Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) December 30, 2021 Washington, D.C., December 30, 2021 – The National Coalition for Access to Autism Services (NCAAS), the voice of
In addition to the review, Dr. Cohen, along with myself and other clinicians, met with senior DoD health care officials in February 2020. We shared our concern about the DoD’s improper application of PDDBI and the unsupportable conclusions it drew. Nevertheless, the DoD’s actions went unchanged, and Dr. Cohen’s guidance went ignored as evidenced in DoD reports to Congress on June 12 and June 25, 2020.
Given DoD remains steadfast in its misuse of the PDDBI, it seems that the Department’s analysis is only focused on money and not about identifying effective treatment for children with autism. Congress never required or requested the DoD to evaluate the cost of the ACD, only the effectiveness of the program. Yet the DoD has made it a point to highlight the cost of ABA therapy in their most recent reports to Congress based on its highly flawed analysis.
DoD’s conclusions ‘flawed’ about military children’s progress with autism therapy, expert says March 9 DoD s Autism Care Demonstration project offers Applied Behavior Analysis therapy, which encourages positive behaviors and discourages negative behaviors to improve a variety of skills. World Autism Awareness Day is April 2. (iStock/Getty Images) The Defense Department’s conclusion that military children with autism were not making progress with a key treatment has substantial flaws and is based on “incompetent” interpretation of the data, according to a new report. The report, written by leading autism researcher Ira Cohen, is critical of DoD’s conclusions about the lack of progress of children who are diagnosed with autism and are receiving Applied Behavior Analysis therapy, or ABA, through DoD’s Autism Care Demonstration project. The demonstration project offers ABA services for all Tricare-eligible beneficiaries with Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosed