TORONTO - The Ontario government's recent funding boost for autistic children is just a stopgap solution to a much larger problem, says a family involved in a lawsuit alleging discrimination against their autistic children.
"It's just another Band-Aid solution,'' Taline Sagharian said Thursday outside the Toronto courtroom where a motion by the government and school boards to strike down the lawsuit was being heard.
"For the eight years since this program has been in place -- and the government has had eight years to get this right -- all we've heard repeatedly are these Band-Aid solutions.''
Sagharian and her husband are among five families who have launched the $1.25-billion lawsuit, alleging seven school boards and the government are denying their autistic children a public education by failing to provide access to specialized treatment in school.
The families are being forced to choose between sending their autistic children to school or paying for the costly Intensive Behavioural Intervention therapy that is essential to their children's development -- a therapy that isn't provided in public schools, a lawyer for the families argued Thursday.
"This right is denied to children of autism, as they require education and they require (the treatment),'' David Baker told the court.
IBI therapy can cost between $30,000 to $80,000 per child each year.
Two weeks ago, the province said it would boost its spending by $13 million on the program to provide the therapy, increasing its total spending on autism to $115 million a year.
But Sagharian said that's not enough. Too many children are still on the waiting list for the therapy, and not enough is being done to ensure that those who are eligible can receive it while in school, she said.
Educational assistants who work in public schools aren't trained in the therapy, and those specialists who do have the training aren't even allowed on school grounds, she said.
As a result, she must drive her 10-year-old son to and from a private school at great expense, struggling to find part-time jobs that can fit into her hectic schedule.
Sagharian became visibly upset when describing how the costs of the therapy -- about $70,000 a year, about half of which is covered by the province -- is affecting her family of four.
"We are facing financial ruin,'' she said.
"It's just that I can't believe that if I was American, we would be able to get this for our child, and we can't get it here.''
The lawsuit, which has not yet been certified as a class action, is the latest battle between parents of autistic children and the province.
Last July, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the provincial government's refusal to provide the costly treatment for all autistic children older than five is not age discrimination, a decision that followed a lower court ruling in favour of the parents.
The Ontario government has said since July 2005, it has provided funding to treat any autistic child over the age of six if they are assessed as needing it. It said it allocated $112 million in 2006 for autism programs, including money to train more IBI therapists.
But opposition parties say the government has spent much less on autism programs than it had promised since being elected in 2003, while waiting lists for treatment keep growing.
The waiting list for IBI therapy grew to more than 1,200 children from 753 in the last nine months of 2006, they say.
The federal government has promised to sponsor an autism symposium this year, as well as establish a research chair focusing on effective treatment and intervention for the condition, among other measures.
