Timely and individualized publicly funded therapy denied to children with autism

Oct 14 2009

With October being Autism Awareness Month in Canada, Ontarians should be aware of the increasingly large gaps in services for children with autism in this province.

"Children with autism continue to be denied access to timely, sufficient and individualized publicly funded therapy. The refusal to meet our children's basic developmental needs means they regress in their skills and are robbed of their chance to live a normal, independent life," says Sharon Aschaiek, mother of Jaiden, 3, who has autism, and founder of Autism Resolution Ontario (ARO), a grassroots, non-partisan, parent-run advocacy group seeking to make publicly funded applied behaviour analysis (ABA) therapy, the most established and widely recommended scientifically proven autism intervention, more accessible to kids with autism in Ontario.

Among the core challenges parents face in trying to secure this vital therapeutic intervention for their children with autism are years-long waits, premature termination of therapy without evidence-based cause, and a lack of sufficient, individualized, authentic ABA at school.

Parents wanting to address their children's developmental needs face a price tag of approximately $50,000 per year for private ABA therapy-a cost that puts sufficient intervention out of reach for most families and prevents children from getting the help they need.

At its launch this past April, ARO issued the provincial government a one-year challenge to make significant progress towards achieving a well-designed, integrated, funded and managed set of services for children with autism in Ontario. Six months into its mission, ARO is disappointed to report that the provincial government continues to ignore the plight and the suffering of children with autism who are being insufficiently served by its autism intervention policies.