And if there were more funding for autism services, it isn't even clear which interventions might be most effective.
"There's been a huge public-health campaign about early screening for kids with autism. But it has really oriented our social concept [of] autism as a little-kid disorder," Shea says. "The problem is, without that same kind of knowledge base for adults, they're kind of flying blind."
Cori Frazer used to wonder whether she should tell potential employers she's autistic.
"I tried to disclose once in a cover letter and I never heard back," she says. Now she avoids mentioning it.
Over the past couple months, she estimates she's sent out a dozen job applications to every nonprofit social-service agency she can think of and "I've been to a lot of interviews. I don't know what I do wrong, but I don't get hired."
Though Frazer has been autistic her entire life, she wasn't diagnosed until last year. "I read a lot about people being diagnosed as adults and it was like looking in a mirror," the 23-year-old Frazer says. "I realized things I'd struggled with weren't personal failings."
Since the diagnosis, autism has become a central part of Frazer's life. To her, it isn't just an explanation of why she asks any question that pops into her head — or why, at age 5, she memorized every single breed of cat recognized in the United States.
She isn't afraid to correct you if you refer to her as "a person with autism." Instead, she prefers "autistic person" because "autism is a really big part of my identity. It isn't something you can leave behind — I don't need to be reminded of my personhood."
But unlike many of her autistic peers, she never benefited from the individualized education plans, therapies and other supports that many on the spectrum automatically receive.
And while she was an excellent student at West Greene High School — not far from where she grew up in rural Greene County — once she got to the University of Pittsburgh, the routine she'd mastered was gone.
"I was just completely out of sync," Frazer recalls. "I'd get really absorbed in a special interest and not eat or sleep or shower." She says she loved the freedom — and liked living closer to her boyfriend, whom she's still dating. But she'd also spend hours on end playing Pokémon
Frazer managed to graduate with a degree in social work — barely. She struggled through a number of setbacks, including the realization as soon as she got to campus that she has prosopagnosia, or an impaired ability to recognize faces, which made it difficult to make friends. After her brother was killed in a car crash, she was unable to complete that semester's coursework.
Now, she's hoping to find a job before applying to grad school for social work next year — and has applied for services from the state to help her.
Heather Conroy, a clinical social worker who privately works with and coaches college-age autistic adults, explains that people with autism may need help preparing for job interviews because they're filled with behavioral questions that are difficult to interpret.
Take the common question: "‘Why would I hire you over someone else?"
A person with autism might say, "Well I don't know, I haven't met them," Conroy says. "[An autistic person's] experience of this question is the literal language; your experience is ‘sell yourself.'"
And because autism may be an entirely invisible disability to an employer, "There is this expected level of [social] competency," Conroy says, even if it's irrelevant to the job.
To help overcome some of these problems, Frazer applied for a job counselor through the state's Office of Vocational Rehabilitation in the hopes of finding someone who can help her overcome the perception that she "come[s] off as withdrawn in interviews." In the meantime, she's starting a Pittsburgh chapter of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a Washington, D.C.-based organization she hopes to work for one day.
But like many with autism, Frazer is waiting. She applied for a counselor three months ago; it isn't clear when she'll get one.
