“Wards of the State in Any Case”
May 30, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Those are the very words that Rep. Ron Peterson (R-Broken Arrow) used to refer to autistic children in a “puff piece” profile distributed by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA), according to the May 28th OKC Business.com (the profile can also be read on Nick’s Law and Autism Legislation in Oklahoma). There’s a fight going on in Oklahoma about getting “Nick’s Law”—which would require health insurance policies cover diagnosis, treatment and therapy for autism spectrum disorders — passed. Peterson is quoted as “belittling” treatment for autistic children:
Peterson said in the profile that the treatment that would be covered by Nick’s Law is clinically unproven.
“The medical profession has stated there’s no reason to believe behavioral therapy is any more effective than anything else,” Peterson said. “The results are described as marginal in any case, and these individuals will be wards of the state in any case. So you’d have the cost without any benefit, as best we can see.”
[Senator Jay Paul] Gumm [who wrote Nick's Law] said he was shocked at the impudence of the statement. “With one paragraph, Rep. Peterson tells every parent of every autistic child that their child is not worth saving, not worth even trying to save,” he said. “I cannot imagine anyone taking so cavalier attitude toward life; it truly is fear-provoking.”
Not everyone agrees about the effectiveness of behavior therapy for autistic children. It is the case that behavior therapy in the form of ABA (applied behavior analysis) has been very helpful for my son; we’ve been able to provide him with it with a lot of help from relatives, but that’s not possible for everyone. And certainly saying that autistic children will end up as “wards of the state in any case”—no matter what one does—-is to write autistic children off as hopeless cases. (And here’s a reference to autistic children as “all messed up“—-so much misunderstanding about autism no matter where you look.)
Elsewhere: In Louisiana, a bill for autism insurance passed the House and moves onto the Senate, according to WAFB; more details at Louisiana Medical News.
Unfortunately, that “wards of the state in any case” attitude is what happens when autism advocates make the mistake of citing cost-benefit studies that rely on prejudiced assumptions in claiming that every autistic person will cost millions in lifetime care.
My mom lives in Tulsa and told me Peterson won’t be running for re-election. What a jerk!
Oh, how dare he. I’m a bit of a libertarian at heart and hate to regulate everything… but when you don’t have something nice to say, please shut up.
That’s why I’m not saying anything else. ;]
That tells me that Peterson sees me as a non-person, even though he’s never met me and knows nothing about me or my ability to provide for myself or my family.
What a jerk. I’d give him an earful if he was my Rep. Thankfully I’m not in Oklahoma. Either he’s an idiot or there’s an insurance industry lobbyist smiling somewhere.
I suspect that Rep. Peterson sees this all as being very far away from himself–the use of the term “these individuals” being kind of a giveaway.
The statement about wards of the state, etc., was looking at all of it as worst case scenario since my understanding was that the actuarial cost analysis presented to the House gave a more tiered and realistic picture. That he still presents the hopeless worst case scenario to the press not only is a further slap in the face but indicates a willful ignorance of the testimony.
Wow. Wonder how Mr. Peterson would feel about being euthanized before he became “a ward of the state” from age or some other debilitating illness? Bet he’d be singing a very different tune.
The Louisiana House of Representatives has just passed Bill 958, which requires health insurance coverage of autistic children:
abfh has a point. When the advocates push for treatment based on one line only and that line can be shown, statistically at any rate, not improve matters above placebo, the situation gets a trifle comical or it would if the situation weren’t also quite serious. Because, alas, having mixed up therapy with education particularly with a spectrum of students for whom the designated one true way may not be very appropriate and inflating the ’success’ rates, we’re now in something of a pickle. Who’s at fault here sure is an interesting question.
“The medical profession has stated there’s no reason to believe behavioral therapy is any more effective than anything else,” Peterson said.
The National Academy of Sciences said “There does not appear to be a simple relationship between any particular intervention and ‘recovery’ from autistic spectrum disorder” meaning that ABA vs RDI vs Floortime methodologies had a no superiority over the other.
NAS also said:”Effective programming requires a minimum of 25 hours per week of active engagement in intensive programming, 12 months a year. Effective intervention must be “intensive”; intensity of education is associated with amount of progress; hours of participation do not necessarily translate to hours of time engaged in intervention; “intensity” is best thought of as “large numbers of functional, developmentally relevant and high-interest opportunities to respond actively”; initial skill development will be accomplished from individual instruction.”
NOT that ASD interventions were ineffective.