Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Clinic Notes: Some Children with Autism Live in a Third World Country

Several times a week I get an email or a phone call from a mother who has a child with autism. The school system is not providing ABA services or if they are it is with a special ed teacher who has been sent to a one day workshop on ABA and told to provide ABA for too many children. If the child is receiving speech it is in a group and only several times a month. No evaluation by a pediatric neurologist, often no evaluation or services by an OT.
Mom wants to know if I can help. I tell her that I can see her child weekly and set up ABA programs to be run at home and hopefully in the school. And I can make the necessary referals that her child needs. Just talk to the special ed supervisor and see if they will pay for your child's services. Of course, after 35 years I know which school systems will pay and which ones won't. In some school systems the child with autism gets just about the same level of services if he or she lived in a third world country. Autism is treatable if you live in the right place or have money.