ASAT
ASAT Responds to News.com.au's "Cost of autistic children cripples parents up to $50,000 a year"
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Dear
Ms. Hansen,
Thank
you for your recent article surrounding the high costs of autism treatment, "Cost of autistic children
cripples parents up to $50,000 a yearâ€
(February 12, 2012).
We would like to
invite your readers to consider this: The human and financial costs of
children with autism who do NOT receive adequate treatment can cripple parents
for a lifetime. Furthermore, excluding
this group of vulnerable children from intensive behavioral treatment may very
well result in the Government of Australia paying for their housing when these
children reach the age of majority and become wards of the state. There is research demonstrating a savings of one
to two million dollars over the lifetime of a person with autism if he or she
is provided effective, science-based early intervention when they are children.
This
also begs the question as to why children with autism in Australia are not
covered for their core health need. We
understand that Australia has a governmental health care system that purports
to cover all Australian citizens. Why is
it that children with autism are excluded from the health care system when it
comes to treatment for their autism? This appears to be prima facie discrimination
against this vulnerable group of children.
Receiving a diagnosis of autism for a child can be
incredibly challenging and overwhelming for many parents. Sadly, as your
article illustrates, this is compounded by the struggles to find the money
needed to fund needed treatment. Given
the financial constraints facing many countries, it is essential that funding
sources to make careful decisions
about how to best allocate financial resources. More specifically, adequate funds should be
allocated for interventions that are based on the best available science
and funding for treatments with no published track record of success should be
limited. Any discussion about autism costs should recognize that there are
hundreds of treatments that are privately and/or publicly funded that have
never been shown to be effective through published research; some of these
treatments have actually been shown to be harmful.
The scientific literature in autism treatment tells us
that children with autism benefit from intensive, systematic, and structured
intervention. One hour of
intervention per week is a travesty. It is often helpful to compare autism
treatment to the treatment of other medical conditions. As a society, we would not tolerate a child
with leukaemia only receiving one-tenth of chemotherapy or a child with a
streptococcus infection who only received 5 mg versus 100 mg of
antibiotics.
The
reality is that thousands and thousands of Australian children with autism will
soon become thousands and thousands of young adults with autism. Effective intervention while children are
school-age can make a huge difference in attenuating family hardship over the
lifespan, monies allocated for services in adulthood, and, perhaps more importantly,
lost human potential.
Australia can do better!
David Celiberti, Ph.D., BCBA-D
Sabrina Freeman, Ph.D.
Association for Science in Autism Treatment
Read More at http://www.news.com.au/.../story-e6frfkvr-1226269021201#ixzz1mAOttMLt
