SchaferAutismReport: Hard Choices About a Child's Special Needs

[Guest guest]

Monday, April 28, 2008 Reader Supported

Vol. 12 No. 63p In This Issue: • • FINANCEHard Choices About a Child's Special NeedsInsurers Must Cover

Autism, Says Florida Governor • RESEARCHChildren With Autism Display Surprising Language Abilities • TREATMENTSensory Treatment Yields Promising Results for Children with Autism • PUBLIC HEALTHCounty Looks At Possible Vaccines-Autism Link • • • PEOPLEMaking Miracles Happen Ozzie Guillen and AutismMEDIAAutistic Boy's Story On Film McCarthy's "Green Our Vaccines" RallyJune 4 In DC! Join McCarthy and Jim Carrey on Wednesday, June 4th in Washington, DC for the Green Our Vaccines rally. Watch her video: tinyurl.com/6je9ooGo to tinyurl.com/5lsdq3 to register. See you there! Send your LETTER The Autism Calendar or here: tinyurl.com/283dpa DO SOMETHING ABOUT AUTISM NOW SUBSCRIBE. . . ! . . . Read, then Forward the Schafer Autism Report.$35 for 1 year - 200 issues, or No Cost Review

Sub. 100% Reader Supported through subscription donationswww.sarnet.org Political Discussion Forum Heats Up As Vaccine Link To Autism Question SpreadsAn email discussion list has been created in response to the growing interest in the environmental causes of autism -- now more than 2,000 subscribers. Here is where to join: SAR Back Issues AUTISM IS TREATABLE Check here Today's SAR is provided through the support of paid subscription readers. - THANK YOU - FINANCEHard Choices About a Child's Special Needs In the Wall Street Journal. tinyurl.com/5ym9jo On a recent drive home from a party, my wife, Amy, asked our soon-to-be 5-year-old daughter who she had played with. With tears in her eyes, our little girl responded that no one had played with her, because, as she told Amy, "they don't understand me." That doesn't actually capture the real conversation. The words my daughter used weren't nearly so precise. That's because she has a speech disability that impairs her pronunciation. She understands everything she hears, and she always has the appropriate response. Her words, though, are often a challenge to understand. Our daughter has been enrolled in speech

therapy for awhile, but her therapist now wants to triple the number of sessions, which triples our expenses to nearly $1,000 a month, a big dent in our wallet. Our insurance provider won't pay, so all of this is out of our own pocket. And that gets to the point of this week's column: the cost of a special-needs child. To be clear, I'm not implying money supersedes a child's needs. I am saying, though, that parents at some point do begin to think about the dollars. You have to: With limited resources you can't pursue an open-wallet policy forever when you have so many other needs that ultimately must to be funded, too. How, though, do you make that call? Do you pump every dime you can into fixing a child's disability? Or do you rein in the spending at some point and accept that this is your child, and you love her just as she is? * *

* I've read stories through the years of parents who quit their jobs and throw their life's assets into research in the hopes of finding a cure for their child's ailment. I applaud those parents; I'd like to think Amy and I would do the same if either of our kids faced a life-threatening issue. I also know that we're lucky in that we do have resources to throw at our problem. Many parents aren't so fortunate, and their choices are more stark -- and painful -- than ours. But at some point, most of us in this situation have to face the fact that our resources are limited, especially when money doesn't guarantee a quick cure, or perhaps even a cure at all. "We started off in a state of siege," my San Francisco friend, , says of her experiences with her nearly 5-year-old son's mild form of autism. "We were like, 'We'll throw everything we

can at this.'" They have their son in four types of therapy, and a preschool for children with special needs. Because the program only runs from 9:20 to 12:20, they've also had to hire a helper to get their son to and from school. And because that program runs only two days per week, they've had to fill the remaining time with private preschool. As a result, the family has been shelling out about $40,000 a year to deal with the disability. "We borrowed money from my in-laws, and any incremental income gains I've had for the last several years have been completely wiped out," says . says that she and her husband originally expected they would have to stretch themselves for the first few years, but that after an appropriate amount of spending "he'd magically fall off the autism fence. But that's obviously not the case." Now, she says, "we know we have to retire at

some point, and we have to pay off our debt." And so, she says, in the past six months she and her husband "have begun to rethink what we're doing. Financially, it's been horrific. Our son is doing terrific, so it's worth it, but we can't sustain this level of expense anymore. We woke up one morning and realized we can't live our life in siege mode. At some point, you have to decide to move to that next phase, planning for the long haul," instead of hewing to the dream that a continuous flow of dollars will quickly fix the flaw. The upshot: and her husband are continuing therapy for their son -- but they have chosen to send him to public kindergarten rather than continue to incur the expense of private preschool. That way, they can start to put more money into other priorities, such as saving for his college education and planning for their retirement.For rest of today's SAR click here:www.sarnet.org/frm/forsar.htm Today's SAR is provided through the support of paid subscription readers. - THANK YOU - $35 for 1 year - or free!www.sarnet.org Copyright Notice: The above items are copyright protected. They are

for our readers' personal education or research purposes only and provided at their request. Articles may not be further reprinted or used commercially without consent from the copyright holders. To find the copyright holders, follow the referenced website link provided at the beginning of each item. Lenny Schafer editor@... The Schafer Autism Report is a non-profit corporation Unsubscribe here: www.sarnet.org/frm/unsub2.htm_______________________________________________SARnets mailing listSARnets@...http://lists.igc.org/mailman/listinfo/sarnetsYou can unsubscribe send email:http://www.sarnet.org/frm/unsub2.htm-- You are subscribed as: deniseslist@...

Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.