Autism Hits Home Amid Funding Cuts

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Barbara and Billy D’Amora have three children, but their oldest son, Nicholas, 13, takes up a lot of their attention. Nick has autism.
“Everyone needs a piece of me,” Mrs. D’Amora said. “But Nick needs the most.”
The D’Amoras are one of the thousands of families affected by autism on Staten Island who depend on services funded through Medicaid and other programs to make life a little easier — and Nick is one of the many people with autism here who depend on those services to make his life brighter.
But as more and more children here and nationwide are diagnosed, wait lists for these services are only growing — and funding for programs like Medicaid are continually under threat of cuts or administrative changes.