Kamloops-This Week: Cuts to Autism Provincial Funding

KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK
The problem is, Campbell and Polak just don’t get it
By Dale Bass - Kamloops This Week
Published: October 01, 2009 11:00 AM
Updated: October 01, 2009 11:59 AM


Samantha Warden is just a few steps into a massive trip she’d rather not be taking. Her guide on this trip is her son, Regan, just three years old.
She’s taking a trip many have gone on before, but few who have faced as many hurdles as she and her little man must overcome.
Regan has autism and he’s one of what the province says is just 70 who are being funded for what used to be called applied behavioural analysis
and is now referred to as early intensive behavioural intervention (EIBI).
Whatever it’s labelled, it’s a monumental voyage that starts with the stark diagnosis and, usually, a dire prognosis. Your little one will probably never really develop, the line usually goes. In our family’s case, it was “he’ll probably never talk or understand social behaviour.”
Samantha — like us — chose to not accept that future. She chose the much more difficult path of doing absolutely anything she can to help break Regan out
of that shell, if just a bit, that is the autistic mind. For her, it means intensive therapy for hours a day. It’s a costly process, with the provincial government providing up to $70,000 to pay for it.
But, for Samantha, it has meant her little guy has gone from screaming and dragging her to make her point to things he wants to a little guy with some words who will look her in the eye and use his own hands to point.
As the mom of an autistic child, I know just how important that “look her in the eye” really is. It tells us that we’re making the connection, we’re seeing the first autistic brick shatter.
It’s something most people — and that would definitely include Premier Gordon Campbell and Children
and Family Development Minister Mary Polak — just don’t get.

They may think they do, but they don’t.
But now, Samantha faces the reality that the B.C. Liberal government isn’t willing to give her the money she needs to try to reach Regan and start to give him the tools he’ll need to perhaps one day live a somewhat normal life.
And that has her angry. She’s so angry that she has called a meeting of other parents like her, their families, their friends —
anyone who wants to know why the most recent changes to the provincial autism-funding programs are wrong — for Saturday at Pioneer Park at 2 p.m.
And she’s so angry that she has organizing a rally for Oct. 18 at Prince Charles Park on Columbia Street at 12:30 p.m. She’s so angry she’s got a Facebook page — with more than 800 members now — and an e-mail for people to contact her to join the fight (bcautism@gmail.com).
She’s angry because Polak had the nerve to say there is nothing to prove EIBI works. Google it and you’ll find myriad research studies that show it is effective.
Talk to any family that has seen its life turned topsy-turvy to accommodate EIBI and you’ll know it works. Or, consider this:
Regan was incapable of interacting with his family before he started EIBI earlier this year. After many sessions, Samantha asked him for a hug.
She had done it before, many times, only to get that autistic reaction — nothing.
But, this time, Regan crawled up onto the couch with her, threw his arms around her and squeezed her neck.
She sat there and timed it — many parents of autistic kids often analyze things their kids do. He hugged her for seven minutes.
And, while she counted off every second, Samantha cried.
And that’s something else Campbell and Polak also just don’t understand.
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com