What's going on in Georgia?
Here's what we found out about autism in our state...
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Rates of sexual abuse for children with developmental disabilities are nearly two times greater than for typical children. (Edelson, 2010)
Anti-bullying programs for mainstream students have proliferated, but there do not seem to be any that focus on children with ASD (NSVRC, 2018)
White and black children were more likely to be identified with ASD than Hispanic children (CDC, 2019)
Many children with ASD are also more likely to know their offender; over 50% of offenders had contact with their victims through disability services with which they were involved.
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⅓ to ½ of people killed by law enforcement officers are disabled (Perry and Carter-Long, 2016)
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This includes some of the deaths that sparked Black Lives Matter (Eric Garner, Kajieme Powell, Tanesha Anderson, Freddie Gray, and Sandra Bland all had mental disabilities)
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Disability is usually not discussed in connection with these deaths, except maybe in passing
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“What is surprising to us is that, despite the increase in the number of people with an autism diagnosis, our nation appears to continue to accept that 70 percent of autistic adults are unemployed or underemployed and that as many are forced to live below poverty" - Scott Badesch, President of Autism Society
Laws like Ava’s Law or Georgia Insurance Reform opened the door for autistic children to receive insurance coverage for medical expenses
African American children are 5.1 times more likely to be misdiagnosed with behavior disorders before being correctly diagnoses with autism
87% of children identified with ASD had an eligibility for autism special education services at school or formal ASD diagnosis.
The remaining 13% of children identified with ASD had documented symptoms of ASD, but had not yet been classified as having ASD by a community provider (CDC, 2018)
1 out of 64 children in Georgia have ASD and 1.1 million children in Georgia on Medicaid are younger than 21 years old
It costs between $17,000-$21,000 to care for a child with ASD. An autism mandate also increases the cost of insurance by 1-3%. States finally started creating legislation that require insurance to cover costs.
The Autism CARES act expand research, increased public awareness and surveillance, and expanded interdisciplinary health professional training
In 2019, over 3,500 children between the ages of 18 and 24 months were screened using the MCHAT-R/F for ASD across the state of Georgia.
The Marcus Autism Center was chosen as an Autism Center of Excellence and will receive $11.25 million over 5 years for research on brain development
According to the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, on average children in Georgia are diagnosed at 4 years and 5 months
Georgia Autism and Behavior Support Initiative (GABSI): The goal of GABSI is to provide FREE regional training to teachers/therapists who work with students with autism, providing them an opportunity to meet with and learn from job-alike peers.
Even though many children were recorded to have developmental concerns by the age of 3, less than half of those children received a developmental evaluation at the same age
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