The cost of treatments and therapies for autism and how to pay for them. The question of what is the best/right/appropriate “treatment” for autistic children and is an educational/behavioral method like Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) really a treatment that should be covered by insurance companies, or is is something that school districts (under IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) should be providing? Who pays, or who can pay, or who should pay, for what—-and what about speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy? And while ABA is widely used as a methodology for teaching autistic children, especially …read more

16-year-old Andy Beattie has been missing since August 10; he was last seen in Tacoma, Washington. He has Asperger’s Syndrome and has, according to a post by his mother on an online forum, “run off in the past and [was] sleeping in public parks and in street bus stops.” You can find more information here, including contact numbers for his mother, Samantha Underwood.