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State Medicaid programs now have to cover a range of treatments for autism.

When Yuri Maldonado's 6-year-old son was diagnosed with autism four years ago, she learned that getting him the therapy he needed from California's Medicaid plan for low-income children was going to be tough.

Medi-Cal, as California's plan is called, does provide coverage of autism services for some children who are severely disabled by the disorder, in contrast to many states that offer no autism coverage. But Maldonado's son was approved for 30 hours a week of applied behavioral analysis, a type of behavior modification therapy that has been shown to be effective with autistic children, and she was worried that wasn't enough.

So she and her husband, neither of whose jobs offered health insurance, bought an individual private policy for their son, with a $900 monthly price tag, to get him more of the comprehensive therapy.

"I don't know any family that can really afford that," says Maldonado. "We made some sacrifices."

That should be changing soon. In July, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said comprehensive autism services must be coveredfor children under all state Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program plans, another federal-state partnership that provides health coverage to lower-income children.

The new coverage guidelines apply to children with autism spectrum disorder, a group of developmental conditions including autistic disorder and Asperger's syndrome. Roughly 1 in 68 children has an autism spectrum disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Association of Maternal Child Health Programs estimates that just over a third of them get coverage through Medicaid or CHIP.

Although coverage of applied behavioral analysis, which uses positive reinforcement and other techniques to encourage behavior change, isn't explicitly required, advocates expect it will be covered.

"Since ABA is the most accepted, effective treatment that isn't experimental and investigational, you can't just exclude it entirely," says Daniel Unumb, executive director of Autism Speaks' legal resource center.

"It's going to help a ton," says Maldonado. "We'll be able to pay our rent on time, and we'll be able to pay some bills that we have."

It is possible to recover from autism, say researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College and the University of Denver, who followed 85 children from the time they were diagnosed as toddlers until they were in their late teens.

Their study, reported online May 30 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, finds that 9 percent of the group improved to the point that they no longer met the diagnostic criteria for autism. Another 28 percent retained features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), such as impaired social functioning, but were doing very well in several areas, particularly cognitive and academic functioning, the researchers report. Many in both groups were enrolled in college

"This rate of improvement is much higher than has been reported before, and that fact offers some very good news," says the study's senior investigator, Dr. Catherine Lord, founding director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain, a collaboration between Weill Cornell Medical College, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The children who recovered from autism were not misdiagnosed with the disorder as toddlers, Dr. Lord says. At the time of their diagnoses, these children exhibited telltale ASD symptoms such as repetitive behaviors and social dysfunction.

Relying heavily upon the expert testimony of a noted behavior analyst in the context of a hearing held in the federal district court under the Hague Convention, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has held that, despite a father’s wishes in an international custody dispute, a young boy with “severe” autism may remain in the United States with his mother and his brother so that he might continue to receive ABA therapy and thus avoid the “grave risk of harm” that he would face if he were to return to Italy, a country where such services are not readily available.

Chris Taylor / Reuters June 24, 2014

A new study pegs the lifetime cost of caring for a child with autism at $1.4 million. For parents, there are no easy solutions.

When Linda Mercier’s son Sam was around two years old, she knew something wasn’t right.

That was the beginning of a very long road, one that has involved significant time, effort — and money, plenty of it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars so far, Mercier estimates, on tutors, therapists and lost wages.

1 in 68 children were identified with autism spectrum disorder. Read more about CDC’s new data on autism spectrum disorder and learn what you can do to help.

New Data on Autism Spectrum Disorder

This video is worth watching. It discusses the substantial benefits of employing people with a disability.

Benefits include more productivity and profitability. Proponents appearing in the video are serious businesses.

Can businesses afford to not employ people with a disability? Really!

Why can't Australian employers see this? How much damage is employer short-sightedness doing to this nation's economy?

Utilization Patterns of Conventional and Complementary/Alternative Treatments in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Developmental Disabilities in a Population-Based Study

... A higher level of parental education was associated with an increased CAM use in ASD and DD. Families who used >20 hours per week of conventional services were more likely to use CAM, including potentially unsafe or disproven CAM. Underimmunized children were marginally more likely to use CAM but not more likely to have received potentially unsafe or disproven CAM.

Conclusion

Sacramento, CA (PRWEB) November 06, 2013

The gastrointestinal problems are linked to problem behaviors in children with autism, developmental delay.

Children with autism experience gastrointestinal (GI) upsets such as constipation, diarrhea and sensitivity to foods six-to-eight times more often than do children who are developing typically, and those symptoms are related to behavioral problems, including social withdrawal, irritability and repetitive behaviors, a new study by researchers at the UC Davis MIND Institute has found.

New research suggests schools should build on these students' strengths

By CAROLYN T. GEER

Schools are typically tasked with ferreting out what students can't do and teaching them how to do it.

But for students with autism, perhaps the focus should be on what they can do.

Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University recently published the first study of its kind to demonstrate that the strengths of youths with autism can be parlayed into gainful employment given the right educational program.