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Something that we are preparing to create for Charlie. A definition from Michael Davidov, Esq., in the April 30th Queens Courier:
A Special Needs Trust ensures that its beneficiary receives the benefit of assets transferred to the trust, while permitting the beneficiary to retain access to public government resources. Parents do not need to wait until […]
Seattle Post-Intelligencer report Paul Nyhan writes about Teachtown software as a “high-tech way to lower the cost of autism.” Parents in Seattle report that they spend “$30,000, $40,000 and $50,000 a year on applied behavior analysis because few health insurance plans cover the costly treatment”; a subscription to Teachtown is $40/month. While the software’s founders […]
On Sunday I wrote about hope starting with acceptance and asked:
Does one strive to do everything one can to cure, heal, recover a child from autism with the goal of the child “losing“her or his diagnosis? Or, does one learn to accept that one’s child is different, disabled, autistic?
In Sunday’s Wall Street Journal, Jeff D. […]
So what do you do if your state passes autism legislation (as my state, New Jersey, did in September of 2007) and then it gets stalled by budget cuts—-when the bill gets passed but there’s no funding as it’s an austere buget year” ? In Florida, the Window of Opportunity Act was passed by the […]
Autism now occurs in every 1 in 150 children, according to figures released in February of 2007 by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. To illustrate what some term an “autism epidemic” (including three presidential candidates), people regularly compare the prevalence rate of children diagnosed with autism to that of children diagnosed with […]
The April 14th St. Louis Post-Dispatch makes a case for the need for insurance coverage for autism treatment. SB 1122 would allow for insurance coverage “for the treatment of autism under certain conditions”: Autistic children who are “less than 16 years of age” would qualify for up to $50,000 per year of behavior therapy. […]
It’s April, it’s Autism Awareness Month, and last week saw the inaugural World Autism Day on April 2nd, and there were a whole lot of autism stories in the news——and there’s still three more weeks to go.
This April has some added significance for me: It’s Charlie’s last month of being 10 years old as his […]
The April issue of Pediatrics contains a new study on the household finances of families with autistic children. Families’ annual income falls short of average predicted income by as much as $6200; families also spend thousands of dollars on health care and educational and other therapies and services. Economist Guillermo Montes, Ph.D., the lead author […]
After their now-7-year-old son Ryan was diagnosed with autism 5 years ago, Lorri and Dan Unumb “they sold their house, downsized and sacrificed to cover costs,” an April 1st CNN story reports. Intensive behavior therapy for Ryan costs between $70,000 and $80,000 a year which is lawyer and law professor Lorri Unumb’s “entire salary.” The […]
The April 1st CNN Money.com reviews the “recent brouhaha about 9-year-old Hannah Poling,” whose family received a settlement under the federal government’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program “based on their claim that childhood vaccinations aggravated a rare metabolic disorder in Hannah, triggering autism symptoms.” Writer David Stipp notes that, in a 2006 survey, 54% of families […]
Autism mother gets on her soapbox.
Written by Kristina Chew, PhD [email] for b5media.
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