Use of autism-related services by families and children.
Speech therapy at school is the one service almost every family gets and loves, yet behavior plans and other key supports remain rare.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked families of young children with autism what services they use.
They mailed a short survey to homes in North Carolina.
Parents checked boxes for speech, ABA, OT, and other care.
What they found
Two out of three families used at least one service.
Speech therapy at school topped the list.
Parents gave it an 81 % satisfaction score.
How this fits with other research
McLennan et al. (2008) ran almost the same survey one year later in Canada and saw the same pattern.
van Timmeren et al. (2016) and Pitchford et al. (2019) show the gap still exists today: most kids get speech, but few get behavior plans.
Rubenstein et al. (2019) zooms in on vision care and finds the same story—half of kids miss needed services.
Why it matters
If you write IEPs, check that speech is listed—families already value it.
Then add the missing pieces: behavior plans, social-skills groups, and vision screens.
One extra line in the plan can close a gap that has lasted 15 years.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This paper describes approaches to care and associated service use by families with a child with autism. A combined telephone and self-administered survey was completed by 301 families with a child, 8 years old or younger, in North Carolina, during the winter of 2003-2004. Findings indicate that 66% of families used one or more approach to care and there was a significant (p < 0.05) association between approach and the pattern of service use. There appears to be a distinctive set of services associated with each approach to care, but with overlap between them. Speech/language therapy at school was the most frequently used service and also identified as the best service. The majority (81%) of families reported they were satisfied with services.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2007 · doi:10.1007/s10803-006-0208-9