Abstract
The significant increase in the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and of the high costs of necessary therapeutic interventions and health care attention represent a great concern in public health. Once communication impairments are one of the diagnostic criteria for ASD, Speech-Language Therapy (SLT) should be one of the most important therapeutic interventions provided to these subjects. The aim of this study was to associate the offer of SLT services and the number of ASD individuals that use mainly speech to communicate and attend different institutions of a large metropolis in Brazil. A total of 915 individuals, attending one of 25 institutions of different types, were considered. The Student’s t-test was used to compare the institutions with and without SLT services and the proportion of verbal ASD individuals. The results indicate that there aren’t significant differences between the proportion of verbal ASD individuals and the provision of SLT services in the different institutions. Implications and limitations of this study are discussed and it is suggested that the analysis considering verbal and non-verbal individuals, whether and where they receive any SLT and its results can also indicate the better alternatives for public services.
Highlights
It can be observed that all CS and Special DayCare centers (SDC) provide Speech-language therapy (SLT) services, while in all C and RS these services are not available
RSs have the largest proportion of verbal Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) individuals while CSs have the lowest one
It should be considered that some of these individuals attend to speech-language therapy in other services, but this information about all individuals was not available
Summary
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) represents a great concern in public health because of the significant increase in its prevalence, as shown by recent epidemiological studies [1,2,3,4,5] and of the high costs of necessary therapeutic interventions and health care attention [6,7].Speech-language therapy (SLT) is one of the most important interventions to ASD individuals, because communication is one of the areas that comprise the diagnostic criteria of ASD [8,9].Considering the symptoms associated to social communication in ASD, SLT is of utmost relevance, as described by Hess et al [10] and Defense [11]. Speech-language therapy (SLT) is one of the most important interventions to ASD individuals, because communication is one of the areas that comprise the diagnostic criteria of ASD [8,9]. Not all institutions that provide education/ treatment for individuals with ASD provide speech-language therapy services. The identification of this specific situation is relevant to the discussions about the focus of public health resources that should be provided to these individuals. As happened in several countries, Brazilian public health system started to include the specific needs of ASD individuals and to provide services designed to address them [12,13,14]. ASD children started to be included in regular schools that have special classes and in regular classes with individual follow-up when possible
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