Denise Davy
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jan 22, 2010)
A Hamilton father who fought for equal treatment for both his autistic daughters and lost says he is devastated and has nowhere left to turn.
Paul Ceretti learned earlier this month that the Superior Court of Justice upheld a decision by the local autism program to discharge one of his seven-year-old twin daughters from a specialized therapy program.
Ceretti's daughters Delanie and Mackenzie have been in the intensive behavioural intervention program in Hamilton since March 2007, when they were four.
Ceretti said Delanie was thriving on the program. However, an independent reviewer concluded she should be discharged because she wasn't showing "meaningful improvement."
Ceretti took the case to court but the court ruled the program followed proper procedure in the assessment and that the decision to discharge Delanie was reasonable.
Ceretti said he is now living a parent's nightmare -- watching one daughter progress while the other falls behind.
"Mackenzie will still receive it and because it's in-house, we have to sit and watch as one daughter gets help and the other sits there and does nothing," Ceretti said.
He was told there are school-based programs available for Delanie.
"I went to the school and they couldn't guarantee she would even have a full-time EA (educational assistant)," he said.
"Delanie isn't just falling through the cracks, they're pushing her through it."
Parents with autistic children say the court's decision was a "devastating blow" for all families.
"I am sad for Paul and sad for the implications this has on the autism community at large," said Laura Kirby-McIntosh, co-founder of the Ontario Autism Coalition.
Provincewide, there are more than 1,500 children on wait lists for intensive behavioural intervention therapy, a highly specialized treatment that, if funded privately, costs $70,000 a year.
At the Hamilton-Niagara Regional Autism Intervention Program, there are 140 children on the list who can wait two years, said Kathy Pierce, clinical leader with the program.
Pierce said the program developed standards of practice three years ago as a way to measure a child's progress.
"We wanted to make sure children were benefiting," she said.
Pierce said a clinical panel was set up by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services to establish benchmarks for programs. That work is done but has not yet been implemented.
Paris Meilleur, spokesperson for the minister, said the government is conducting an "internal review" of the benchmarks before they are implemented.
Parents, including Kirby-McIntosh and Ceretti, allege those benchmarks are simply a way to push children off long wait lists.
"You can't use one standardized test for all these children because their range is so different," Ceretti said.
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