Providing cost-effective therapies for autism

Jigsaw Learning’s TeachTown is a computer network for autism applied behavioral therapy. Though it can’t duplicate all of the advantages of a live therapist, autistic children anywhere in the country can log onto the site and work through beneficial social and cognitive problems. And the cost of this software subscription? $40 per month—less than the cost of an hour with a behavioral therapist.

“Backed by concepts co-founder Lars Lidén learned while earning a doctorate in cognitive and neural systems, the software allows speech therapists, psychologists, teachers and parents to connect virtually and check on a child's progress without passing around binders of charts and test results. Today, roughly 1,000 parents, school districts and treatment centers use TeachTown software.

The child, meanwhile, can log on from home or school to work through exercises targeted to his stage of development. To begin work, a student moves through an online town, clicking on icons of red, yellow and blue houses, a playground or a zoo to begin exercises.” [Seattle P-I]

When the news media talk about the groundbreaking behavioral therapies that are proving increasingly effective for autistic children, they often neglect to mention how expensive and inaccessible these therapies are for the average family. If you’re not part of the upper-middle class spending $30-50,000 per year on intensive behavioral therapy (most insurance plans won’t cover it) is unmanageable and if you don’t live near a large research university—such as the UW—enrolling in promising behavioral research studies is out of the question.

Seattle-based TeachTown’s founders stress that their software isn’t a replacement for therapy, but can help to drastically reduce the costly number of hours children need to spend with a therapist at home and at school. I say, kudos for taking on this great project regardless and I’m not the only one—the Department of Education has just given TeachTown a $400,000 grant for toddlers and early grade school children.

As schools in Washington struggle to provide adequate and cost-effective support to autistic students, programs like TeachTown could help put them elements of behavioral therapy within the reach of more families and lead the way for more autistic students to thrive in local public schools. And though TeachTown has already been scientifically validated by evidence-based academic research, use of the program in schools can serve to perfect its effectiveness.

To view some of the promising research surrounding TeachTown, much of it derived from Washington schools, visit their website.