Equal Rights for Children With Autism

[angela bischoff]

From: tasc at web.ca - Toronto Action for Social Change

Come one, Come All!
Community Picnic/Information Picket to Demand Equal Rights for Children
With Autism
Sunday, August 26
1:30 pm-3:30 pm
Wells Hill Park
(just a bit west from the St. Clair West subway station on the south side
of St. Clair, one block east of Bathurst)

Liberal Attorney General Michael Bryant, who's been fighting parents of
children with autism because they tried to have the McGuinty government
live up to its broken promise to provide full access to education for
their children, is having a community picnic.

SO ARE WE!

Members of the Ontario Autism Coalition and Toronto Action for Social
Change invite you to a peaceful information picket and picnic to demand
justice for families with autism who have been failed by the McGuinty
government.

Bring your picnic blankets and portable lawn chairs, maybe some cole slaw,
rolls, or a corn cob or two, and your best singing voice as we serenade Mr.
Bryant and try and determine why he, along with his government,  has failed
children with autism in Ontario.

BACKGROUND
Children with autism in Ontario are being denied their Charter rights by
the government of Dalton McGuinty. There is much evidence that ABA/IBI
(Applied Behaviour Analysis/Intensive Behavioural Intervention) makes a
huge difference in the education and social development  of autistic
children. But the Ontario government currently funds such programs in a
limited capacity.  There's a rapidly growing waiting list and those who
are approved for the program are unable to access ABA/IBI and an education
together even though this is made possible in many other jurisdictions.

In April 2005, Madam Justice Frances Kiteley found the Ontario government's
practice of cutting off IBI treatment for children over age 6 violates
Charter of Rights protections against discrimination based on age and
disability. Attorney General Michael Bryant appealed the decision and won.
Although the government followed Justice Kiteley's ruling and removed the
age six criteria for cut-off, the waitlists have since grown exponentially
and children with autism are still unable to access ABA/IBI and education
together while all other children  in Ontario are able to access both
treatment and education together.

"I find that the age cutoff reflects and reinforces the stereotype that
children with autism over age 6 are virtually unredeemable," Judge Kiteley
wrote. "To deny the plaintiff children the opportunity to have [treatment]
after the age of 5 is to stereotype them, to prejudice them and to create a
disadvantage for them."

Judge Kiteley continued: "The absence of ABA/IBI means that children with
autism are excluded from the opportunity to access learning with the
consequential deprivation of skills, the likelihood of isolation from
society and the loss of the ability to exercise the rights and freedoms to
which all Canadians are entitled."

Judge Kiteley called the case histories of families who launched the court
case "heartbreaking." She said the McGuinty government's age-six autism
cut-off "undermines the integrity of the government."

In the last provincial election, McGuinty declared "that the lack of
government-funded IBI treatment for autistic children over six is unfair
and discriminatory....The Ontario Liberals support extending autism
treatment beyond the age of six."

Under the McGuinty regime, the waiting list for children seeking IBI has
grown to over 1000 children.  MiIlions of dollars which could
have been used to meet the needs of Ontario's autistic children were
instead spent fighting families who have launched  court battles designed to
get McGuinty to live up to his election promises. At one point this year,
families who had filed a Class Action lawsuit requiring that the government
and school boards provide full
and equal access to the educational system for their children faced a
lawsuit from Attorney General Michael Bryant to force them to pay the
government's legal costs!

When NDP Health and Autism Critic, Shelley Martel  inquired through the
Freedom of Information Act about what the government had spent fighting
families in court, they refused to provide that information.  Even when the
Information Privacy Commissioner's ordered that they release this
information, they refused and filed a challenge with the court only to
eventually lose.

Meanwhile, families of children with autism who have not been able to
access IBI for the children within the school system have had to go deep
into debt to provide the necessary therapy for their children. MPP Peter
Kormos describes a typical situation:
"When young Cameron Walsh down in Welland was diagnosed with autism, he was
put on the waiting list for government-funded IBI treatment. When he turned
six, he still hadn't reached the head of the line, and he was told that he
was no longer eligible. His parents, Leo and Sheri, purchased IBI treatment
at a cost of $2,800 a month, but the bank account finally ran dry. There's
no more credit. They've literally used all of their credit, all of their
credit cards, every available penny, every bit of resources made available
to them by relatives and raised during the course of fundraisers and their
son now doesn't receive IBI."

The Ontario Autism Coalition is seeking three very basic things from the
Ontario government:

1) Allow IBI instructor therapists currently working within the AIP entry
into the school system so that scientifically valid, supervised ABA can be
 implemented. Children receiving intensive ABA through the AIP and
students
attending school should receive the same quality of ABA services.

2) Eliminate the waitlist in the AIP and fully fund services for all
children with Autism-from the mild to severe end of the Autism Spectrum.

3) Develop a formal credentialing system and a proper training and
recruitment system for the implementation of ABA to ensure accountability
and capacity within the system.



Toronto Action for Social Change points out that the discriminatory
treatment of children with autism is symptomatic of a much larger social
problem: the refusal of government to provide the means for its most
vulnerable citizens to achieve the basics of life and live in dignity. The
province's  "disability support system" is in fact a barrier that
continually rejects requests for assistance from many of Ontario's
hundreds of thousands of disabled residents (and disability payments are a
mere $979 per month for single individuals, 44% below the poverty line)
and approximately 1/3 of what is paid in other jurisdictions.  A 2003
Legal Aid Ontario report  concluded that the program "imposes arduous and
unrealistic barriers on the very people it purports to help."

More info: http://www.ontarioautism.com/

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