Canada is founded on principles of peace, order and good government.
In Ontario, this translates into a benchmarks program that will withdraw therapeutic services from children with autism who do not show a sufficiently timely response to therapy. It is apparently a bureaucratic issue of the proper management of government spending.
If presented with a young Helen Keller, one wonders whether Ontario government-provided therapy services would be withdrawn. Would Keller ever have achieved her eureka moment if, instead of persistently holding Keller's hand under the pump, her therapist had been told to move on to another child with a more visible return on therapeutic investment?
... Counterintuitively, things are different in the United States. A nation founded upon the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness brings a persistent faith in the individual to the question of how to provide for autistic children. A simple trip of a moving truck has transformed the status of our daughter from that of an inconvenient provincial liability to that of a valued citizen with the right to demand assistance in her essential pursuit of happiness.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Autism and Canadian-American Differences
In chapter 5, we discuss cultural differences between the United States and Canada. In a provocative essay on autism policy, Malcolm Stanley touches on this theme. Stanley recently moved south of the border and found that it was easier to get help for his autistic daughter in the United States. He explains:
