It is seriously so ridiculous! I think the current number for treatment of a person with autism for their life is somewhere around 3 million dollars. 3 MILLION! And I am not even sure if that statistic is what it costs if people get the treatment they need or if that is the average expenditure that is actually happening. I am certain it only includes "traditional" treatment.
I know a lot of kids, including ours, who get almost no treatment outside of school, not because they don't need it but, because it is too darn expensive! Speech therapy, ABA, OT, GI's, Neurologists, Developmental Pediatricians are freakin expensive, even with insurance. We are talking in the 10's of thousands of dollars, with insurance. The only kids I know that get all the treatment they need either have really rich parents or parents who qualify for public help for their kids because of their low income. But, doesn't your insurance have an out of pocket maximum, you ask? Yes, it is above $10,000 and it does not include co-payments! So, the copayments are what puts the therapy out of reach.
If you don't have a kid with autism and are callous enough to say that it's not your problem....It will be when 1 in 50 kids grow up and a majority of them are unable to hold down a job on a regular basis because they did not get the help they needed when they were young. Or maybe, you make enough money that you can go live in a gated community and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist.
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