Ontario's progress in giving children with autism access to government-funded core therapy has slowed so significantly that at times the number of kids enrolled is actually declining, despite a ballooning wait-list, according to documents obtained by The Canadian Press.
Progress updates on the Ontario Autism Program show a widening gulf between the number of children seeking services — 73,031 at the time of the most recent data from the end of June — and the number receiving funding for key therapies, which was at that time 14,113.
The enrolment and funding for core services, which includes applied behaviour analysis and speech-language pathology, has been slowing over the past year, but information obtained through a freedom-of-information request shows there are now weeks in which the number of kids being served actually decreases.