Springfield Connection
October 1, 2009

Autism is considered a spectrum disorder; those afflicted by it have any number of symptoms ranging from mild to severe. With these shades of complexity comes a surprising new trouble: fighting with insurance providers to have these therapies and treatments covered under existing policies, as not all therapies or treatments are effective with all people on the autism spectrum.

THAT DISPARITY is the crux of the issue of obtaining coverage for children with autism, said Nathalie Molliet-Ribet, chief legislative analyst for the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission in Richmond. She was part of a team that recently conducted a study of the services available to families with autistic children and compared those services with what is available in other states in order to identify best practices that have been adopted elsewhere and could be adopted in Virginia.

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Both Champion and Shank point to the growing number of children with autism — according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 150 children is diagnosed with autism, a rate that increases to 1 in 83 among boys and is considerably higher among military families — which is quickly approaching epidemic levels.

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"If you don't know someone with autism now, you probably will eventually," Shank said.

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