Court says autism therapy age limit is not a form of discrimination

A court in Canada has ruled that the government's refusal to provide expensive therapy for all autistic children older than five is not age discrimination.

The Ontario Court of Appeal ruling was issued following a lower court's ruling in favour of parents forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for treatment.

That original ruling by the Ontario Superior Court found the cut-off to be discriminatory on the basis of age, and therefore a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The government began funding a specialized autism therapy known either as intensive behavioural intervention (IBI) or applied behavioural analysis (ABA), which is based on the theory that autistic children can improve their behaviour through repetitive actions.

The funding applied to autistic kids aged two to five in 2000 and ceased when the children turned six.

The therapy ranges from $30,000 to $80,000 per year per child, depending on the number of hours of treatment needed each week.

The government's appeal stated that the intensive one-on-one process works best for children under the age of six, and that other forms of treatment work better for older children.

The Court of Appeal agreed and said the exclusion of older autistic children because of their age from a program so particularly designed to assist another disadvantaged group does not deny their human dignity or devalue their worth as members of Canadian society, and also ruled the children were not discriminated against because of their disability.

However some parents are already preparing to continue their four year legal battle which involves some 28 families.

According to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services since July 2005 - about five months after the original court ruling - the province has provided funding to treat any autistic child over the age of six if they are assessed as needing it and the ruling does not change anything.

A release sent out by the government states that since April 2004, the number of children waiting for the treatment has been reduced by 68 per cent but according to other sources the number of eligible children who were on the waiting list went from 89 in March 2004 to 753 in March 2006.

Autism is believed to be caused by an underlying physical dysfunction within the brain or central nervous system and manifests itself by impaired social function, lowered communications skills and behavioural problems.

As many as 8,000 kids under the age of 18 have been diagnosed with autism in the province.