Canada’s highest court is expected to rule today on whether Ontario should offer therapy for autistic children in schools across the province.

Supreme Court of Canada (stock photo)

CTV News– Critics say Intensive Behavioural Therapy, or intensive behaviour initiative (IBI), is far too costly for most families.

“That’s the terrible thing,” Taline Sagharian, who has a 10-year-old autistic child, told CTV.ca on Wednesday.

“Parents who can’t afford to pay for it, they can’t provide it for their children, and their children are not progressing the way they could be, and they should be.”   She said some families are paying as much as $74,000 for IBI.

Twenty-eight families are appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada that Ontario should not only pay for the therapy, but include it in schools.

Ontario currently offers the Autism Intervention Program to help pay for IBI. However, there is a waiting list of about 1,000 children, and some have been on the list for years.

The program also doesn’t cover the entire cost if families get funding for a private service provider.

“But the other issue — a very, very big issue — is that the families cannot get this intervention in the schools,” said Sagharian.

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said Ontario is hoping to offer another form of therapy in the classroom, called Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). But she could not say how long parents would have to wait for the initiative to begin.

“ABA is the approach that allows kids on the autism spectrum disorders to be part of the mainstream classroom, to be part of the mainstream school,” she told The Canadian Press.

“Will we have it implemented by Labour Day in September? No, but the expectation is that there will be more service available and more ABA in place across the province.”

According to the Autism Society of Canada, autistic people can find difficulty in social interactions, communicating with others, and learning in a normal educational setting.

However, symptoms of the disorder can vary wildly from person to person. Some patients display repetitive behaviour and can even suffer from self-inflicted injuries.

Parents often have to keep their autistic children at home — away from school — to receive treatment. Lawyer Mary Eberts, who represents the 28 families taking their case to the Supreme Court, said that amounts to discrimination.

“The public school system does not have its act together. These autistic children are denied a free public education that’s available to all the other children in Ontario,” Eberts told CP.

“So far, in spite of every effort by the parents, there remains a very strong policy barrier against … adequate services to children with autism in the public school system.”

Sagharian said Ontario is far behind Alberta, where therapy for autistic children is both readily available and paid for by the government.

She said she knows of one woman who moved to Alberta several years ago to find help for her child, because she was tired of waiting for therapy in her own province.

“She called Alberta and said she planned on moving there and what are the services like,” Sagharian recalled.

“They told her that within a couple of weeks after the move, they would start up a program for her son, and he would be bused to and from the program.”