JAMA study points out US lifetime costs of care for a person with autism disorder and intellectual disability will approximate $2.4 million US (ASD W/Out ID #1.4 million). For children special education and parental productivity loss were largest cost components. For adults residential care, supportive living accommodation individual productivity loss and much higher productivity costs contributed to the highest costs.
Costs of Autism Spectrum Disorders in the United Kingdom and the United States
Results The cost of supporting an individual with an ASD and intellectual disability during his or her lifespan was $2.4 million in the United States and £1.5 million (US $2.2 million) in the United Kingdom. The cost of supporting an individual with an ASD without intellectual disability was $1.4 million in the United States and £0.92 million (US $1.4 million) in the United Kingdom. The largest cost components for children were special education services and parental productivity loss. During adulthood, residential care or supportive living accommodation and individual productivity loss contributed the highest costs. Medical costs were much higher for adults than for children.
Conclusions and Relevance The substantial direct and indirect economic effect of ASDs emphasizes the need to continue to search for effective interventions that make best use of scarce societal resources. The distribution of economic effect across many different service systems raises questions about coordination of services and sectors. The enormous effect on families also warrants policy attention.
Great Article... Good Work.. Keep up!
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ReplyDeleteThank you Roger.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the article sets out costs for autism with and without intellectual disability. I posted the results section of the abstract which makes that clear.
I disagree with you though about media coverage of autism. Most of the mainstream media coverage features articles on high functioning persons with autism success stories. Many articles make comments like "many with autism are very intelligent".
As the father of a severely autistic son with "profound" intellectual disability (and the seizures that often go with those two features) I see very little reference today to the large numbers of persons with autism who are also intellectually disabled.
My title draws attention to the costs, $2.4 million for those with autism & ID which I did intentionally but I also intentionally included the reference to autism w/out ID on my blog. It will be interesting to see if the mainstream reporting if there is any actually makes any distinctions.
I think the reality is that people with autism w/out ID like you and Jonathan face serious challenges which are also obscured by the feel good about autism stories.
I appreciate very much the input of you and Jonathan Mitchell and I respect you both. (the previous deleted comment is the same as this one except that I had mis-typed Jonathan's name and corrected it)