ALBANY — Cohoes resident Heather Jordan lives in a house with holes in every wall, a dented stainless-steel refrigerator and doors that have at one time or another been ripped off their hinges. Her 19-year-old son, Terry, is responsible for the damage.
Terry, who is nonverbal and diagnosed with the most severe form of autism, experiences episodes when he becomes very aggressive, often ramming his head into people like Jordan, walls and even lockers at school.
According to Autism Speaks, Terry’s level 3 autism requires “very substantial support” and involves an “extreme difficulty coping with change.” Care and medication provided by a psychiatric nurse practitioner at the Center for Disability Services, or CFDS, has helped improve Terry’s meltdowns by 75%, Jordan said. But the CFDS recently announced it “plans to stop offering psychiatry services” on Dec. 31, leaving Terry — and around 1,100 others — scrambling to find new services…