U.S. and U.K. scientists have completed the most comprehensive analysis of the costs associated with supporting a child with an autism-spectrum disorder (ASD) over a lifetime and found that those whose ASD is linked with intellectual disability can accrue up to $2.4 million while those without intellectual disability require about $1.4 million in medical, nonmedical and indirect costs. And that’s on top of the average $241,000 that it takes to raise a child to age 18 in the U.S.
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About 79% of that cost is due to services such as medical care, home health care, special education and after-school care — and 9% is due to wages that caregivers give up to tend to an autistic family member. The latter came as a surprise, says the paper’s senior author, David Mandell, director of the Center for Mental Health Policy and…
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