More Evidence of Autism’s Financial Toll

A new study, from the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, adds further evidence of the high economic burden of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Its findings suggest that medical costs average six times higher for children with ASD than for those not affected by the disorder.

The analysis, published in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, compared Medicaid information for 8,398 children diagnosed with autism with that of nearly 1.5 million children without autism for the years 2003 to 2005. It further showed that medical costs vary widely depending on whether a child with autism is also affected by one or more conditions that frequently co-occur with autism. In the study, the most common example was attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which affected nearly a third of the children with ASD. The cost of medical care for a child with both autism and ADHD averaged about 30 percent higher than care for a child with autism alone.   Read more at http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/more-evidence-autism%E2%80%99s-financial-toll