Chedoke's Child and Family Centre has been named the lead agency in the region for the province's new autism program. From our point of view, we believe we are taking a definite lead in this area in providing funding for autism. After age five, autistic children can get the services they need within the school system, he said. Corbett maintains the funding is a drop in the bucket and most of it will be used to train ABA therapists rather than services for autistic children. Autism is rare, affecting one of every 1,000 children, although some experts think it's three or four times higher.
ABA therapies work by helping a child break learning down into very small steps.
ABA was pioneered by Dr. Ivar Lovass at the University of California, Los Angeles. It's remarkably successful and now widely used. Until recently, only a small proportion of children with autism were expected to grow up to become independent adults. Most were expected to require life long health and social services. A landmark study done by Lovass in 1987 discovered 47 per cent of children who began this treatment before the age of four lost the diagnosis of autism and were considered fully recovered.