Mar 18, 2019, CTV: 'We are desperate': Ont. family selling home to keep son in autism therapy https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/we-are-desperate-ont-family-selling-home-to-keep-son-in-autism-therapy-1.4340461 A Toronto couple say recent changes to the Ontario government’s program for children with autism have led them to decide to sell their home. Selling a home in Toronto will give Will and Nevena Dundas a significant amount of money to put toward therapy for their five-year-old son Dylan -- but they don’t expect to make enough to cover all the support he’ll need to become a self-sufficient adult. … …but they don’t expect to make enough to cover all the support he’ll need to become a self-sufficient adult. … The provincial government announced last month that it was changing its funding model for children with autism in an attempt to get some money to all families seeking treatment. Under the old model, there was a wait list of 23,000 children receiving no targeted funding at all. Will Dundas said the government was putting $90,000 per year toward Dylan’s therapy under the previous plan. The family will now receive less than $2,000 each year. … There are 1,105 children with autism in Ontario who are enrolled in full-time therapy treatments rather than school. Parents who will no longer be able to pay for those treatments will instead have to place their children into the school system, even if they may not be ready to spend their days in a classroom environment…. “I think the government is thinking that everybody needs these high dollar amounts, and it’s not sustainable for them to pay $90,000 per child -- but that’s not the case,” she said. …
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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