I have to say it is so hard navigating the system—we were constantly waiting and it was difficult to find the services we needed. None of the information we needed to know was readily available and we were constantly waiting.
Sam
Ben
AnneCurrently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 68 young children will receive a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in the US, an increase of 120% from 2002. This increase in prevalence does not show any signs of slowing, and will put more financial pressure on local, state, and federal governments, as well as families.
How to use this tool:
Hover over the counties in Georgia to see the gap between the estimated prevalence and actual diagnosis covered by Medicaid.
Medicaid data from 2009 was used to determine the number of diagnoses and the potential number of children undiagnosed by county. In 2014, an estimated 57% of children in Georgia were on Medicaid or CHiP.
To read more and to see a list of our references, click here.
| Counties | Children* | Diagnosed | % Undiagnosed** |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clayton | 28,272 | 14 | 96.8% |
| DeKalb | 49,072 | 32 | 95.8% |
| Fulton | 55,295 | 46 | 94.6% |
| Gwinnett | 51,852 | 46 | 94.3% |
| Muscogee | 14,851 | 14 | 94.0% |
| Bibb | 13,849 | 16 | 92.6% |
| Cobb | 33,387 | 46 | 91.2% |
| Chatham | 16,603 | 33 | 87.3% |
| Cherokee | 8,097 | 23 | 81.9% |
| Forsyth | 4,418 | 15 | 78.3% |
| Counties | Children* | Diagnosed | Undiagnosed** |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fulton | 55,295 | 46 | 818 |
| Gwinnett | 51,852 | 46 | 764 |
| DeKalb | 49,072 | 32 | 735 |
| Clayton | 28,272 | 14 | 428 |
| Cobb | 33,387 | 46 | 476 |
| Chatham | 16,603 | 33 | 226 |
| Muscogee | 14,851 | 14 | 218 |
| Bibb | 13,849 | 16 | 200 |
| Cherokee | 8,097 | 23 | 104 |
| Forsyth | 4,418 | 15 | 54 |
How to use this tool:
Hover over the states to see how Georgia's undiagnosed rate compares to the other 9 states in the Southeast. States are ranked from smallest (1) to the largest gap in undiagnosed children (9).
*Data are provided according to the policies of the Data Use Agreement with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Counties with fewer than 10 diagnoses do not have entries in our database to reduce the risk of potentially identifying specific patients. We have estimated those numbers as 10 in our calculations to provide a lower bound to the number of potentially undiagnosed children. All data are from 2009.
I have to say it is so hard navigating the system—we were constantly waiting and it was difficult to find the services we needed.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be an expensive condition. Healthcare costs alone can be 3 to 10 times greater for a child with ASD compared to a neurotypical child (Bultas, 2012). The literature shows intervening early can reduce lifetime costs. All costs were discounted at 3% to give a clear representation of the present value of all costs. This is based on the idea having your money today is worth more to you than having it in a year, thus with a 3% discount rate $100 today would be worth $97 to you in a year.
How to use this tool:
The interactive tools below allows you to compare costs across age groups by selecting “Cumulative”, as well as different costs at the same age by selecting “Categorical”. To selectively compare costs, the legend on the left side of the graph allow you to select or deselect the cost variables in view. To see further details on each of the cost categories click on a specific section of a cost bar to get a breakdown in the chart to the right.
Over 50 articles meeting medium to high quality standards were reviewed and synthesized to calculate the lifetime costs by age of initial treatment. Our methodology extends and is consistent with recent work appearing in JAMA Pediatrics.
To read more and to see a list of our references, click here.
Medical costs include the estimated lifetime medical costs for a person with ASD.
Non-medical service costs includes costs associated with education, treatment, childcare, supplemental security income (SSI) payments, support services, and community services.
Indirect costs include the lost earnings of the parents of a child with ASD and the lost earnings of the child with ASD over a person’s lifetime.
The potential savings shows how much money can be saved over a person’s lifetime by intervening at an earlier age.
We don't want to burden the tax payers with huge costs, but we can't bear the full cost of autism so it will have to be the public’s responsibility eventually.
The literature shows that, typically, the younger a child with austism spectrum disorder (ASD) is when s/he receives treatment, the better the outcomes they experience over a lifetime. These include improved adaptive functioning, decreased autism symptoms, increased intellectual functioning and developmental growth, as well as an increase in quality of life. Here we look at educational placement as a tangible indicator of a child's improvement after treatment.
Articles examining the outcome of children receiving treatment at varying ages were collected and aggregated to create the infographic below. To read more about our methodology, click here.
Check out this interactive tool for more details on outcomes.
This infographic shows three possible outcomes of 100 children receiving autism treatment from ages 2-6. The three outcomes are: included in regular education, needs support in the classroom, and special education with maximum support. As the infographic demonstrates, the literature shows that children who receive early treatment are more likely to be included in regular education; this also means that these children are more likely to live more independent lives.
These therapies will allow her to participate in things that, otherwise, she would not have been able to.
