Households with kids with autism likely to...(ial for households without children on t...),Health

We were able to forecast within $80 of what these households, on average, were actually earning, Montes said.

When the demographic and educational characteristics of families with children with ASD were analyzed, their average actual reported annual income fell short of the average predicted income by more than $6,200.

Thats a staggering 14 percent loss, Montes said. We presume this may be strongly related to a lack of appropriate community-based support resources and services. This shortage can ultimately overwhelm parents, sometimes forcing them to sacrifice work and income opportunities for the sake of balancing their unique family obligations.

This echoes findings from another nationally representative study Montes led in 2006: Fathers of autistic children were 9 percent less likely to report full-time employment compared to fathers of the non-autistic population.

The ripple effect, of course, is that this may be impoverishing some ASD-affected families in the long term. Less savings and less investment make it more difficult to retire comfortably or send children to college, Montes said.

The next step, he said, is to carry out additional qualitative surveys, interviewing parents to see if their childrens needs are actually impacting their employment decisions.

Of course, there may be alternative explanations. As more research probes possible genetic links for autism, perhaps well see that the disorder might, to a degree, run in families. That might affect a parents employment and income status even more directly than we assume at present. There may also be other barriers to employment that we havent considered, Montes said.

Regardless of the reason, the burden to families is sign
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