Here's another example of how better medical treatments could save time, boost incomes, boost economic output, and raise quality of life. The costs of raising kids with developmental defects is very high and if we could only avoid these defects in babies we would gain a great benefit.
New research suggests that the average household with children with autism not only spends thousands of dollars toward educational, behavioral and health care expenses each year, but also suffers from a lesser-known cost that hits them up front – a sizeable chunk of missed household income, perhaps as much as $6,200 annually.
The study, published in April’s edition of Pediatrics, paints a more detailed financial picture of how expensive life can become for parents of children with an autism spectrum disorder.
“To our knowledge, this is the first U.S. study that examines this front half of the ‘money in, money out’ equation,” said economist Guillermo Montes, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and a senior researcher at the Children’s Institute, a not-for-profit organization affiliated with the University of Rochester, where he also serves as a faculty member in the division of General Pediatrics. “To collect data on expenses is fairly straightforward– it’s a survey report. But projecting earning potential and then stacking that against actual income requires complex statistical modeling.”
The study is based on data from the National Household Education Survey on After School Programs and Activities in 2005, a telephone questionnaire that drew on parents of more than 11,000 children, kindergarten-age through eighth grade. Parents reported if their child had an autism spectrum disorder, or ASD (that is, if he or she had ever been diagnosed with autism or a pervasive developmental disorder), their total household income and their highest level of education. Several other demographic details were collected, including the parent’s age, type of family (two parent or otherwise) and whether they lived in an urban or rural locale.
The economic benefits of medical research are very high and I think medical research is underappreciated for its benefits. Costs of health problems of mind and body show up in lots more ways than just high medical bills or inability of a sick person to go to work. Families pay big tolls when a child has major disabilities.
By Randall Parker at 2008 April 02 10:16 PM Policy Medical | TrackBackCould there be a causal connection between the older parents are when having children and the increased incidence of autism?
There is a link to autism if both grandfathers are engineers. Males are systemizers, females are empathizers. Autism is the extreme male brain. If the cost of genome sequencing falls to $5000 by the end of the year, then our understanding of these conditions will increase dramatically.
There are lots of correlations, ecological and otherwise.
The real question is why has there been so little progress while equal time is invested in "move along now -- nothing to see here" hypotheses such as "diagnostic substitution" and "assortative mating" given that the downside risk of these being incorrect is so monstrous?
A vitamin D hypothesis of autism is advanced at this URL:
James,
As an autistic adult (I have Asperger's), I don't see what's so monstrous.
Frankly, the science around autism has been greatly retarded because so much money is involved.
Desperate parents bankrupt themselves pursuing treatments that make no statistically significant difference in outcome. Lovaas, the behaviourist quack who conducted unethical and abusive experiments on effeminate boys in the 1970's by hypothesizing a behaviourist preventive for homosexuality and by capitalizing on parental prejudice against same, decided to cash in on parental prejudice against autism when some of the effeminate boys became fags anyway and others avoided that outcome through suicide. His own results show no difference in outcome for autistic children unless one beats them into submission, and no long-term follow-up has ever been done on his patients. (I think he learned about avoiding long-term follow-ups when they put an end to his effeminate boy gravy train.) Later studies that avoid "aversives" after they were deemed cruel, show no difference in outcome, but parents love the programs anyway.
At the same time, tremendous resources have been poured into trying to prove a link between vaccination and autism. That has been driven by greedy lawyers intent on cashing in on sympathetic clients through suing the government for cash settlements over non-existent vaccination damages. Every grad student running a survey online pursues vaccination as a cause almost exclusively. Even though the best evidence suggests no link, all the money goes into trying to prove this ephemeral link. That diverts resources from the neurology studies, genetic studies, etc. that actually have a chance of making a difference in people's lives.
Because autism is largely genetic, parents of autistic children are much more likely to have PDD themselves or ADD or ADHD etc. It doesn't surprise me to find a statistical difference in income as a result. I suggest the only conclusion one can draw from this result is it bears further study.
Randall,
You should be ashamed of yourself for your choice of title. The study you link to does nothing to suggest that autistic children cause anything regarding parental income. At the same time, we know parental genes cause autism.
You know better than to say correlation equals causation. Shame on you!
Bob,
It seems reasonable to expect that if a child is harder to raise and requires more care then that eats into time that parents could spend boosting their incomes.
Next are you going to tell me that kids with autism aren't harder to take care of?
It seems reasonable to expect that if a child receives "intensive therapy", the therapist is doing all the work so the parents can continue to earn an income just as always.
I suggest it is far more reasonable to expect the parents, on average, have PDD related disabilities that impact their income irrespective of parenthood. My evidence for that is a higher incidence of ADD, ADHD, Asperger's, PDD-NOS etc. among the close relatives of low-functioning autistics.
Where is your evidence that parents the parents give up income to spend more time in childcare or that having an autistic child causes any change in income?
You know better. The sophistry does not become you.
Bob,
Sophistry: So you are accusing me of deliberate deception!
Where is my evidence that a parent that has to feed or bathe a child has less time to work? Where is my evidence that parents have to spend more time dealing with head bangers? You think I have to prove the obvious? Are you serious? Or more time dealing with kids who have to be put in classes with 3 kids per teacher? Or where the kids knock things over out of obliviousness?
Living with autism-related issues isn't easy, Bickford added. Both her boys have sensory issues ---- they don't usually notice when they badly injure themselves and they have a hard time moving around without knocking into things."My little guy, I can't tell you how often he runs into the tables and the chairs," she said.
You don't think this is a big burden for mom and dad? I mean again, are you serious?
Or hey, they get therapists who spend time them. But does that save mom and dad time? Or do they have to drive the kid to the therapist and then wait? Or maybe they can go to stores and run errands while the kid is in therapy sessions that do not help much if at all? Oh, and the therapist doesn't give the parents any exercises to do with their kids?
Come off your high moral horse and get serious. Oh, and stop insulting me too.
Bob,
Do you think any of these children take extra time from mom and dad?
Child A: Adores/obsesses about trains; can't stand the feel of most clothing against his skin; severe speech delay; refuses eye contact; benefits from firm pressure (weighted vests and blankets, being held tightly by someone he trusts) and loves to jump up and down.Child B: Talks all the time, but mainly just parroting everything he hears; scared of loud noises; exceptional recall and artistic abilities; limited eye contact; flaps hands; fascinated by numbers; runs off every chance he gets and has no concept of danger.
Child C: No speech skills; spends much of his time rocking back and forth; minimal eye contact; obsessively arranges and rearranges his toys while ignoring the remainder of the world; still not fully potty-trained at age 11; can complete a puzzle of the USA in two minutes flat.
Child D: Advanced verbal skills, and talks non-stop about every facet of dinosaurs; good eye contact; many obsessive-compulsive traits (will only eat white food or one very specific brand and variety of juice); prone to tantrums and head-banging; will happily wander off from his parents whether at the museum or shopping mall.
Maybe mom and dad feel more fatigued at the end of the day and maybe that carries into the next day at the office?
Do you think the need for respite care for autistic children to give parents a break is a sign that it is not harder to raise autistic children?
Families who have a child with autism often experience ongoing stress. Aspects of the family’s life that may be impacted by a family member with autism include family recreation, finances, social relations with friends, relatives, spouses and neighbors, and the emotional, physical, and mental well-being of parents and siblings. Because of the additional care required by a child with autism, families identify respite care as a basic need, with the need increasing as the child gets older. Families who report less stress usually are the recipients of formal support services, such as respite care. Respite care for families who have a child with autism helps maintain family stability and may provide opportunities for the child to participate in special activities.
I work with women who work part time in order to raise children. Every time a kid gets sick they miss work and get paid less. You think autistic children don't cause moms to miss more work than normal children do?
Randall,
I said nothing about your intentions. Regardless of your intentions, your article title was sophistry. You made an unequivocal statement and pointed to a study as evidence. The study itself does not offer a shred of evidence for your thesis. You posted unsound reasoning for the purposes of political rhetoric. If that's not sophistry, I don't know what is.
Imagine a hypothetical Presbyterian happening across statistics that show Presbyterians make more money than other religious adherents. It would be equally reasonable for him to assume that God exists and is, in fact, a Presbyterian. After all, it is only reasonable that a God would reward His true adherents with greater wealth.
Your alleged reasoning is identical, and you are smart enough to recognize it.
My head banging as a child never stopped my parents from doing whatever the hell they wanted to. In my case, it was usually a reaction to their abuse in any case.
Some parents with a special needs child might even work more overtime just to have a break from the kid. In fact, social programs provide respite workers for that very purpose.
Until further information is collected, I find the hypothesis that the parents of kids on the spectrum are more likely on the spectrum or autistic cousins and that this affects their income is the more credible hypothesis. Granted, the study you pointed to offered no more evidence for that hypothesis than the one you put in your title.
Yes, I am serious. And your reactionary sophistry is even less becoming. In fact, it reflects very, very poorly on you.
Bob,
You find some hypothesis likely. Therefore you denigrate my character.
You equate your Asperger's Syndrome with autism. It is perhaps a weaker version of autism. But it is not as difficult for a parent to deal with as a kid who can't dress himself or use a toilet or a kid who can't stand a lot of things that you can tolerate.
With all due respect, I did not denigrate your character. I made factual statements about what you wrote and how it reflects on you.
A fallacious argument, ie. unsound or invalid logic, for the purposes of rhetoric is a sophism, and the act of making such an argument is sophistry. Your justification for the title you chose is fallacious. The conclusion is no better supported by the facts than the existence of God or His chosen faith is supported by the relative wealth of adherents to various sects. As reasonable or as obvious as it may seem to you. I have had various believers bitch and moan about having to explain the "obvious" evidence for their beliefs to me too. Your conclusion is no more obvious to me than the existence of God--alleged miracles notwithstanding.
Further, your choice defames autistics. At best, it has no better than 50% chance of being the most significant contributor to the phenomenon observed (if it contributes at all), which is no better than random noise.
I am not the first of your regular readers to remark on you writing titles unsupported by the evidence given. It has happened several times over the past year or so and seems to happen with increasing frequency. I come to your site because you have the ability to cut through the sophistry in what the mainstream media writes, and you used to do that quite frequently.
If I wanted to read sophistry, I could read the NY Times.
P.S. Don't be too certain that I am any different from a low functioning autistic at a genetic level. See Neuroanatomical and neurocognitive differences in a pair of monozygous twins discordant for strictly defined autism.
Bob,
You took your opinions, elevated them to facts, and then you really did morally judge me.
1. Deceptive or false appearance; deceitfulness; that which misleads the eye or the mind; deception.
to attack the good name or reputation of, as by uttering or publishing maliciously or falsely anything injurious; slander or libel; calumniate: The newspaper editorial defamed the politician.
I still think it obvious that parents of autistic children face a much harder road to hoe. You still think I'm defective in my reasoning at best and deceitful and malicious at worst.
I think you are emotionally invested in believing something false on this topic due to how you identify yourself with autistics. I'm telling you something you do not want to hear and you are attacking.
Randall,
The following links do not have the emotional appeal to people's prejudices that a picture of an autistic child engaging in functional autistic behaviours has, but they do have some pretense to the scientific method. All of them support the hypothesis that parents of autistic children on a group average basis have genetic differences that may reduce income:
As I said, what you called obvious is in no way shape or form obvious to me or even legitimately supported by any of the alleged evidence.
Randall,
Your accusations denigrate me (as you have accused me of doing to you) and are in fact untrue.
A factual statement and a fact are two different things. The statements I made are factual statements. As such, they are either true or untrue and are empirically measurable. If you wish to legitimately refute a factual statement, empirically demonstrate the statement is false. Denigrating a fact as "mere opinion" in no way changes the fact into anything other than a fact.
Getting angry at a factual statement does not refute it.
I not only made factual statements but gave empirical explanation for why the statements are true. You have offered nothing to refute either the statements or the explanations.
You are apparently eager to cherry pick definitions to feel offended. I cannot prevent you from doing so. However, I offer the same link you offered:
1. a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.
2. a false argument; sophism.
n. pl. soph·is·tries
1. Plausible but fallacious argumentation.
2. A plausible but misleading or fallacious argument.
2. (Logic) An argument, or apparent argument, which professes to be decisive of the matter at issue, while in reality it is not; a sophism.
Usage: Fallacy, Sophistry. A fallacy is an argument which professes to be decisive, but in reality is not; sophistry is also false reasoning, but of so specious and subtle a kind as to render it difficult to expose its fallacy. Many fallacies are obvious, but the evil of sophistry lies in its consummate art. "Men are apt to suffer their minds to be misled by fallacies which gratify their passions. Many persons have obscured and confounded the nature of things by their wretched sophistry; though an act be never so sinful, they will strip it of its guilt." --South.
To feel offended, you ignore 90% of the entry including the American Heritage Dictionary definition, the Random House definition, the alternate definition offered by Webster, and the context of use "The study you link to does nothing to suggest [the conclusion you unequivocally claimed it proved]."
I find it particularly ironic that your initial response to the word "sophistry" was to demonstrate the superficial plausibility of the fallacious argument through emotional appeals.
to attack the good name or reputation of, as by uttering or publishing maliciously or falsely anything injurious; slander or libel; calumniate: The newspaper editorial defamed the politician.
To feel offended, you cherry pick your emphasis and your definitions. Defame also means "1. To harm or destroy the good fame or reputation of" "2. To render infamous; to bring into disrepute." "3. To charge; to accuse. [R.]" All from the Webster definition, which you chose to ignore for this word while ignoring everything else for "sophistry". Whether the defamation meets the requirements of a tort is an entirely separate issue, which was also addressed when I used the word.
It is obvious to me that parenting a non-verbal or echolalic autistic child is at least as demanding as parenting any infant. What's not obvious to me, was not established by any "evidence" you provided and was warned specifically against concluding by the authors of the study you cited is the conclusion that autistic children cause a reduction in parental income. An autistic child could just as easily drive parents to earn more than they might otherwise. The referenced article does nothing to resolve the issue either way.
Your reasoning is flawed. It is as flawed as the evidence generally given for a God when other equally plausible explanations exist. I know you are smart enough to recognize the fallacy when it is applied to theology. That you refuse to recognize the same flaw appearing in your argument suggests to me that you have the blinding emotional investment not me.
You are telling me something 1) that is quite likely untrue, 2) that denigrates me and other autistics, 3) that reinforces prejudices against us that all autistics face, 4) that I was quite willing to accept at face value until I read the linked article and recognized the flaw in your reasoning. I don't see how #4 is at all compatible with your hypothesis that I am blinded by emotion.
While you have made appeals to emotion to establish the plausibility of your fallacious reasoning, I have offered links to quantifiable and falsifiable scientific studies establishing another at least as plausible mechanism for the same observed outcome. I respectfully suggest that, rather than being blinded by emotion, I am simply better informed about this specific issue and more willing to consider all of the alternatives.
I chose the top definition for sophistry by Websters. They list the order of the definitions by most popular usage. When I hear the term "sophistry" I think it is an accusation of intentionally unfair argumentation. I wasn't surprised to find Websters agrees.
You continue to misinterpret my emotional state on all this. I think you simply do not understand child raising and your view on this is naive. Being naive is okay. Getting on a high moral horse and insulting my character as a result is not so okay. But I forgive you for it.
I just got told the real life experiences of a woman who works as a teaching assistant for autistic children. She can't take her eyes off them for a minute because they'll take off running. Imagine what that does to the parents when the kids are at home. Its gotta be draining.
I know a lot of women who raise kids. They tell me stories all the time. I see huge differences in difficulties (in hours spent, emotional wear and tear, costs, etc) in raising the different kids they have. I have a very hard time believing that autistic children aren't harder to raise. I know the working women I know work different numbers of hours based on illnesses (and I've noticed some are more illness prone than others), behavioral problems, and personalities of their kids. I know some of these women work in one way or another from the time they wake up till the time they go to sleep. They do less paid work due to problems with their kids. The differences between the women in hours worked is therefore substantial.
Telling me about the parents of the autistics is besides the point. You seem oblivious to this. Do this mental exercise: Would a non-autistic parent who adopts two kids where one is autistic and one is not autistic spend more time working with the autistic kid? Yes or no?
Here's one lady's description of how hard it is to raise an autistic kid:
My son, now almost 27 years old, is verbal, very verbal. He's a big bear of a "kid" who talks loud, needs constant attention unless he is involved in a perseverative behavior like creating collages, stringing beads, making a present for his girlfriend, or designing a new Monopoly game.He's lived in a nursing home for six years now. That sounds awful, but it's not, really. There are guys his age around him all the time, albeit some lower functioning ones, and staff to listen to him, and regular activities--all within a structured environment. I wish he could live in a group home, but there is no appropriate place available for him in the state where I live. He has medical needs which require the nursing home care; needs and conditions and illnesses that are "less than" the main diagnosis, but you'd be surprised at how important they can become. A family with a "normal" child would find just one of these challenges a lot to take.
We're trying to get him into a sheltered workshop, but that is not as easy or available as one might think. Nothing is in raising a special needs child. And nothing prepares you for it.
Underneath the optimism, the can-do attitude, the bravery, the fundraisers, one might find a mother (and hopefully a father ) and likely a few siblings overcome with exhaustion, scared out of their wits at the future, and fighting the temptation to give up, whatever that might mean to them. Everyday, though, they start again. And, some of them have more than one child with autism. Some of them are foster parents or have adopted autistic children. These parents are real heroes. They measure progress, and love, and happiness with a different yardstick than others.
Caring for a child with profound needs involves a lot of things that no one wants to talk about. Feces spread on the walls; head banging on a tile floor; locks on all cabinets and windows; alarms on the doors to prevent night-time "escapes"; exposing of one's privates in public; loud talking and stares of strangers; forgoing visits to restaurants; dates with a spouse; relationships and marriages and neighborhood sports teams and money in the bank and never having friends who don't feel sorry for you.
A high-functioning child with profound and pervasive mental disorders can bring a parent into the legal system, the criminal justice system, the courts, the jails, and the fear of what others might do to your child. It can also bring into your life the fear of what your child, now stronger, taller, and less inhibited than anyone else in the family, might do to you.
In my case, I did not sleep through the night until Todd was 11 years old and went into institutional care for the first time. Most parents can't wait until their baby sleeps through the night. When your "baby" is old enough to climb on kitchen countertops at night, start the car, urinate on the floor, climb out a window, you are robbed of the peace of a good night's rest; and no one really understands the depth of your fatigue. This can lead to chronic illnesses in the parent, and can affect job performance, career plans, the romantic life of a couple, so many things...
Again, raising autistic children is time-consuming:
Living with an autistic child can change the family dynamic. So much of the parents' time is focused on the child, it leaves little time and energy to spend with the other children or together as a couple."It hasn't mine, but it can put a strain on marriages," Lewis said.
Because autism can become consuming, parents and siblings of autistic children become impassioned about finding out more about the mysterious disorder and raising awareness.
Do you think this young autistic reduces the number of paid working hours someone can do?
It's another day in the life of Ruth Temple and this six-and-a-half-year-old who's severely impacted by autism. Although full of the same playful energy as most kids her age, Rowan is unable to talk (other than to say her favorite word, "Eat!" which throws her into fits of proud smiles), isn't potty-trained and is limited to a very strict diet."I'm definitely not retired," laughs 62-year-old Temple, a former elementary and middle school teacher. "At this point in time she is all-consuming."
Temple is one of more than 34,000 Rogue Valley residents — nearly one-eighth of the population — who provide unpaid care for someone with a chronic or disabling condition. Sometimes the cared-for person is living in the caregiver's home; other times, the caregiver makes visits to the sick person's home. In either case, most of these dedicated caregivers are middle-aged, employed women who earn a modest salary and still have children at home.
Temple took Rowan in almost three years ago, providing a consistent environment that had been missing in the girl's life. When she came to Temple's Ashland home, Rowan couldn't bear to keep her clothes on for more than a few seconds, went into regular rages, refused to be touched or held, and couldn't be contained or make eye contact.
This couple sounds like they have a hard road to hoe:
Jacob does not talk and is not potty trained. He eats things he is not supposed to eat, and he chews on his clothing.Denise said Jacob is in constant motion.
"He never wears down," she said, until he finally settles down at night. "Then he wakes up about every two hours."
"I haven't had a good night's sleep in eight years," she said.
Jacob now weighs 80 pounds, and is harder to handle. Denise relies on Tony to help her when she just can't manage Jacob.
"If Jacob doesn't want to do something, I physically can't make him," Denise said.
Tony, who is self-employed in the home improvement business, stays around for awhile in the morning in case Denise needs help in getting Jacob on the bus.
Randall,
You continue to denigrate me, which you accused me of doing. You clearly had an emotional reaction to this discussion, which you accused me of having. Getting on a high moral horse and "forgiving" me for the flaws you projected onto me is just yet another sophistry. It doesn't really prove anything.
I understand child raising very well. I interact with the parents of autistic children every day. I know what they go through. At one time, I, myself, was a head-banging child who wandered off. I interact with autistics every day. Accusing me of ignorance, which you also did implicitly when you posted your initial sophist reaction, does not change any of the facts.
The anecdotal "evidence" you supply in no way refutes the at least equally plausible mechanism for the observed outcome. If you want to take it on faith that autistic children cause a decline in income, at least have the intellectual honesty to admit to your faith. Because that is all it is. You have offered nothing to legitimately prove your belief.
You have closedmindedly reached a conclusion based on no real evidence whatsoever, and you cling to it for no good reason in spite of ample evidence for other hypotheses. You know better than to do that, which is why I said you should be ashamed. Confusing correlation with causation is a tyro mistake.
Do this mental exercise:
What effect on income do you predict for impaired performance IQ? Haven't you already been quite clear on that prediction? Yes, you have: quite clear.
I know a lot of women who raise kids too. I have worked with lots of women who raised kids and observed women raising neurotypical children missing lots of work. In my experience, how much work a woman misses due to child raising says a lot more about the woman's personality and work ethic than about the needs of the child. I also know women who periodically squeeze out a neurotypical child to keep the welfare gravy train rolling along.
Your opinion on this issue seems driven by some mythical world view where parents neither neglect nor abuse their children. Where every parent is an altruist willing to sacrifice everything for the child they have instead of resenting the child for not being the perfect child they wanted. I find it quite ironic that you argue for a position based on an unrealistic view of human nature. And you call me naive? ::rolls eyes::
I find it doubly ironic because I know you have every reason to know how foolish that view of parenting really is, and I am at a loss to explain your behaviour.
I agree that caring for an autistic child in the home has gotta be draining, which is why those parents are more likely to spend more time at work increasing their income while your teaching assistant friend watches their kids.
I find your anecdotal evidence unconvincing. You should know better than to rely on anecdotal evidence, which is yet another reason why you should be ashamed. Such emotional appeals are just yet more sophistry.
As for emphasizing "Caring for a child with profound needs involves a lot of things that no one wants to talk about. Feces spread on the walls; head banging on a tile floor; locks on all cabinets and windows; alarms on the doors to prevent night-time "escapes"; exposing of one's privates in public; loud talking and stares of strangers; forgoing visits to restaurants; dates with a spouse; relationships and marriages and neighborhood sports teams and money in the bank and never having friends who don't feel sorry for you." Your emphasis and your appeal to emotion says a lot more about your prejudices than anything else.
In that whole lengthy comment, the only pertinent quote was the anecdotal report of one person that raising an autistic child "can affect job performance, career plans." Frankly, I can find as many anecdotes to refute it as you can find for it, but I don't see the point. Parents who want you to feel sorry for them will say one thing. Parents who want you to learn to appreciate their child will say another thing. And at the end of the day, the parent whose own executive dysfunction, social retardation, or schizoid personality traits "affect job performance, career plans" is unlikely to forthrightly own their shortcomings--especially when they have the convenience of an autistic child to pin them on.
None of your anecdotes address the fallacy of your reasoning. Correlation does not equal causation. Other--at least as plausible mechanisms--explain the measured outcome. Without additional direct measurement, we cannot say which of the mechanisms is the main or major cause for the observed outcome. Period.
Bob,
I am not making an emotional appeal. I'm relating these anecdotes of parents tired from raising autistic kids (which are easy to find in very large quantities) because I think they represent the experience of a large number of people raising autistic children. Do you think these parents are not drained from raising autistic kids? Do you think they are just making it up?
Teaching assistants: But the school day does not last as many hours as the office place work day. Also, schools have lots of holidays and there are the summers off. Plus, the kids get sick and do not go to school.
You are painting some weird straw man about my beliefs. Parents do not abuse or neglect their kids? Where do you get off thinking I do not believe this? [Clarification: I'm saying where do you get off thinking I believe this neglect does not happen?]
Main or major cause of the observed outcome: I'm saying that raising autistic kids drains parents. I'm saying that a parent drained is less able to perform at work and has fewer hours to work. Whether there are additional sources of their lowered incomes is really besides the point.
What was my point here? That raising disabled kids is a big cost and that cost even lowers incomes. You dispute this in general or only in the case of autistic children?
Costs of autism include loss of income by parents:
Boston, MA – It can cost about $3.2 million to take care of an autistic person over his or her lifetime. Caring for all people with autism over their lifetimes costs an estimated $35 billion per year. Those figures are part of the findings in the first study to comprehensively survey and document the costs of autism to U.S. society. Michael Ganz, Assistant Professor of Society, Human Development, and Health at Harvard School of Public Health, authored the study, which appears in a chapter titled, "The Costs of Autism," in the newly published book, Understanding Autism: From Basic Neuroscience to Treatment (CRC Press, 2006). Ganz hopes his research will help policymakers allocate scarce resources to its treatment and prevention as well as provide a useful reference for policymakers and advocates to help them more fully understand the financial impact of autism on U.S. society.Ganz's analysis of the costs includes direct and indirect medical costs associated with the disorder. But he believes the $35 billion annual societal cost for caring for and treating people with autism likely underestimates the true costs because there are a number of other services that are used to support individuals with autism, such as alternative therapies and other family out-of-pocket expenses, that are difficult to measure. In addition, Ganz believes that the level of cost could be higher if there were more useful and widespread treatment options available. "Given that the federal autism research budget has been historically less than $100 million per year and given that research budgets for other conditions with similar numbers of affected individuals are sometimes orders of magnitude higher, I hope that my research can help focus more attention on directing more resources toward finding prevention and treatment options for autism," Ganz said. (For comparison purposes, he notes estimated annual costs of other conditions, including Alzheimer's disease ($91 billion); mental retardation ($51 billion); anxiety ($47 billion); and schizophrenia ($33 billion).)
Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) that involves severe deficits in a person's ability to communicate and interact with others. Children with autism often have trouble using their imagination, have a limited range of interests, and may show repetitive patterns of behavior or body movements. The disorder is often associated with some degree of mental retardation. Autism is the most prevalent PDD and the most common of all serious childhood disorders. It affects an estimated 1.5 million Americans and is increasing at a rate of 10-17 percent each year. It is four times more common in boys than in girls. The exact cause of autism is not known and there is currently no cure for the disorder.
Ganz broke down the total costs of autism into two components: direct and indirect costs. Direct costs include direct medical costs, such as physician and outpatient services, prescription medication, and behavioral therapies (estimated to cost, on average, more than $29,000 per person per year) and direct non-medical costs, such as special education, camps, and child care (estimated to annually cost more than $38,000 for those with lower levels of disability and more than $43,000 for those with higher levels).
Indirect costs equal the value of lost productivity resulting from a person having autism, for example, the difference in potential income between someone with autism and someone without. It also captures the value of lost productivity for an autistic person's parents. Examples include loss of income due to reduced work hours or not working altogether. Ganz estimates that annual indirect costs for autistic individuals and their parents range from more than $39,000 to nearly $130,000.
A later study by Ganz on autism's costs
Michael L. Ganz, M.S., Ph.D., Abt Associates Inc., Lexington, Mass., and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, used data from the medical literature and from national surveys to estimate the direct medical and non-medical costs of autism, including prescription medications, adult care, special education and behavioral therapies. Approximate indirect costs, including lost productivity of both individuals with autism and their parents, were calculated by projecting average earnings and benefits at each age, adjusted for the fact that some autistic individuals can work in supported environments. Only costs directly linked to autism, and no medical or non-medical costs that would be incurred by individuals with or without autism, were included.These costs were projected across the lifetime of a hypothetical group of individuals born in 2000 and diagnosed with autism in 2003. Costs estimates were broken down into age groups at five-year intervals, with the youngest group age 3 to 7 years and the oldest age 63 to 66 years.
"Direct medical costs are quite high for the first five years of life (average of around $35,000), start to decline substantially by age 8 years (around $6,000) and continue to decline through the end of life to around $1,000," Dr. Ganz writes. "Direct non-medical costs vary around $10,000 to approximately $16,000 during the first 20 years of life, peak in the 23- to 27-year age range (around $27,500) and then steadily decline to the end of life to around $8,000 in the last age group. Indirect costs also display a similar pattern, decreasing from around $43,000 in early life, peaking at ages 23 to 27 years (around $52,000) and declining through the end of life to $0."
Over an individual's life, lost productivity and other indirect costs make up 59.3 percent of total autism-related costs. Direct medical costs comprise 9.7 percent of total costs; the largest medical cost, behavioral therapy, accounts for 6.5 percent of total costs. Non-medical direct costs such as child care and home modifications comprise 31 percent of total lifetime costs.
And your point?
If you are trying to make the point that a lot of parents waste huge sums of money on ineffective and abusive "therapies", I agree. See "Lovaas" and "effeminate boys" above, which is the basis for "intensive behavioral therapy". Is your point that autistics who are also mentally retarded have lower lifetime productivity than neurotypical individuals of normal intelligence? I agree. Individually that minority subgroup of autistics cost more than they contribute as does every identifiable group of mentally retarded individuals.
Is your point that a for-profit company that produces on demand "scientific" results for the AARP, the UAW, the PBS, the American Association of Health Plans, the American Healthcare Association among others, that is voted a top market research firm, and that employs mostly humanities, social sciences and management uses press release sites to publicize alarmist numbers on the basis of handwavy analysis? Yes, clearly it uses a press release site.
Did you even read the "Approximate indirect costs" remark? aka "We made the numbers up."
None of the sophistry you have offered proves the causal relationship you claimed, and none of it refutes the evidence supporting other equally plausible mechanisms for the observed outcome. The fact that you have nothing to offer except yet more sophistry should tell you something.
"Examples include loss of income due to reduced work hours or not working altogether. Ganz estimates that annual indirect costs for autistic individuals and their parents range from more than $39,000 to nearly $130,000."
That should tell you Ganz is pulling the numbers out of his ass. He is estimating that parents give up nearly 3 times the median family income and somewhere between 6 times and 21 times the $6200.00 actually measured in the first press release you cited. Yeah, that's a credible source. Not!
It is difficult to prove hypotheses with social science data because it is difficult to control for all variables.
You argue many points of view on many subjects and forcefully make many claims as true without proof of these claims. You do not admit to sophistry when you do this. I think you are holding up a different standard for me with this particular claim.
"I am not making an emotional appeal. I'm relating these anecdotes of parents tired from raising autistic kids (which are easy to find in very large quantities) because I think they represent the experience of a large number of people raising autistic children."
Denial of the obvious does not change the facts. If you are not making an emotional appeal, you are posting irrelevant noise. I can find anecdotes that seem to refute your thesis in large numbers too. However, I have no use for such sophistry, and I won't waste your time with it. No number of anecdotes will address the directly observable fact that your title professes a decisive conclusion when the evidence offered does not support the conclusion in any way shape or form. English has a word for that. Care to guess what that word is?
"Do you think these parents are not drained from raising autistic kids?"
Some parents find raising autistics kids draining. Other parents do not. Some parents institutionalize their children. Some parents enroll their children in "intensive therapies" for 40 hours per week. Some parents are drained from raising non-autistic children. How exactly does any of this refute the fact that autism is mostly genetic and that parents of autistic children exhibit behavioral traits likely to affect income irrespective of having an autistic child?
"Do you think they are just making it up?"
Why would you ask that? The anecdotes are simply irrelevant. Self-reports are notoriously inaccurate regardless of the cause, and isolated reports do not have any statistical significance. What exactly from your personal view on human nature causes you to think the parent of an autistic child will even accept their own executive dysfunction, social retardation or schizoid personality traits even when they have one or all of them? What exactly from your personal view on human nature causes you to think they will be sufficiently self-aware as to appropriately assign cause for their lower income?
"Teaching assistants: But the school day does not last as many hours as the office place work day. Also, schools have lots of holidays and there are the summers off. Plus, the kids get sick and do not go to school."
40 hours per week is the gold standard for "intensive behavioral therapy"--with no summers off. How long is the work week? In addition to the behaviorism, autistic kids get chelation therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy etc. Does the teaching assistant you spoke to work in a regular school teaching mainstreamed autistic kids? Or in some other "therapeutic" setting?
"You are painting some weird straw man about my beliefs. Parents do not abuse or neglect their kids? Where do you get off thinking I do not believe this?"
Your preferred thesis depends in large part on parents giving up some or all of their career for altruistic reasons and acting in non-neglectful, non-abusive ways, while ignoring the genetic traits of the parents of autistic children. If I read more into that than appropriate, I apologize.
"Main or major cause of the observed outcome: I'm saying that raising autistic kids drains parents."
No, Randall, you did not say that. You said: "Autistic Kids Lower Parental Income" (if you doubt me, just look in the title bar of your browser) and you linked to a press release that does nothing to establish the unequivocal conclusion you stated. The English language has a word that means making "an argument, or apparent argument, which professes to be decisive of the matter at issue, while in reality it is not." Would you care to guess what that word is?
"I'm saying that a parent drained is less able to perform at work and has fewer hours to work."
Other than handwaving and self-reports, where is your proof that this mechanism in fact lowers income? Frankly, you have not provided any. Your thesis is exactly as reasonable as the hypothetical Presbyterian's thesis that God is a Presbyterian.
"Whether there are additional sources of their lowered incomes is really besides the point."
Whether your thesis is a source of lowered incomes, however, is the point. While offering a statement of decisive conclusion, you have not offered any empirical evidence to establish that conclusion. Sophistry just doesn't cut the mustard. No matter how much sophistry you dump on the issue.
"What was my point here? That raising disabled kids is a big cost and that cost even lowers incomes. You dispute this in general or only in the case of autistic children?"
I dispute that disabled children necessarily lower their parents' incomes. And I specifically dispute that autistic children lower their parents' incomes. You have not provided a shred of proof for the assertion. Correlation is not causation and shame on you for making such a neophyte mistake. You are not a neophyte. And shame on you for repeatedly resorting to sophistry in the face of actual empirical evidence.
When I say I'm saying X you tell me I'm saying Y as if that is a refutation and that I didn't claim X too. The fact is I'm saying X and Y and these are linked statements.
Anecdotes are not irrelevant. That's like saying that all personal experience is irrelevant.
Altruism toward children: I see it every day. That you would deny it is amazing.
Neglect toward children: I see it every day. That you would deny it is amazing.
The fact is X and Y are only linked in your imagination. No valid inference combines them in any usable way. X does not refute Z="Y is sophistry".
Which is the stronger influence? Altruism or neglect? You have offered nothing to establish which is the stronger influence. Posting an anecdote for one (and realistically how many neglectful parents are going to publicly own their neglect) while ignoring literally millions of anecdotes for the other is pointless, which is why your anecdotes are irrelevant. Your anecdotes prove that having a mentally retarded autistic child involves strong motivators--nothing more. You assume without measurement that these motivators will cause parents to sacrifice income to spend more time in an unpleasant situation--contrary to normal animal behavior. You completely ignore the also likely outcome that these motivators will cause parents to flee their children by escaping into more pleasant income-producing activities instead.
Which is the stronger influence? I don't know. And frankly, neither do you, which is why your title is sophistry and why your rhetoric reflects poorly on you. It is quite possible that having an autistic child will drive the ambitions of parents to earn more than they might otherwise earn but that the parents' own lack of tact and failure to reliably execute leave them at a sufficient disadvantage to other employees that even with the added earnings their income falls short of their colleagues. The study you linked to as "proof" for your assertion does not in fact provide any information to disambiguate the situation and neither do the anecdotes, which makes them pointless and irrelevant.
You ignore the empirical prevalence of institutionalization and (frankly sometimes abusive) ABA programs both of which serve to free parents from parenting and childcare thereby enabling pursuit of more income not less.
At the same time you keep resorting to pointless anecdotes and other sophistries, you completely ignore the empirical evidence I provide for another at least as plausible hypothesis:
Ignoring relevant empirical evidence doesn't make it go away.
Bob,
Again, you are attacking a straw man. I was raised in a household where we took in abused and neglected kids who were wards of the state. You know that I have first hand experience with neglected and abused children. Though my experience is anecdotal. Should I dismiss this?
You are reading what you want to find in what I'm saying. Try reading for my intent. I realize that is harder. I'm not always perfectly clear. But you are choosing interpretations to fit your argument.
Altruism: Here I'm on strong evolutionary grounds. Of course the parents are going to be altruistic toward their kids. They are not so genetically different that they lack altruism toward genetic kin. Or are you going to argue that I haven't proven this?
But I do not get the whole thrust of your altruism versus neglect argument. Are you trying to argue these parents of autistic kids you speak to on forums are neglecting their kids a lot? Or do you dismiss what they tell you as anecdotal? Not clear what you are saying here about the neglect or on what basis you are saying it.
Bob,
You were the first person to claim that I do not believe that parents neglect their children. I do believe some parents neglect their children and some people abuse them. I do not see how my argument up to the point of your claim implied that I did not believe it.
But I'm done here. You get the last word.
I didn't misread anything Randall. I merely noted the sophistry in your chosen title. Nothing you have said since has corrected that sophistry. You keep assuming this is about some deficiency in me and denigrating me by stating so explicitly, when clearly it is about your mistake not mine. And it is a tyro mistake you should feel ashamed for. Correlation is not causation. When exactly did you forget that fact?
As for the evolutionary grounds you stand on, they are nowhere near as strong as you think. If we were talking about normal offspring, I would agree most parents are wired for altruism. In spite of this wiring, almost every parent is at times neglectful. Regardless, we are not talking about normal children. As your anecdotes and the emphasis you place in them so aptly prove, humans find autistic children horrifying and repulsive.
I am on strong evolutionary grounds when I point out that parents often kill or abandon damaged or weaker offspring to divert resources toward offspring with better reproductive fitness. This is not a concept I should have to point out to you, and it tosses any bias toward altruism out the window.
The human species has a long history of killing autistic infants and children whether by exorcisms to drive the demon spirits out, or by restraint after acting oddly, or by simple parental infanticide.
Autistic kids could very well increase parental income, and your anecdotes are as suggestive of that conclusion as they are of the conclusion you cling to instead. Hence the sophistry. Plausible but fallacious reasoning (especially for the purposes of politic rhetoric) has a name in the English language and that name is sophistry.
You don't get the whole thrust of my argument because your bias or prejudice apparently prevents you from acknowledging contradictory evidence or even evidence for alternate plausible mechanisms. That reflects very very poorly on you.
Ok, I am a mother of a child with Aspergers who has experienced this income deficit. And I'll explain why. Prior to having children I worked in a highly social industry and earned a well above average income. I went back to work after he was born - still earning good money - but it soon became clear my baby son was not coping well with childcare. His carer didn't understand him (neither did we at that point), and he was miserable. I tried other forms of care - a nannyshare, nursery etc and he found them all very difficult. In the end I had to cut back my hours and then work from home and have family care for him. At school he needs 1-1 care, and cannot fit in with after-school clubs etc. he cannot access the normal childcare that anyone who works full time needs. It is not easy to organise informal childcare with friends either as his behaviour is erratic and incomprehensible to those who don't really know him. He is a very bright boy, very loving and I have confidence that he will grow into a fantastic adult, but right now, the things that make him ASD are the things that mean he cannot access childcare so I can't work outside school hours.
Children with Downs syndrome, on the other hand, often absolutely thrive in and love daycare, because they have, on the whole, more sociable and adaptable personalities than children with an ASD.