Archive for the 'Families' Category

Are insurers dragging their feet?

Published on 28 February 2013 in Autism, Families, News, Policy, The press and Treatment. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

Are some insurance companies slow in providing coverage for behavioral therapies that families deserve for their children with Autism? According to a report by Alan Zarembo in the Los Angeles (CA, US) Times, the problem is great enough in California that a government agency is considering emergency regulations to force insurers to comply with their obligation to provide coverage.

Insurers have been skirting their obligation under recently enacted state law to provide costly behavioral therapies for autism, according to the Department of Insurance, which is proposing emergency regulations aimed at enforcing the law.
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How not to treat people with disabilities: They may die in custody

Published on 20 February 2013 in Advocacy, Families, News and The press. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

The story of Robert Ethan Saylor, an adult with Down Syndrome, may seem a bit afield for EBD Blog, but long-time readers will recognize the theme. It’s about the importance of having police officers prepared to recognize and respond to individuals with disabilities in ways that are different than the modal manner for handling usual law enforcement situations.

According to news reports, in January of 2013, Mr. Saylor saw a movie at a theater. As Washington Post reporter Theresa Vargas described it, when the movie ended Mr. Saylor “wanted to watch it again. When he refused to leave, a theater employee called three off-duty Frederick County sheriff’s deputies who were working a security job at the Westview Promenade shopping center and told them that Saylor either needed to buy another ticket or be removed.”
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Can a child recover from Autism?

Published on 27 January 2013 in Autism, Families, News, Research and The press. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Yesterday I wrote about how, when people consider individual cases, the possibility of improvement for children with Autism might make otherwise inert therapies appear to be beneficial. In yesterday’s post I referred to research by Molly Helt and colleagues (2008) about recovery among individuals with Autism, and I hinted about an important recent study by Deborah Fein and her colleagues (2013) related to that phenomenon. Today I discuss that second study.

The more recent study is just another among many by Professor Fein, who was a principal author on the Helt et al. (2008) study, and who has been doing exemplary work about Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) for many years. In this one she provides new data about “recovery,” a word they rarely use in the course of their article.

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Autism, recovery, CAM, placebo, and research

Published on 26 January 2013 in Autism, Families, Musings, Research and Treatment. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Thought experiment: Suppose that scientists want to compare a new therapy for children with Autism. They’ll need to compare the New Therapy to a control condition and evaluate it over time using multiple different outcome measures. I’m going to describe this because I want to talk about the effects of “recovery” in Autism in the control group, the perception of the effectiveness of complimentary and alternative therapies, and the placebo effect.

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