“We need people working together across the board, enlightened and motivated. And nobody does that better than Autism Speaks,” Smith told the autism advocates assembled at the Congressional Autism Champions reception in Washington on Monday in the lead up to their annual advocacy day—June 17^th. 

     “Share your insights and experiences with your Representative,” said Smith who is a founding co-chair of the bipartisan, bicameral autism caucus, formally known as the Coalition for Autism Research and Education (C.A.R.E.). “Your first-hand knowledge is absolutely critical to good legislation.”  He also encouraged them to urge their representatives to join the autism coalition. 

    “The Coalition for Autism Research and Education is a bipartisan group of like-minded members of Congress working to enhance our federal response to autism, increase research, improve services and supports, and expand access to effective therapies for persons on the spectrum,” continued Smith who co-chairs the caucus with Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA). “We are really on the verge of breakthroughs.”

    Smith listed a number of recent Coalition accomplishments including obtaining research funding through agencies at the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Defense (DoD), seeking a roadmap to better anticipate and address the needs of the aging out generation, and passing the Autism CARES Act.

    “This year, our Coalition, working with Autism Speaks and other advocates, successfully secured $7.5 million for Autism research in the FY 2016 DOD spending bill,” Smith said. This funding will directly serve the interests of DOD families touched by autism as well as the medical, educational, healthcare and service professionals who serve the needs of the autism community within and beyond DOD.

    Smith also raised the huge yet largely invisible aging-out crisis: “What do we do about the 50,000 young people with autism who matriculate into adulthood every year? We are ill prepared as a nation, as are other countries around the world.  From jobs, to housing and continuing education, we must address these issues.”

     Smith’s most recent autism law, the 2014 Autism CARES Act (PL 113-157), authorized $1.3 billion for federally funded research over five years and started a national conversation on how to understand and meet the needs of the aging-out population. Specifically, Smith’s law tasks federal agencies with undertaking a comprehensive review of current federal policies and programs impacting individuals with disabilities who transition from a school based support system to adulthood and make recommendations to improve outcomes.  

    According to the most recent estimates from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released in 2014, about 1 in 68 children in the U.S. has been identified with ASD. In Smith’s home state of New Jersey, 1 in every 45 children has ASD, the highest rate in the study. 

    Smith has been involved with the autism community for nearly 20 years. In 1998, a Brick Township, N.J. couple, Bobbie and Billy Gallagher, who had two children with autism approached him about a possible autism cluster in their neighborhood. The meeting led Smith to petition the federal government to investigate autism incidence rates in New Jersey and the US, and ultimately to his authorship of the 2000 Autism Statistics, Surveillance, Research and Epidemiology Act (Title I of the Children’s Health Act, PL 106-310)—the first major federal response to autism.

    Smith has also authored the 2011 Combating Autism Reauthorization Act, (Public Law 112-32), which is built on by the Autism CARES Act (PL 113-157). 

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