Most of the time, when such high price tags are associated with autism treatment, it's because the treatment involves applied behavioral analysis (ABA) at the recommended 40 hours per week - and/or because parents have opted for high-priced biomedical interventions that are not covered by insurance. Today, while ABA is certainly not universally free of charge, many states in the US are now requiring that insurers cover "evidence based" treatments (usually code for ABA) - and at least some Canadian provinces are in the process of developing legislation to cover ABA. Meanwhile, quite a few schools are also offering ABA or versions of behavioral therapy as part of an "autism education" package.
But what if you're not among those lucky families who have free access to ABA? Or what if, like me, you choose to go a different route when providing therapy to your child with autism? Are there ways to lower costs? The answer, of course, is yes - and here are just a few recommendations to get you started:
- Start by working with your insurance company to find out whether and how you might get treatments covered. It may be easier than you imagined - though it sometimes takes some extra time and energy to negotiate the system.
- Visit AutismFreeZone.com, a new website that allows parents to exchange autism-related products such books, DVDs, tools and toys - for the cost of shipping.
- Consider bartering with a therapist instead of simply paying out of pocket. If you can offer a useful service or product - such as plumbing, landscaping, or even babysitting - your therapist might well consider making a deal. Even if you can't work out a 1:1 exchange of services, you might be able to cut costs considerably.
- Choose to be trained as a therapist. ABA requires only a relatively short commitment of time (weeks as opposed to years) - and for far less than the cost of one year of therapy for your child, you can become a trained therapy provider. Even better, it's possible that over time you can begin to earn money as a therapist for other children!
- Choose a therapy (like Floortime or RDI) that can be implemented by parents with little or no formal training. While all of these and other parent-centered programs do offer high-priced training seminars and 1:1 consulting, much of the therapeutic content comes from intensive parent-child interaction, and a good deal of the training can be accessed through books, web seminars and DVDs.
- Hire a student to work with your child. If you hire a college student who's studying to be a therapist, you're golden. But even the right high schooler can do a terrific job helping your child to build social skills, play skills and collaborative skills. Students may not be highly trained, but they're often loaded with energy and creative ideas - and they certainly charge less than the typical trained therapist.
- Choose biomedical therapies that can be implemented at relatively low cost and with low risk. Then, shop around for deals. Join co-ops and shop online to avoid the high price of gluten-free products and supplements often charged in specialty shops.
- Make your own therapeutic products. There's really no need to buy a $100-dollar set of picture cards when you can make your own for free using downloadable clipart and your own digital photos. If you can sew, you can make your own weighted blankets and vests; if you can use a drill and screwdriver you can make your own indoor swings.
- Avoid labels that say "sensory toy" or "special needs." There's certainly no need to spend big bucks for specialized "sensory" toys when the same toy with a different label is available at an eighth of the price at a discount store.
- Great sources for low-cost, high quality gluten and casein-free foods;
- Good options for ABA training and great ways to locate ABA trainees to work with your child;
- Free sources of picture cards and other teaching and communication tools;
- Innovative ideas for helping kids with autism build skills - without spending a fortune on therapy.
RDI can be very costly. Information is not readily available like it is with Floortime. I tried to get some RDI basics to do with my son (he already gets ABA full time, provided via state agency and school district) and did not find a way to do it unless I had to pay for manuals or consultants. It really turned me off to their concept.
I have been doing RDI since my son was 4. He’s now 9. Yes, the training for RDI seminars are expensive, but not really needed. All I spent was the price of a book (under $40 bucks)joined the RDI mailing list and a few on line groups (met a psychologist in one group from MI who was more than willing to help members of an on line group with this, free of charge) and searched sites, found my long-lost imagination. RDI becomes as natural as redirection does.
RDI is one option that takes care of the ever changing therapists, and where the child should be spending most of their time is at home any way. This is something a parent can do 24/7.
Any one needs help, I have a ton of info on it and a site a dad created that shows him and his son in RDI- action!
Lisa, you forgot to mention another free website, http://www.PositivelyAutism.com
It has a free newsletter and lots of free printable activities that could be used in many therapy programs.
As for cutting costs, it is great to make your own pictures cards with a digital camera. That way, they’re customized to your child too.
I do however, respectfully disagre that ABA training “requires only a relatively short commitment of time (weeks as opposed to years).” I spent over two years in a Master’s Degree program to take all of the required courses to become certified in Behavior Analysis, and it will require two more years of internship before I can take the certification test. This is not to say that parents can’t learn the techniques (they certainly can!), but ABA is a very specific and detailed science, and is not something you can learn in just a few weeks.
Other than that great ideas! With the costs of many programs so high, saving money any way you can is great! Thank you for the tips.
Nicole Caldwell, M.Ed.
We needed a weighted blanket for our son which we thought would be expensive, but found DreamCatcher Weighted Blankets on the internet at http://www.weightedblanket.net and received a custom blanket made for his size and weight at a very affordable price. I could not begin to make it myself and was so glad to find a company started by parents of a special needs child that understood my needs and financial situation. The quality is outstanding.
AutismFreeZone.com looks kind of dead. Great idea though.
RDI When it comes to doing RDI with my child I have found the books to be wonderful, the concepts the greatest. What really turned me off was when the Connections Center made it impossible to share their information on the Yahoo groups. Basically they want every family to pay the high costs of the consultant and the only way we could do that was to sign a contract for $50.00 a month to be paid to the Connections Center to communicate with our consultant. We are real parents, with real jobs, and Autism does not only affect the rich. We do our best to work with our child, we have found that there are many professionals that have invested in the RDI training and have been forced out of the program by the directors for trivial reasons. I heard there are more consultants-in-training that paid huge sums of money for the training and the directors of the program have taken their money, give no refunds and then they find stupid reasons not to graduate them as certified consultants or list them on their website.
While not dealing with Autism in our home, our daughter has sensory issues – and the costs can really mount. The biggest salvation in our home has been a weighted blanket – a much needed therapy tool for her.
However after exploring the costs on several sites, we decided to save some money and make our own. There are several good patterns out there that can be found with a quick search.
Thank you for a great list of resources!