Contributed By: Allison Frost OPB | Aug. 14, 2014 12:20 p.m. | Updated: Aug. 14, 2014 1:56 p.m. A few years ago, Paul Terdal told us hispersonal story about life with two autistic sons. At that time hewas trying to get his insurer, Kaiser Permanente, to cover a treatment calledApplied Behavior Analysis (ABA). He ultimately prevailed, and his sons began getting the ABA treatment. Kaiserchanged its policy and now routinely coversABA. This week acourt ruled that Providence, which hadalso denied ABA insurance claims, was violating state and federal law by denying such treatment. Well talk with Terdal about how his sons have responded to the treatment and what he sees as the broader implications of this weeks ruling. And well also find about about the families of autistic children who he has helped shepherd through the complicated world of health insuranceappeals. Rose E. Tucker Charitable Trust James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation Dawn and Al Vermeulen Ray and Marilyn Johnson View original post here: Exploring The Impact Of A Ruling On Autism Treatment … Continue reading →

Seven years after families began asking the Oregon Insurance Division to intervene on their behalf, the states insurance regulator announced today it will issue a formal bulletin, clarifying that insurers cannot refuse to cover a costly therapy for autistic kids called Applied Behavior Analysis. The decision comes a week after a federal judge ruled that the Providence Health Plan broke federal and state law by denying coverage for the treatment. Since 2007, families have won more than 20 appeals to Independent Review Organizations after insurers failed to pay for ABA, which for more than a decade has been considered medically necessary, effective and the national standard of care to treat children with autism. In 2010, a federal judge in Portland ordered PacificSource to pay for the treatment after the insurer argued the therapy was experimental and educational. The great majority of the studies in the record indicate that ABA therapy is not only supported by decades of research, but is one of the only autism treatments which has consistently shown measurable success in improving the lives of autistic children, the judge ruled in that case. California ordered its insured to stop denying coverage in 2011. Meanwhile the Oregon Insurance Division … Continue reading →

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 14-Aug-2014 Contact: Gloria Suhasini suhasini@yorku.ca 416-736-2100 x22094 York University Adults with autism are at a higher risk of sexual victimization than adults without, due to lack of sex education, but with improved interventions that focus on sexual knowledge and skill building, the risk could be reduced, according to a recent study by York University researchers. "Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) gain more of their sexual knowledge from external sources such as the internet and the television whereas social sources would include parents, teachers and peers," says Professor Jonathan Weiss in the Faculty of Health and the CIHR Chair in Autism Spectrum Disorders Treatment and Care Research. The study, conducted by Weiss, and clinical developmental psychology PhD candidates Stephanie Brown-Lavoie and Michelle Viecili, found that the lack of sexual knowledge in adults with autism played a role in increasing the risk of sexual victimization experiences of sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, attempted rape or rape. The researchers used an online survey involving 95 adults with ASD and 117 without, ranging in age from 19 to 43. Of the 95 participants with ASD, 78 per cent reported at least one occurrence of sexual victimization compared to 47.4 per … Continue reading →

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 13-Aug-2014 Contact: Phyllis Brown phyllis.brown@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu 916-734-9111 University of California - Davis Health System (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) Bringing together the research prowess of the University of California to address the increase in autism incidence, its public health impacts, and the need to speed the development of treatments for affected individuals and their families, internationally respected scientists from UC campuses at Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Davis will converge at the UC Davis MIND Institute for a daylong summit on innovative translational neurodevelopmental research. An initiative of the UC Office of the President, the University of California Summit on Translational Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders will be held Thursday, Aug. 14, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the UC Davis MIND Institute, 2825 50th St., Sacramento. The summit will include a presentation via video conference on "Pressing Issues for a Translational Science of Autism Spectrum Disorder" by Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Participation in the summit is by invitation only. "The increase in autism spectrum disorder cases has exceeded the capacity of public and private organizations to provide effective health care, education and treatment to affected families," said Leonard Abbeduto, … Continue reading →

Seven years after families began asking the Oregon Insurance Division to intervene on their behalf, the states insurance regulator announced today it will issue a formal bulletin, clarifying that insurers cannot refuse to cover a costly therapy for autistic kids called Applied Behavior Analysis. The decision comes a week after a federal judge ruled that the Providence Health Plan broke federal and state law by denying coverage for the treatment. Since 2007, families have won more than 20 appeals to Independent Review Organizations after insurers failed to pay for ABA, which for more than a decade has been considered medically necessary, effective and the national standard of care to treat children with autism. In 2010, a federal judge in Portland ordered PacificSource to pay for the treatment after the insurer argued the therapy was experimental and educational. The great majority of the studies in the record indicate that ABA therapy is not only supported by decades of research, but is one of the only autism treatments which has consistently shown measurable success in improving the lives of autistic children, the judge ruled in that case. California ordered its insured to stop denying coverage in 2011. Meanwhile the Oregon Insurance Division … Continue reading →

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) - Bringing together the research prowess of the University of California to address the increase in autism incidence, its public health impacts, and the need to speed the development of treatments for affected individuals and their families, internationally respected scientists from UC campuses at Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Davis will converge at the UC Davis MIND Institute for a daylong summit on innovative translational neurodevelopmental research. An initiative of the UC Office of the President, the University of California Summit on Translational Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders will be held Thursday, Aug. 14, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the UC Davis MIND Institute, 2825 50th St., Sacramento. The summit will include a presentation via video conference on "Pressing Issues for a Translational Science of Autism Spectrum Disorder" by Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Participation in the summit is by invitation only. "The increase in autism spectrum disorder cases has exceeded the capacity of public and private organizations to provide effective health care, education and treatment to affected families," said Leonard Abbeduto, Vismara-Tsakopoulos Endowed Chair and director of the MIND Institute. "We must develop new, more effective … Continue reading →