State Services

Hello everyone! This post is regarding something that I thought of a few days back. Every day when I get back from school, Anjali is typically in the middle of her ABA session. It was only recently that I found out that many family members of special needs children may not be able to say the same thing. This made me realize how I took this service being provided for a family member for granted, and also got me curious about how services are in other states.

To start off, I wanted to share the rankings of how states and areas fare in providing services for special needs. According to an Autism Speaks article, the areas providing the best services include “greater New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Boston metropolitan areas.” If we look at it from a state-by-state perspective, a Disabled World article finds that the order for best services state-wise is “1. Wisconsin, 2. California, 3. New Jersey, 4. Ohio, 5. Missouri.” What determines this order? If we were to go off of the Autism Speaks article, only high-income metropolitan areas provide proper services for special needs individuals. Yet states like Ohio and Missouri, which rank “36th” and “37th” respectively in income according to a survey by the U.S Census Bureau, crack the top 5 in services provided for special needs, as shown in the Disabled World article. Then what truly is the reason that helps these areas succeed in providing these services? As it turns out it, this is purely a matter of lawmakers prioritizing this initiative. 

Perhaps the greatest factor in determining the quality and scale of services provided in a state are the insurance laws passed by states concerning special needs services. The same Autism Speaks article shares how “Five of the 10 ‘best places’ are in states that have enacted autism insurance reform (24 states, in total, have enacted laws). The other five states have bills that have been endorsed by Autism Speaks or have legislation pending introduction.” Clearly the states providing the least for these individuals are the ones not prioritizing state insurance laws that can enable these services to reach individuals that need them. The lawmakers that believe home services aren’t needed for special needs children, are the people I believe are the least educated about the need for professional therapy for the progress of a special needs individual as well as a break for the guardian of the child. Experts also agree with this notion, as Patricia Wright, National Director of Autism services for Easter Seals, argues that “services are not a luxury, they are a necessary service that allow families to successfully keep a child with autism in the home environment versus institutional care, and increases the overall wellness of all family members.” 

Clearly the lack of special needs services is a major problem facing many families across multiple states in America, and making a change in insurance laws might be the first priority of action in fixing this national problem.