Study Puts A Price Tag On Autism

Autism exacts a heavy toll on families across the country, but what is the financial cost of the disorder?

Now we have an actual price tag: the lifetime cost of supporting a person with autism ranges from $1.4 million to $2.4 million in the United States, depending on whether the person also has an intellectual disability.

That’s according to a report published by JAMA Pediatrics, based on a literature review of studies on individuals with autism and their families.

Those numbers add up to a total cost of about $66 billion a year for children and $175 billion a year for adults. About 3.5 million people have autism in the U.S. For kids, the biggest costs were for early education services and loss of income for their parents. For adults, residential care or living accommodations and loss of individual income were the biggest factors.

Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/1n3UcPw

Source: Kaiser Health News