and lenore can t find one. ok. when you re ready. reporter: lenore has taken nick for interviews at a number of agencies that provide social workers. but none of them have agreed to take his case. to raise an autistic child you almost, you can t you can t do it without the help. and right now um, i don t know how we re gonna do it. i don t know what kinda life he s gonna have because we re looking at a really barren landscape for him. i don t think i ve ever been more terrified than i am right now. reporter: autism advocate linda walder says government programs aren t designed for adults with autism. the problem is, is that system is really broken. it s dated. it s not addressing the needs of adults and the growing population of adults living with autism. reporter: it s not addressing the reality we have now.
we said we were looking for a program for someone with autism who was aging out. this is what we saw, at one a group of adults gathered in a room doing very little. at another, people with special needs are working, gluing strips of rubber to metal. a staff member tells us they spend most of their day in this room. the hours are from 8:30 to 3:00. reporter: and outside the facility there s barbed wire the staff says is there for safety reasons. and the thing is there are often huge waitlists to get into dayhabs like these. somebody who works for the state told me not to look at the state programs because they are terrible. reporter: that speaks volumes. that someone in the state system would say, don t come here. yeah. she said, honestly they re all horrible.
running around the apartment where he lives with his mother, father, and sister. he was a beautiful toddler, running up and down the halls, chasing our labrador retriever. he was such a loving child. and so attachd to me. reporter: but when he was about 18 months old, mary noticed eric only had a few words. and he d become repetitive playing an old cassette tape again and again. and so that was the first hint. the pediatrician then said, it s time to get him looked at. i don t think he got a full diagnosis of autism until he was three. but by two and a half, we were on it and had started therapies. reporter: you knew. we knew. we knew. reporter: eric started going to treatment centers to help him develop language skills. eric, do you want some bagel? you want bagel yeah. reporter: mary was building a career as a professional artist, but she put those ambitions on hold to care for her son full
i really need these people and i can t have them anymore. reporter: as an adult, eric will be eligible for social security. and he ll be able to apply for services funded by medicaid. but his parents have been warned that those programs will not be tailored to autism or build on the skills eric has mastered at the rebecca school. we just can t cut off educating and teaching and supporting people when they age out of their school program. reporter: linda walder is the executive director of the daniel jordan fiddle foundation a non profit think-tank devoted to studying the issues around adults with autism. because autism prevalence rates have more than doubled over the last decade, she says an estimated half a million young people with autism will age out in the next ten years. and it s a tsunami of children who are aging to adult life. do you stop having autism when you turn 21?
i built lessons. put together a daily plan for him. this is how it is set up for adults. you graduate and all education stops. and eric is nowhere near finished with his education. reporter: eric s parents are also paying out of pocket for activities to get him out of the house. he has a gym membership, a music therapy class, and a companion to take him places. but it all comes at a staggering cost. do you have any idea how much money you ve spent on care for eric? probably our least expensive year has been about $40,000. and the higher ones have been around $90. reporter: $90,000 dollars? for a year? yeah. we haven t been able to save any money. we don t have any retirement. but it s kind of like when people ask me, how much does it cost to raise a kid with autism? everything you ve got. reporter: for nick, there s