online.
