Low income autistic children
ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,459
Location: Long Island, New York
Missed check-ups, delayed autism diagnoses among low-income children
The analysis reviewed insurance claims for 253 autistic children who were born in Virginia in 2011. Those on Medicaid, government-funded health insurance for low-income families in the United States, were diagnosed with autism at 48.5 months of age, on average, compared with 40.7 months for those with private insurance.
But nearly one in five of the children in the study did not attend a single well-child visit between ages 1 and 5, and most children attended fewer than half of the recommended visits. Children on Medicaid are less likely to attend these checkups than are those with private insurance. The findings appeared in The Journal of Pediatrics in September.
For children who are still undiagnosed at their 3-year-old visit, “those who have Medicaid insurance are 85 percent less likely to be diagnosed” at that checkup than are privately insured children, DeGuzman says.
A prior study by DeGuzman also found that young children in rural Virginia attend fewer well-child visits than children living in urban areas. One reason for this difference may be that, in some parts of western Virginia, the closest developmental pediatrician lives more than three hours away by car.
The new work has some holes; because it’s based on insurance claims, it does not include details on race or income.
_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
Many of my clients fall into this category. Some of the reasons for not making all those well-child check-ups include:
not having a car, working too many jobs, the difficulty in getting appointments for doctors who accept Medicaid, parent is also disabled in some way. If your child is doing well and is not sick, taking the child to the doctor, when you are already too busy or too sick to go and too poor to have your own transportation, is not the highest priority.
It doesn't surprise me that the diagnosis comes later for low income families. I had a client who was clearly autistic but the school psychologist did not diagnosis him as such. it was a rural school without an autism program. In my state, if a school has a child with autism, there are services that must be provided to that student and the school did not have some of the services and/or they were too expensive to provide. So the school just didn't diagnose him as autistic. His caregiver was his grandmother, a little tiny elderly woman who used to pick tomatoes for a living. An agricultural worker all her life. She was in no position to know about autism or advocate effectively for her grandson.
_________________
The river is the melody
And sky is the refrain - Gordon Lightfoot
Similar Topics | |
---|---|
Autistic adult banned from library children's section |
10 Mar 2024, 8:04 am |
A counterpoint to Autistic Supremacy? Autistic Inferiority? |
26 Feb 2024, 1:46 pm |
Handbook for autistic-autistic social interactions |
08 Feb 2024, 1:31 pm |
Old Children's Movies that are now Politically Incorrect |
29 Mar 2024, 12:26 am |